REGIONAL – A county board resolution supporting Morse Township’s annexation of six sections of an unorganized township drew unexpected fire from St. Louis County school officials this week, who accused Morse Township officials and Commissioner Tom Rukavina of a “back-door” attempt to rob funding from the school district.

The proposal, school officials eventually acknowledged, would have no impact on the district, since the lands in question have long been part of the Ely School District.

Rukavina, who had planned to introduce the resolution at Tuesday’s meeting of the county board, withdrew the motion, hoping to use the additional time to clarify the issue, both for school officials and for officials from Babbitt’s emergency services, who also expressed concern about a potential loss of revenue.

Rukavina said he had received a “deluge” of emails from angry constituents who had been misled by Facebook posts put out by the school district the day before the county board vote on the resolution. The postings, which appeared on all of the district’s school Facebook sites, included a letter to the county board that Superintendent Steve Sallee and Business Manager Kim Johnson had drafted for school board members to sign, expressing their “vehement” opposition to the proposed annexation. Johnson told board members at their meeting on Monday that the potential loss in future minerals revenue resulting from the annexation could be “huge.”

The Facebook postings led to the airing of a number of derogatory comments, some targeting Rukavina and others targeting politicians in general.

While school officials declined to identify the source of their misinformation, Sallee acknowledged that he and Johnson took part in a conference call Monday with St. Louis County Commissioner Keith Nelson and several others, which alerted him to the possibility of lost revenue. Nelson said he was following up on calls made to him. “I contacted no one,” he said.

In either case, school officials never verified whether the annexation would have affected the school district’s boundaries, nor whether the lands were even within the district’s boundaries, prior to drafting their letter and mounting their Facebook campaign.

“It turns out the area of land was in the Ely School District, not 2142,” wrote Sallee in an email responding to questions from the Timberjay. “Upon further investigation today, we now believe that none of this would have changed the school district boundaries and wouldn’t have had a negative impact on 2142 either way.”

The district letter also impugned the motives of Morse Township officials, which it accused of misrepresenting the issue to the county.

Rukavina said the entire firestorm was “totally blown out of proportion.”

Sallee, after learning that the school district had jumped the gun, tried to downplay the letter, saying it was intended to buy the district more time to get the facts. But the letter makes no mention of needing additional time to obtain more information.

Sallee said he believes the misinformation came from Babbitt stakeholders, but Babbitt officials say they learned of the proposed resolution from school officials. “The school notified us about it,” said Babbitt Clerk-Treasurer Cathy Klegstad. “This was initiated by the school, not the city.”

Still unclear is the role played by Commissioner Nelson. But his participation in the conference call would have been an opportunity for the commissioner to clear up the apparent confusion over the impact of the resolution, had he wanted to do so.

City concerns

Babbitt emergency services officials do have concerns about a potential loss of revenue. The city’s emergency services provide coverage to the two unorganized townships to its north, and the county currently pays the city $58,000 for fire protection and $19,500 for medical responses. Klegstad said the city hasn’t calculated what the revenue loss might be if six square miles out of the 72 square miles included in the two townships were transferred to emergency coverage from Ely. Assuming a proportional reduction in county reimbursement, however, the city could stand to lose about $6,500. At the same time, the city would no longer be required to automatically respond to emergencies in those sections.

Morse Township officials contend that the six sections in question, which include only two year-round residents, would be better served by emergency responders from Ely, which they say is considerably closer. The two residents of the affected parcels support the proposal, agreeing that it would speed access to emergency services and snowplowing.

The two communities have apparently been arguing over turf for some time. Klegstad said Morse has proposed annexations in the two unorganized townships in the past, but that Babbitt officials have opposed those efforts. She said city officials were concerned that Rukavina hadn’t talked to them prior to proposing the resolution.

In either case, Tuesday’s action would not, by itself, have moved the annexation forward. It would take legislative action for that to happen.

Both Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk , DFL-Cook, and State Rep. David Dill, DFL-Crane Lake, had been approached about authoring such legislation, but said they needed assurances first that citizens supported the move before they would draft a bill.

Meanwhile, the episode may have damaged relations between the St. Louis County School District and Commissioner Rukavina, who said he was only trying to carry out the wishes of his constituents in the township, and found himself under political attack with no factual basis.

“The whole thing about the school district was complete misinformation,” he said. “No school district was affected by this at all.”