BURKEonBOARD

(Nov. 10, 2008) – It looks as though in the dying throws of their current term, the school board will try to undo what they did back on May 27th of this year.

That’s when the board voted to hold a primary election if more than six candidates filed for the school board election. As it turned out, eight filed and the primary was held on September 9th when Jim Peroutky came in last and Carol Kappes tied for sixth and was eliminated by a coin flip.

The rationale for the primary, as the debate went on May 27th, was to trim the field from an unmanageable number down to six so all us simple folk could handle it. So be it.

Fast forward to October 27 and the board is now wrestling with a plan to fill a vacancy on the board if Terry Donnelly wins his bid for the city council (which he did). The board decided that they would allow only those who had been candidates for the primary election to apply to fill the vacancy, eschewing the most obvious alternative, to simply take the fourth place vote getter in the general election.

So in the space of five months, the idea of a primary to trim the field of candidates went from being a good idea to being a bad idea.

What happened? I’ll tell you what happened.

The Meeks/board favorite son and daughter (Jim Peroutky and Carol Kappes) were aced out of the general election in the primary. Those two were the chosen ones as far as the superintendent and the Meeks Five on the board were concerned. They were the two, in addition to incumbent Julie McKnight, who could be counted on to support the administration and the board old guard.

With Peroutky and Kappes out of the picture for the general election, though, and the very real possibility that McKnight might not be reelected, the hegemony of the Meeks Five was threatened. The possibility that Donnelly might also be gone and replaced with a fourth reformer was more than the likes of Tim Weyandt could stand and so he railed against the logical choice of appointing the fourth place vote getter to the vacancy if Donnelly had to resign and bullied the board to accept the ridiculous option that is now in place.

As it turned out, McKnight did win reelection, but Donnelly won his council seat, too. So now, filling the Donnelly vacancy is about whether the old guard can preserve a 4-2 majority on the board, or be embarrassed into doing the right thing and appointing the fourth place candidate, Veronica Walter, to that seat.

Left to their own devices, I can guarantee you that the board will appoint Carol Kappes to the vacancy, not because she is the best candidate for the seat, but because she will be a reliable, unquestioning, go-along-get-along Meeks disciple along with the other hold-over board members.

The voters have made it clear twice that they prefer Veronica Walter. She finished fourth on November 4 and she finished fourth in the September primary.

The board should acknowlege the voter wishes and appoint Walter to the vacant seat.

After all, it was their own primary election plan that took Kappes and Peroutky out of the running. They made that bed. Now they should sleep in it. Every voter in the school district should tell them that.

Here are their email addresses:

Julie McKnight, chair – jmcknight@farmington.k12.mn.us
Tim Weyandt – tweyandt@farmington.k12.mn.us
John Kampf – jkampf@farmington.k12.mn.us
Terry Donnelly – tdonnelly@farmington.k12.mn.us
Bob Heman – bheman@farmington.k12.mn.us
Ann Manthey – amanthey@farmington.k12.mn.us