School board vote flawed from beginning

It's obvious that the voting process the McCook school board used to select a new member was confusing and flawed.

The ranking system was meant to determine the top candidates, taking into consideration the opinions of all members of the board, with a scoring range of one to seven, with one being the best score and seven the lowest.

The process might have resulted in a qualified compromise candidate. As it turned out, it appears the ranking was not considered and the results were determined before the meeting ever opened.

This is not to pass judgment on the candidate selected to fill out the two remaining years in Greg Larson's term. Gary Power has run for the seat before, although unsuccessfully, and has experience in education and athletics.

But it is difficult to understand dismissing some of the other contenders off hand -- for example, former McCook superintendent Harold Bennett, who has devoted his life to education, including serving on the Mid-Plains Community College board of governors, or Cloyd Clark, a retired judge who spent his career working with youth from both sides of the bench, or LeRoy Jaggers, who was a superintendent in Kansas for 29 years before relocating to McCook.

Because of the short time left in Larson's term, a candidate who can hit the ground running seems a logical choice.

But even if those qualified candidates were dismissed, why didn't the highest-ranked candidate, Scott Johnson, become our new school board member? In the first round, Diane Lyons and Shane Messersmith both gave Johnson a one (the highest ranking) and Larry Shields and Tom Bredvick gave him a two.

Monday night's 3-2 vote to pass up the top candidate is hard to justify.

It creates suspicion that the new member will become part of a four-block vote that will be able to push through some sort of sinister agenda.

We doubt that's true, and hope it's not.

But having one or two board members control a block of votes is more power than any one member should have, or should desire to have. Differing points of view must be freely expressed if the best decisions are to be reached.

Machinations like observers witnessed Monday night create suspicion, put the board under a microscope and leave it vulnerable to criticism.

Public bodies like the McCook board of education -- which, after all, spends most of the money collected in local property taxes -- need to take advantage of all the brainpower and experience available.

You can read about the new school board member in a recent column by Walt Sehnert here: http://www.mccookgazette.com/story/1453697.html