A good firework but ends with fizzle

Hasso had another editorial in last night's DH about the latest LCSD board-member recall effort. It notes a real problem with the recall, but fizzles in conclusion. Here's the editorial:

Recall maneuvers

The maneuvering about the on- and off- and on-again recalls against various members of the Lebanon School Board sound a little too calculating and manipulative.

First the recall petitioners gave public notice of wanting to recall board member Debi Shimmin because her term had longer to run than two other members that the recall backers also want off the board. Then Sherrie Sprenger, the board chair, announced she would step down July 1 in order to pursue her election campaign for the legislature. That would give the recall targets a chance to appoint an ally of theirs in her place, giving them three or even four votes on the five-member board. So then the recallers filed against their main targets, Rick Alexander and Josh Wineteer as well as Shimmin. A few days later, they announced they had met with Shimmin and would no longer proceed with the petition against her. The five complaints against her in the recall petition were suddenly no longer all that grievous.

All that makes you wonder whether the long-suffering Lebanon school system would not be better off without the added acrimony of a recall campaign. (hh)

Here's another version:
Some district residents get mad because they worked for Shimmin's election thinking she was a Sprenger clone (a.k.a. Will Do Robinson's Bidding). But it turns out she thinks for herself.

So they tantrum, label her a rule-breaker and decide with righteous indignation to recall her because she's been a very bad girl (doesn't behave as they want). Then they discover some people really blame Rick and Josh (the two bad boys) for recent board actions, and want them recalled more than Debi -- so they decide to go for all three. And then they find many people feel Debi's doing a good job (or "good enough" job) and won't sign her recall petition, but would sign to recall Rick and Josh: Maybe some of them think the bad boys corrupted this good girl.

So then someone in the group decided they would see if they can talk some sense into Debi -- to get her to mend her ways. (Never mind that one would think they might have talked with her before filing a recall petition.) So the head of this self-appointed elders' council meets with Shimmin, who either convinces them she really is a good girl, or that she's seen the error of her ways and won't displease them again, or that she really has good reasons for voting as she does.

We don't know what she told them that prompted them to drop her from their recall: The elders either decide they made a huge mistake by calling for Debi's head, or they feel she is now intimidated and won't disappoint them again, or have some other reason they decide to drop the recall. No one is talking about the content of the conversation between the elders and Debi, so we are left to speculate.

I give Debi the benefit of the doubt here, but something smells of rotten fish. Hasso is right when he says this recall seems "a little too calculating and manipulative." And yes, Lebanon really does not need the extra lemon in the soup this ever-changing recall process adds. But beyond that, we need to take a look at CARES. It seems to be a special-interest group of self-appointed local power people who want to maintain the current administration and it's focus.

If CARES doesn't change it's mind again and call off the recall effort completely, I guess we will see if they are able to gather enough signatures to force a vote on recalling Josh and Rick. And if there is an election, we will see if the majority of those who vote favor ousting these two board members who have had the courage to challenge Robinson's Regime and be mavericks for positive change.

But CARES could do us all a favor by recalling itself as the self-annointed judge of what's good for education in Lebanon.