Capital Article
Huang, Cindy, School Board Nominating Commission recommends three candidates, reverses course on fourth, Capital, February 1, 2016.
Snider Comment
This is the third meeting in a row that the Community College rep. either came late or didn’t show up at all. This time she didn’t show up. When she has been present, she has seemed unprepared. For example, when she arrived late to the first meeting, she had to be told who the chair was and seemed rather befuddled by the issues on the table. At the second meeting, she came across as not having read the candidate applications, or at least not carefully. To be fair, she was by no means the only commissioner who seemed not to have read the applications carefully.
In the past, I sensed that the commissioners relied on Jones to do the vetting for them. Now, at least for the current majority faction, the commissioners appear to be relying on Brandenburg. My guess is that Jones has better information sources than Brandenburg. He can call up a school associated with any candidate and immediately get expert, trusted information. Brandenburg probably doesn’t have access to that type of school level information. She is probably relying much more on information sources such as the Republican Central Committee and other trusted sources within her inner circle.
All this discussion of background checks has obscured the much more fundamental question of how the commissioners actually get their information about the candidates. The public part of the process is only a small part of the process. Nobody is going to put someone in charge of a $1 billion budget and 10,000+ employees based on a few superficial questions and answers asked at a nominating commission public hearing. For most of the commissioners most of the time, what the candidates and their supporters say at the public hearings doesn’t change their vote.
