I'll try to keep this short, because there are a total of six people in all of Johnson County who give any cares at all to the happenings at JCCC.
So, Melody Rayl resigned from her spot on the Johnson County Community College Board of Trustees. There's probably some dark and nefarious reason for it, but I can't bring myself to care enough to find out. She announced her intention to resign in July -- just one month into her second term on the board. ("Family and career," she told the Kansas City Star. In my mind, that's code for I have a pile of dead puppies in my basement and it's coming out soon, but I digress.)
So the board selected Rayl's replacement. From a field of 13 applicants, they narrowed the pool to four, including Robert Drummond, Michael Lally, Steven Wolf and Karin Brownlee.
I am not sure why they bothered with the dog and pony show that followed. The four contenders gave the board five minute speeches and then answered questions. And the board then selected Bob Drummond.
Let's see a show of hands for those who knew Drummond was going to get the nod before the interviews even occurred. If your hand isn't in the air, you're doing it wrong. That was a foregone conclusion. Drummond served on the board of trustees previously and lost an election for another term. (
I honestly hoped to see Karin Brownlee, the former state senator and former Secretary of Labor given the job. But I knew better.

Anyway, Brownlee walked a fine line between being a movement conservative and an Establishment hack. I think that line becomes more difficult to walk the longer anyone stays in office.
In my mind, she was the perfect choice for the job at JCCC. Principled, conservative and with leadership skills to boot. Unfortunately, JCCC is the last bastion of the old Republican/Moderate guard in Johnson County. The mods have a death grip on that place, and they have no intention of giving it up.
It's all very old money and old power collecting dust in a place where the board has limited power over the people but plenty of opportunity to appoint their friends to "professorships" and offer contract awards to their supporters.
In short, someone like Brownlee had zero chances of being appointed. Her brief tenure at the Department of Labor shows she isn't willing to play that ball game.
Good for her. Too bad for JCCC. She would've been great.
Final note: I realize that the board of trustees most recent appointment -- David Lindstrom -- is a so-called conservative. He'll play ball (and I don't mean football) in awarding friends and supporters with titles and whatever. Nice guy, but he's got Establishment-in-training written all.over.his.face.
Great post, but one correction. There were only 6 candidates for JCCC this last time, and the top four make it, and Drummond didn't.. Often there are a lot more candidates but this time there were not.
ReplyDeleteBrownlee should have been the appointment, without question.
Thanks, Anonymous, for the correction. I couldn't remember all of the specifics of the last race.
ReplyDeleteProbably because of such things I don’t like politics. I get very annoyed when parents turn on the news and watch them for hours on end. I don’t watch TV at all and only occasionally read such articles in order to understand some of the processes. But even studying makes me understand everything and be interested. Recently, we were even asked to write an essay on this topic, so I had to work with essay writing service not to screw it up. The collaboration was wonderful, it was only frustrating that I really had to go into this topic.
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