In honor of the Blues winning the Stanley Cup, I am compelled to write today about silver linings, rather than clouds.
My good friend, Alice, pulled me into the Blues’ orbit in the team’s formative days. All the way back to Red Berenson, Scotty Bowman, Al Arbour, Garry Unger, the Plager brothers and Glenn Hall.
I remember arcane facts from that time, like how Hall was known to throw up before every game in goal. Makes you wonder if Jordan Binnington’s calm demeanor is a mask for similar inner turmoil.
When Alice moved several states away, I moved back to my usual status as a fair-weather fan. Thus, the Blues’ long decades of cloudy weather didn’t bother me much.
Like a bazillion other people, though, I got back on board in January. Sure we had to wait a half-century, but has there ever been a more resounding wait-for-it moment than the Blues victory over the Bruins in game seven?
So, in the spirit of a good mood, I congratulate the Jefferson County Council for only spending $26,500 instead of $96,006.85 to settle legal bills to defend Councilwoman Renee Reuter against the state Attorney General’s lawsuit claiming she violated the Sunshine Law.
The suit alleged that Reuter, back in 2017, ordered the council’s administrative assistant to delete email messages containing invoices for legal services, when the invoices should have been made public.
The County Council was named as a co-defendant in the suit, which was settled and dismissed Jan. 24.
Through negotiation, county counselor Wes Yates cut the bill down to about a quarter of what Reuter’s attorney, Robert Schultz, originally sought for his services.
I see silver in that, as well as in Yates’ encouragement to county officials to turn a page and work together for the good of the county. They’ll listen, right?
Taxpayers would strongly prefer that council members dedicate themselves to transparency so that Sunshine Law enforcement, and subsequent legal expenses, are unnecessary.
But no clouds allowed. Yay, Blues!
In other news, recent action by the Jefferson R-7 Board of Education also plays to my theme.
Its seven members voted unanimously June 5 to reinstate Superintendent Clint Johnston, 55 days after he went on paid administrative leave.
Now, the board won’t even have to consider buying out two years of Johnston’s contract, at a cost of nearly $300,000, and hundreds of residents who had stridently lobbied for the superintendent’s return got their way.
There’s lots of silver in these outcomes.
We’re going to avoid complaining about the school board’s stubbornness in refusing to tell their constituents why Johnston went on leave in the first place (heck, they wouldn’t even say whether THEY did it), or about the money they spent for extra legal advice, and a temporary replacement for Johnston, during the whole affair.
Nope, not gonna gripe. Did you catch that sweet moment when Laila kissed the Stanley Cup?
Third on this silvery day is the tale of the state audit of the De Soto School District’s finances.
Nearly 1,000 district voters petitioned the state for the audit, after Adam Grindstaff’s departure as principal of Vineland Elementary in April 2017. District officials said he resigned, but Grindstaff’s attorney said he was fired, and Grindstaff is suing.
State Auditor Nicole Galloway delivered a report on the audit on June 12.
Here’s the silver: The audit found a number of ways for the district to improve its practices – better ways to handle monies collected at sporting events, a more accurate method for reporting student attendance to the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, and a call to renegotiate the superintendent’s compensation to reflect his previously undocumented $500 monthly vehicle allowance.
Better yet, Galloway complimented district officials for their unusual willingness and speed in making appropriate changes.
Someone looking for clouds could point to the fact that the district must now pay $75,000 for the audit, which didn’t find anything glaring. Or, that only 25 people attended Galloway’s presentation, nowhere near the hundreds who signed that petition. Even the woman who organized the petition drive didn’t attend.
But the shindig was held the same night as the Blues’ Game Seven triumph. Who could blame those folks for staying glued to the tube?
I believe in the double-jinx, so when my husband said his gut was telling him the Blues would pull it out, even after they looked so ineffectual in Game Six, I swore that my gut was telling me otherwise.
“I’m so sure they’ll lose, I promise to eat liver if they win,” I announced.
Note to readers: My parents tried to force me to eat that stuff, but only a bite or two ever went down. The rest was pitched behind the refrigerator when they weren’t looking, or down the toilet.
But I’m so happy with the outcome of the Blues’ season, I’m going to keep my promise.
Silver lining? At least I didn’t pledge to eat onions, too.
