Elaine
I think you may have missed one of the major issues with Posti and that is her power trip with the Board and Commission.
She emailed both Dale and Kristen to find out what was said in their private meetings with Kelly Fraasch. It seems that Kelly and other Commissioners went to the school board members except for Posti to see if they would be willing to work together on saving money on a pool. Since the district is building a pool and the municipality need a pool, there seems to be some kind of relationship/understanding that takes place to reduce the burden on taxpayers if they worked together on a pool that would suit both their needs. Apparently Kelly and Dave B met with Steinhauer and his staff just before the bid opening to see if there was a chance of doing this. After this meeting they each contacted board members which I take to mean that at least Steinhauer was open to the idea of working together.
As you can see from the context of the emails between Jo and Kelly, not only was Jo completely offended that someone would try to get something done without including her (Kelly probably knowing ahead of time what the reaction would be), but she responded in a rude and disrespectful manner accusing Kelly of trying to obstruct the high school project when it was her goal to save money instead of obstructing.
I have it on good authority that Jo became very irate with not only Kelly Fraasch, but Dave Brumfield as well. I know an eyewitness to the meeting they had at a local coffee house. Yes, Jo Posti is calling the shots on who meets (no school board member shall meet with a commissioner unless Jo Posti signs off on it) and when. She is telling her board that there is no added value in working with the commission on a joint pool project (which may have been too late, but shouldn't that conversation be had?).
Finally, you and Bill Lewis both note on your blog all the things the school district was after when it came to their joint meeting. I really wish someone had been there from the commission to represent what the commision wants from the school district. It seemed like the participants only looked at the issues from how the agenda items might be used to benefit school district taxpayers but not ALL taxpayers (like the fees for example).
I would have loved to have seen a post just dedicated to the ridiculousness of Jo Posti's emails and Kelly Fraasch's responses to their conversations. Kelly calls Jo out for being "mildly rude and accusatory" and rightly says that Jo is apparently just giving lip service to the idea of working together based on the way she is treating Kelly. Do you think Jo Posti would be any nicer to Matt Kluck? Would she even say hi to him on a sidewalk? Now why is this? Of course, just go back to her graduation speech. Matt and Kelly are two people who she thinks disagree with them and so she doesn't have the time to hear their opinions. Now, I know where Matt is on the high school project, but have you ever heard Kelly say what her stance is on the same project? I have no idea what she thinks on it except to say she is trying to cut some of the cost to taxpayers by jointly spending on a pool. So what is Jo's issue here? Its probably that Kelly is trying to tinker at all with Jo's holy grail of a high school project. Taxpayers be damned!
Alex Wheaton
