I failed in my attempts to get the wife to never ever volunteer again. Since the last post she actually got two jobs and she is running for school board. OMG---the school board thing might exemplify all that is wrong in a small town like Aspen---basically opinions are like assholes --everyone has one, which creates paralysis because it seems everyone must be heard before any decision can even be considered.
Before getting to paralysis by public input, let me share some of the fun in running for school board.
I am not sure which is harder--running for President or running for school board. Running for President involves raising a lot of money, but people are willing to give money to presidential candidates because the President can really impact your financial condition. School board not so much. While the President doesn't get paid much, it does come with free housing, transportation, and an opportunity to push the limits on the emoluments clause. School board offers nothing in terms of compensation.
The President of the United States gets tons of executive time to nap and tweet about Fox and friends, and free flights to golf courses. School board members have 22 public meetings a year running 4+ hours plus all the real work of the job. Figure it's about 20% of a full time job.
This week alone there are 3 debates for school board----I doubt Trump will do more than that in his entire 2020 run. School board candidates also have multiple papers demanding responses to multiple questions. Have you ever opened up a paper and seen responses from Presidential candidates to questions posed by news papers?
There are some similarities as well, both candidates for President and school board must complete financial disclosure forms, create independent entities to finance their campaign, disclose donations and campaign related expenses. Running for school board and your friend makes a cheese platter for you, your better disclose that in-kind donation. Running for President and you pay off porn stars to keep silent about an affair, no need to disclose. Running for school board and you ask the school for confirmation about data about students college success (college graduation rates) that they mentioned in a school board meeting and get stonewalled. Ask for other data and be told it must be shared with all candidates. Try to speak to teachers or admin about their concerns and be told only if all candidates running for school board can be present. Run for President and you won't face those issues.
Basically you have got to be crazy to run for school board.
Which brings me to my wife--she has huge business chops. She knows when to listen and when to act. There is way to much listening in this town and way too little action. There seems to be a fear of upsetting people, and people in this town are capable of epic grudges. A supporter said she wouldn't put up a sign because she was worried some clients wouldn't use her catering services if she supports my wife.
There is also a ton of lip service to being positive--well there is no positive spin that should be put on hiring a disbarred felon with no HR experience to be the schools head of HR and then giving her an unsecured loan for 30k. That situation along with declining school performance and skyrocketing employee turnover should cost the superintendent's job--it did but only after way too much strum u drag.
My wife has a sales and operations background. What she excels at is asking the right questions. Why isn't the school board allowed to respond at school board meetings. Imagine the parent that comes to complain about John's teacher being asked 'did you speak to the teacher? What did they suggest? Did you speak to the principal? What did they suggest? Did you speak to their counselor? What did they suggest? Why do you think all of their suggestions are wrong? Do you think that we should reset the schools strategic plan or hold the superintendent's feet to the fire over John's situation?' Maybe if the school board spent less time listening to John's parents they could spend more time asking the CFO how come one of the best funded schools in the state pays their teachers so little. Or asking the head of HR what creative things they are doing to lower benefit costs (Roaring fork collective bargaining agreement anyone?).
To put a fine point on it, we got one guy running whose message is ' I am a long term local and blue collar so vote for me' and another who says I am positive and filled with gratitude and even though I haven't been to a school board meeting ever I have gleaned excellent executive management experience running my firm with a handful of employees, while another toutes her financial expertise while sitting on a school finance oversight board that didn't meet for 10 years. And then there is my wife who managed global client relationships for the largest disaster recovery firm during 9/11, who ran a businesses that raised prices 500% and increase customer satisfaction at the same time and went toe to toe with Jamie Dimon over software costs and won. Please please don't vote for her. I am just too selfish to want to share that much of her with you Aspenites.
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