Indefensible

The Baker School Board brought to town this week the three finalists for the job of replacing Don Ulrey as superintendent.

But in our estimation the board’s decision should come down to just two candidates: Earl Pettit of Douglas, Ariz., and Walter Wegener Jr. of Friday Harbor, Wash.

The third finalist, George Park of Panguitch, Utah, disqualified himself by failing to disclose a significant, and relevant, fact to the board when he was interviewed earlier this month.

The fact is that Park had been on paid administrative leave from his job as superintendent of the Garfield County district since July 2009. Park resigned from that job on April 1 of this year.

The Baker School Board didn’t learn about Park’s situation until board members Ginger Savage and Lynne Burroughs traveled to Utah, after Park’s interview, to talk with locals about his performance.

Although we wonder why one of the five board members didn’t do a simple Internet search of Park — a five-minute task that would have revealed his status in Panguitch.

In any case, we can’t explain away or forgive Park’s decision to not mention during his interview that he had been disciplined by his most recent employer more than half a year earlier.

If an applicant for any job wants to be a credible candidate, he or she is absolutely obligated to broach such a vital subject during a formal interview.

Park denies that he did anything wrong while working as superintendent in Garfield County.

He contends he was the victim of a “witch hunt,” and that a Utah state audit report exonerates him.

He might be right.

Yet why, then, did Park fail to tell his story, and defend himself, during his interview the first week of April?

Park said on Wednesday that he doesn’t think his trouble in Utah should affect his candidacy for the Baker City job.

We have to question his judgment, though, if he believed it would not reflect poorly on him when the Baker School Board — the five people he hopes will hire him for a $100,000-per-year job — learned that he had been considerably less than forthright with them during the interview.

Coincidentally, Pettit, like Park, had been put on paid administrative leave by the school board in his most recent job as superintendent.

But unlike Park, Pettit told the Baker School Board about his situation during his interview.

Pettit’s approach was not only the right one, it was the logical one.

It’s certainly not logical, anyway, for a person to assume that a prospective employer will not find out about a matter as noteworthy as an eight-month stint on administrative leave.

Baker School Board member Damien Yervasi said he’s not surprised that two of the three finalists had had contentious dealings with their board in a previous job as superintendent.

We understand his point. Superintendents have to please a lot of people, and it’s far from rare for a superintendent to be embroiled in controversy.

In some cases the person involved can defend his actions in a convincing fashion.

But failing to even acknowledge that a dispute happened is indefensible.