On Thursday, November 20, at 6:00 PM the WGSD board will interview the four applicants for the open board seat. You can view the meeting agenda here.
Contrary to Board President Dan Jensen’s expectation (video @ 05:25), the interviews will be held in open session in accordance with Wisconsin’s Open Meetings law.
I am not sure what type of question Mr. Jensen would consider asking an applicant that might be considered private or confidential, but the law requires such communications to be in open session, even if they might cause embarrassment to the applicant or the person asking the question. A candidate can always decline to answer the question if they choose, but the Board should not be afforded any information about an applicant for a public position that the rest of the community is not.
Also worth noting is that Mr. Jensen reiterated his position that he did not consider a candidate qualified if he did not have a “historical perspective” of the district. At the October Special Board Meeting Mr. Jensen stated that he would “be more than happy to entertain any previous board member….” and that he would not support anyone that “knows nothing about the District or was new to the district”. Ironically, during the April 2014 election, Mr. Jensen both defended and supplied district related information to the one candidate that had never attended a school board meeting in his life.
The Board discussed having a set of questions that all applicants will be asked, but those specific questions were not yet developed. I expect one of the questions to be, “Do you intend to run for the school board in the April 2015 election?”. You can view the applicant names, four “Letters of Application”, and watch the video at the links below.
Daniel Bowser – click to view letter
George McNair – click to view letter
Grant Strobel – click to view letter
Dan Walker – click to view letter