Chapter 24

Now there were actual cheers, and Aho had to bang the gavel as Gingrich got up from his seat at the board table. Rather than leaving the room, though, he walked over and stood against the wall. Susan figured that the show wasn't over yet, and apparently most of the crowd felt the same way. At least Gingrich got his, she thought. He may have unintentionally done her a favor by trying to keep her in school for another year, and it may have been an unwanted favor, but the deed was done and she thought she was better off for it. There was no doubt that the schools would be better off as a result of what had happened, either.

It took Aho some time to get things back in order. He spoke loudly, "I think the board needs to understand that their unwanted and unnecessary actions now have left the district without a superintendent at a busy time of the year. That's going to cause a great deal of difficulty, and I'd like to know what anyone thinks should be done about it."

Battle spoke up, respectfully although anyone could see the contempt he held. "I don't see it as a great difficulty," he said. "I'd like to propose that High School Principal Harold Hekkinan be asked to serve as interim superintendent. He's done the job before, and he has a good assistant principal and athletic director who can help him carry the load at the high school."

"It would probably be an adequate solution," Aho grudgingly admitted. "Harold, would you be willing to serve until such time as a new superintendent is hired?"

"Under the circumstances, I can't refuse," Hekkinan spoke up from the audience.

"Very well," Aho said. "Mr. Battle, I will take your proposal as a motion and entertain a second." In only a few more seconds, the interim appointment was unanimously approved on a show of hands; Hekkinan walked up and took the seat that had been recently vacated by Gingrich.

He was no more seated when Battle spoke up again. "Mr. President," he said. "In view of the circumstances and the nature of the charges against Mr. Gingrich, I would like to ask that the interim superintendent immediately have a guard placed on the superintendent's office until the locks can be changed. I don't think we want any school property or, more importantly, school records walking out the door."

"I hardly think that's necessary," Aho said. "Mr. Gingrich is an honorable man."

"That may be the case, but if there's any substance to the charges placed against him out of state, I think it's a reasonable precaution."

Aho glanced up and down the table, and could see from the looks on the board members faces that if he made an issue out of it he would be likely to lose another vote. "I think it's totally unnecessary," he replied, "but on the other hand, better safe than sorry. Harold can you take care of it?"

"Carol?" was all Harold had to say to Mrs. Foxbender, the high school secretary. She got up from her seat and headed out the door, leaving Susan with the impression that the move had already been arranged, by Battle presumably. She glanced at Gingrich, who looked even unhappier than before.

"That leads us to the question of a new permanent superintendent," Aho said, trying to recover some of his authority. "I would like to suggest that we re-institute the search committee we used last summer to get going on a new superintendent search."

"I have a problem with that," Battle spoke up. "The simple fact of the matter is that the search committee last spring didn't do a very good job, or else we wouldn't have had to deal with this issue tonight. Had they done an even minimally competent job of investigation we would have been made aware of the problems Mr. Gingrich had, and we might well have made a different decision. I don't think we dare take that risk again. I therefore move that a new search committee be named, with no members of the previous committee on it, and that they be ordered to undertake to hire a professional firm to do a background search on all finalists, and that their written report be provided to the full board."

"Don't you think that's overdoing it a little?" Aho sneered. "The old committee might have missed a few details but overall I think they did a good job."

"We're just going to have to agree to disagree on that one," Battle replied. "I for one think that they did a lousy job. In fact, my suggestion is that the search committee be asked to hire a professional executive search firm to conduct both the search and the investigation. It'll be cheaper, quicker, and more reliable than trying to do it ourselves. In fact, since my motion hasn't been seconded yet, I'll add that to the motion."

"Our budget is tight enough that I don't think we need to go to the additional expense," Aho replied weakly. "A professional search firm would just be wasting more money."

"I think after this mess, it's a good idea," Rickenbaugh said. "I second the motion, assuming that Mr. Battle can restate it a little more clearly."

It took Battle virtually no time at all to restate the motion, since he read it off of his notes. Clearly the search firm had been meant to look like an afterthought. "Does that meet with your approval, Ed?" he asked finally.

"Sounds good to me. Let's get this taken care of. I will call the question if necessary."

"Very well," Aho said, knowing defeat when he saw it. "I think we can do this on a show of hands."

Once again the motion passed, with Aho futilely voting against it. "Motion passes," he said finally. "Are there any more items to be brought up under this agenda point?" No one on the board had anything to say, so he turned to the crowd. "With that taken care of, we might as well move on. The rest of the agenda is routine business, so I'll call a five-minute recess if anyone wants to leave."

The noise level in the room went up considerably and people got up to leave, realizing that the show was over. "That's it?" Susan asked her father conversationally over the din. "They're not going to do anything about Aho?"

"There's a limit to what the board can do against one of their members," he replied. "They can't throw him off the board by themselves. That doesn't mean the issue is settled, though. Haven't you noticed those pads of paper being passed around the room?"

"Well, yeah, I saw some, but I didn't know it meant anything."

"Recall petitions," Mike smiled. "I got a glance of one at a distance, and that was what was printed in big letters at the top. It only takes, I think, ten percent of the number of voters in the previous election to call a recall election, and there's more people than that in this room. I'll bet there's already enough signatures, and if not, there will be people waiting outside the door to get more."

"Battle, right?" Susan grinned, realizing once again that there had been more going on than had met the eye. "He really wants to take a chunk out of Aho's butt, doesn't he?"

"You bet," Mike grinned. "And he's going to get it, too. If you weren't going to be in school tomorrow morning I'd be tempted to have you down at the County Clerk's office in the morning, because I'll bet George will be filing those petitions as soon as it opens."

"I'd be darn near tempted to do it anyway," she grinned. "But that would miss the point of the exercise, wouldn't it?"

The rest of the meeting went quickly; even Gingrich had left with the crowd that had filed out during the recess. Several items had to be put off until further meetings because Hekkinan hadn't been ready to talk about them, so they burned through what had been a relatively long agenda in a matter of minutes. People were still standing around in the halls and semi-darkness outside talking about what had happened, and Susan confirmed that those papers being passed around were indeed recall petitions – and from what she could see, there were lots of signatures on them.

"So," her father said as soon as they were by themselves a little. "My normal way of doing things at a meeting like this is to head back to the office and write it up while everything is fresh in my mind, rather than let it go to the next day. Would you like to take a swing at it?"

"Sure," she said. "That was a meeting to remember."

"All right," he said. "Let's head back to the office and you can knock something out. I've got a couple things I can do to kill time while you're working on it."

"You could take me home and I could get the Cavalier," she offered.

"No, I could stand the time at the office anyway," he said. "That way I'll be close at hand if you have any questions."

"Well, I've got one now. How do you want me to handle the business about the recall petitions?"

"I'd say don't bother. Sure, there are people pissed at Aho and want their pound of flesh, but that never came up directly at the meeting so isn't part of the meeting story. Just write what happened, and don't try to put any implications into it. Those will take care of themselves. I'll take care of the recall petition business tomorrow after they get filed with the County Clerk, and I might go over there with a camera and hang around about eight in the morning, just on general principles."

"What else are we going to do about Gingrich?" she asked.

"After this week's paper, nothing, unless something new comes up," he told her. "Although I'll tell Henry to keep an eye on what happens down in Springfield. If Gingrich gets convicted, it'll probably be worth a story, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it."

As they walked out to Mike's car, they happened to glance down the way toward the board's administrative office, which included the superintendent's office. The place was dark, but in the light of a street lamp they could see a police car parked outside. "They didn't mess around with that, either, did they?" Susan grinned.

"Probably a good idea, under the circumstances," Mike said. "It's not really any of our business, but I'll bet Battle had that set up with Harold and the cops long before this meeting started tonight. I'll bet money that Harold will be going through Gingrich's files very carefully tomorrow morning, maybe with an auditor at his side. If they find anything, that means we'll have yet another story out of it, but it probably won't surface for a while."