Jim over at the 5/17 blog has all the run down on the indecision of the Olympia School District on choosing a new school board member.

As Jim would say, here it is, for free:

Both sides held their positions, Frank Wilson and Carolyn Barclift refusing to name a second choice, Russ Lehman and Bob Shirley calling for compromise. At the impasse, Lehman and Shirley voted against a motion to send the list of three candidates to the ESD, and the matter ended with adjournment at 3:24.

...

Shirley gave a five minute lecture on the proper role of the Board, Lehman accused Wilson and Barclift of merely paying lip service to diversity, and Barclift ended a sentence with "I'm not gonna go there." When Wilson said the Board should quit wasting time, and that the ESD could make a "good decision," Shirley asked him point-blank why the Board couldn't just do the same itself., there was enough general orneriness that you might think you'd walked into a chu Overallrch's choir practice.

You can read the rest of Jim's coverage here, but here are two great liveblogs he did of two meetings where the board discussed bringing someone new on:

Olympia School Board applicant forum liveblog
to choose a Board member: March 19 liveblog

The best summation of this entire process came from the non-voting youth rep, (what's his first name?) Bucholiz, on the board, cited here from the second link above:

Buchholz: "This is kind of ridiculous. The first thing about conflict resolution that anyone learns is compromise, that no one is going to get everything they want."

...

Shirley says that to turn over the decision to the ESD would be a "failure." Wilson says he's willing to listen. Barclift says that Buchholz may one day learn when compromise is just not possible. His quick reply: "I guess I'm just too young to understand."

Damn right, teenagers are smart.