If Steve Gourley returns from a family emergency in time to rejoin the School Board for Tuesday night’s meeting, the most closely watched interplay will match him against David Mielke.
Here is what makes the facedown so intriguing:
Mr. Gourley has announced he will leave the Board when his first term expires after the November election. This is house money, free time for him.
Mr. Mielke has been President of the Teachers Union since long before any of today’s 6,000 students were born. He intends to still be the chief when their children pursue a public education. He is not going anywhere. President for life? Maybe, but he is no Mubarak or Assad, no despot, benevolent or otherwise.
Mr. Gourley has made vicious declarations about and to Mr. Mielke since shortly after a labor board ruling, seen as unsatisfactory by Mr. Gourley, came down early last winter. In the interim, Mr. Mielke has absorbed more bullets than Superman or bin Franklin Laden.
Whom to Root for
You can tell these players without a scorecard, largely because of the Maine-to-Oregon gulf in their personalities, Mr. Mielke’s unruffleable lasseiz faire manner vs. Mr. Gourley’s fist-clenched, satire-laced intensity.
Mr. Gourley has faulted Mr. Mielke for everything negative in the world since then.
As a fellow professional, as a peer, as a fellow public servant, Mr. Mielke merits the same respect that the union leader has accorded to the School Board member.
Mr. Mielke, to my recollection, has heroically held his tongue since Mr. Gourley began his public campaign of bitingly personal, unrelieved acerbity.
Cheer bin Laden Demise or Mielke?
If Mr. Mielke stepped down from his powerful, properly practiced office tomorrow, Mr. Gourley doubtless would organize a permanent cheering section atop the Culver Hotel and direct them to sing out the good news to Culver City visitors daily for the next five years.
I hope down to my kishkes Mr. Gourley does not succeed. It would be a defeat for civility and a victory for inappropriate behavior.
If Mr. Mielke is a thoroughbred, a man of war or Man o’ War for successfully negotiating union contracts for more than a quarter century, minimally he should have earned professional regard from Mr. Gourley, grudging though it may be.
Mr. Mielke was President of the Teachers before Mr. Gourley won his first term on the City Council, and lives there a man nimble enough to recall that yonder day?
In this celebratory Civil War season, if Mr. Mielke is Gen. U.S. Grant, Mr. Gourley must run much harder to become a shadow of Mr. Lincoln. Remember, boys, you are on the same side, it says here.
