John Stanford: Attorney at Law?

I was casually browsing through the July 20, 1995 issue of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently when, by great coincidence, I chanced upon an article about John Stanford! (John Stanford served as County Manager of Fulton County - County Seat: Atlanta - before he headed west into the public education wilderness.)

The article, “Departing manager says county ‘in great shape’” by Staff Writer Carlos Campos, turned out to be quite a surprise.* After listing Stanford’s accomplishments, Campos wrote, “When asked why he was leaving Fulton County, Stanford pulled out a letter from an attorney with the Seattle school district addressed to him.

“She . . .” Whoooaaaa!

At that time, Seattle School District’s chief legal counsel was a he, named Mike Hoge. The district did, and does, employ other attorneys in other capacities, and there are law firms that get so much business from the district that their attorneys sometimes seem like district staff. (A colleague jokes that one of the better known such attorneys sent his son to Harvard courtesy of the tax payers.) Moreover, I recently learned that Hoge’s wife is an attorney in the employ of one of these firms (an interesting state of affairs).

But, knowing Stanford’s arrogance, how could he condescend to being welcomed aboard not by Mayor Norm Rice, Bill Gates, the Seattle School Board, or even Seattle School District’s chief legal counsel, but a flunkey in the legal department? And who was the unnamed attorney? The letter gets even more bizarre:

“. . . is urging Stanford to accept the job, and refers to him as ‘a change agent . . . a kind of atomic catalyst marshaling fields of restless electrons.’”

Depending on one’s degree of sobriety, this statement can sound extraordinarily inspirational, or a bit weird. In fact, I know just one other person who makes statements like that — John Stanford! This leads me to speculate... Did Stanford write a fictitious letter to himself from an imaginary school district attorney? Alternatively, is there a third party who writes all of Stanford’s material and also created the attorney? Or is there indeed a bizarre female school district attorney who thinks and communicates just like John Stanford, a blazing example of truth being stranger than fiction?

The article continues, “The attorney goes on to say that if Stanford accepts the position, ‘there are “threats” of spontaneous dancing in the streets, even!’” Spontaneous street sambas when no teacher I’ve communicated with even knew about John Stanford at the time? Or was Stanford’s legal liaison suggesting that the normally reclusive Seattle School Board was contemplating a street performance? (Is that why few teachers I know have seen a school board member in a school for years — they’ve been attending dance classes?)

While Stanford continued to gloat about the excitement his royal not-yet presence had generated in Seattle, Atlantans apparently were neither dancing in the streets nor circling His Eminence like restless electrons. Campos reported that the General had been coming under increasing pressure from county commissioners, some of whom had publicly admonished him.

So what was it about John Stanford that generated such excitement among the already revved-up Seattle School Board, Seattle Business Alliance, and the media? And just who is the mysterious female school district attorney who operates on Stanford’s mental wavelengths?

Can someone please find out for me? I haven’t been on good terms with John Stanford, Inc. lately. But any tax-paying citizen who doesn’t maintain a website that criticizes Seattle’s public education mafia ought to be able to ask John Stanford this simple question and get a reply. If Stanford’s too busy, you could try the school district’s official spokesperson, Dorothy Dubia. If she refers you to the school board, and all its members have a mental block, you might try Stanford’s teachers union counterpart, Roger Erskine. The next step would be the people who allegedly give the school board orders, the Seattle Business Alliance. If they refer you back to me, let me know, and I’ll see if I can find someone in Atlanta who knows.