Ms. Lowry should have been present at the public meeting where that statement was read. Then, Ms. Lowry could have responded to questions which Mr. Thurbon could not answer for her. It might have saved Ms. Lowry from a great deal of speculation and criticism of her. In my estimation, neither Mr. Skeel nor Ms. Lowry was really treated fairly. Mr. Skeel could not ask questions directly of Ms. Lowry and Ms. Lowry could not defend her statement because of her absence.

It occurs to me that the district itself is vulnerable in this instance. Their attorney seems to be acting in two roles here: in one, he defends the district; in the other, defends Ms. Lowry. But if in fact Mr. Skeel did retaliate against Ms. Lowry, he did so as a paid employee of the District. In that case, any harm that may have come to the HR manager would be the District’s responsibility.

I don’t believe that Ms. Lowry can continue in her current position. The employees she works with appear hostile and mistrusting of her. Wrongly or rightly, in my opinion she almost certainly cannot remain in that environment. Because she came forward with allegations against Mr. Skeel, apparently with some vehemence, I believe neither Mr. Skeel nor any subsequent GM could realisticallly utilize her again. These things linger. The same might be said about the amount of reliance any sensible executive would place on Ms. Kukkola, who apparently is a close friend, mentor and supervisor of Ms. Lowry.

In my opinion, Ms. Lowry will lose her job in the end. I think her chances of landing another in the HR field, in which she appears to be a novice to begin with, are very, very slim. Her only two courses of action will be to just fade away or to seek some redress from the District for the handling of this matter.

I believe the District faces liability in this situation. Mr. Thurbon is walking a fine line as well. It may be interesting to see how he handles the fact that, in essence, he represents the District and at the same time is responsible for a debacle that must have severely affected the career aspirations of Ms. Lowry as well as her private life.

I suspect there is a great deal of justified resentment and fear among CSD employees. The elitism and arrogance of Ms. Lowry and Ms. Kukkola are, in my opinion, evident in their efforts to blame fellow employees for their own ineptness. However, even more inept is our board, who may have through negligence, stubbornness and naivete, created an explosive situation which may take years and a new board to repair. For, like the mistrust of Ms. Lowry and Ms. Kukkola by employees, there is a growing mistrust of board members by the electorate as well.

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave . . . .”