Stan Geiger

The Bjorklund Game

According to KJRH, fired fairgrounds CEO Rick Bjorklund has hired heavyweight plaintiff attorney Gary Richardson and is threatening a lawsuit, claiming he was terminated for no good reason.

Recent reports say Bjorklund is now blaming Randi Miller for the whole Big Splash mess. He says Miller told him to keep the park's woes "off the radar screen."

I'm no Miller fan, and I have no problem believing she was up to her boobs in the Big Splash cover-up. But even if Bjorklund's claim is true, so what? Pointing a finger of blame at Miller does nothing to clean his hands.

When I was a boy, and I got into some kind of trouble with one of my youthful co-conspirators, pointing my finger at the other guy cut no ice with my mom. I was held responsible for what I did, period. Whether or not a cohort was egging me on was irrelevant.

Bjorklund is trying the little boy defense. It's all Randi Miller's fault, he shouts. She made me do it!

Nope, no ice cutting here. Bjorklund could have blown the whistle at any point---with impunity. He chose complicity instead.

Bjorklund did wrong. His job title was "CEO." That means he had job responsibilities, and he had a duty to the public. By his own admission, he ignored those responsibilities and that duty. He knowingly allowed a $68,000 Big Splash check to lie around for a year. He knowingly allowed Big Splash to avoid paying $130,000 in rent for 9 months. He knowingly allowed Big Splash to open for the season without doing state-ordered repairs.

If I were a legal scholar, I'd say Bjorklund's actions, or lack of them, constitute willful misconduct. And that, in my mind, means he has no case. His firing was appropriate.

Of course, I can fully understand why he has run to a lawyer. I mean George Kaiser yelled lawsuit and Kat Taylor immediately wrote him a $7.1 million check---covered by your tax dollars. Why would county government behave any differently?

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