Bob Dunning: The ante just keeps getting higher for this game

FOLLOW THE MONEY … after glancing at the latest financial disclosure statements filed by our candidates for school board, Bill in SODA writes to say that “it looks like the cost of a seat on the board costs about $15,000 to $19,000.” … not so fast, Bill … the final numbers are likely to be even higher than that …

“For a no-pay job, where is the value coming from?” … hard to say, but for that kind of money, I’d much rather take the kids to Disneyland … then again, I think some people like to run for office just to see how many people will vote for them … they’re the same people who ran for home-room monitor back in the third grade … there’s no evidence, of course, that they have to spend anywhere near that kind of money to get elected … Julie Partansky proved that in dramatic fashion in this city’s recent past …

SPEAKING OF CAMPAIGN SPENDING … a few years ago at a family gathering a cousin of mine was describing his run for school board in a moderate-sized town in Sonoma County … when I asked him how much money he spent on his campaign, he looked at me as if I were from Mars …

“I didn’t spend anything at all and neither did any of my opponents,” he explained … “We just all gathered in the gym one night, made a short statement and took questions from the audience. That was it. The next week everyone went and voted.” … sounds like a plan …

MEA CULPA, MEA CULPA, MEA MAXIMA CULPA … Michael, who claims to be a “recent transplant from Notre Dame,” has a legitimate complaint about the weekly college football forecast I issue for this very newspaper every Friday in the fall … writes Michael, “Blue and Gold is mentioned, but not Notre Dame Blue and Gold. Dozens of teams are referenced, but not Notre Dame/Oklahoma in prime time! How do you explain such an oversight?” …

No explanation … I plead guilty and throw myself at the mercy of the court … in the 42 years I have been publicly performing this difficult task, I have included a prediction of the Notre Dame outcome every single week … and yet here was undefeated Notre Dame, playing mighty Oklahoma with God and all of creation watching, and somehow my forecast slipped through the cracks …

In the old days, I could simply blame it on “composing,” and a critical paragraph accidentally ending up “on the cutting room floor,” but newspapers aren’t put together that way anymore … it was my fault and my fault alone … I set it aside while predicting other games so I could think about it for a while, and then failed to come back to it …

For the record, I had decided that Notre Dame would probably win the game, 30-13, but I simply forgot to go back and commit that forecast to print … it won’t happen again … at least not for the next 42 years …

FOOD FOR THOUGHT … you can add my friend Wendee to the list of folks who are disturbed that the UC Davis Food Police confiscate all edible and drinkable items before allowing you into their precious football stadium …

“This search/rescue mission happened to my husband and I a few years ago when we went to watch a former Davis High standout girl play soccer. The game was scheduled for noon, so we stopped by Subway first and picked up a couple of sandwiches. When we got to the gate, they asked us to throw them out. Obviously, we weren’t going to do that, so we left and ate our lunch, choosing to forego the soccer match. Live and learn.” … upsetting, isn’t it? …

By what authority does someone at a public stadium built on public ground have a right to take my sandwich? … the Fifth Amendment, after all, prohibits the state from “taking” without “just compensation.” … next time I think I’ll just say “No, you can’t have my sandwich and you can’t have my daughter’s M&M’s” and insist they tell me what law I’m breaking … the friendly folks at UC Davis made this one up out of thin air …

— Reach Bob Dunning at bdunning@davisenterprise.net