We wonder why it is that disputes involving parents, students, the administration of the Seattle Public School District and its board of directors always end up in a squabble that includes charges, counter-charges and even name calling.

West Seattle seems to have its share of these disputes. The first one still lingers, that the physical plant of Pathfinder alternative school is a wretched disaster. The second one still lingers also, that of the smoldering battle over the four-period v. the six period day at West Seattle High School.

Now the latest one, what did or did not the district promise when it devised the plan to build a new Denny Middle School adjacent to a somewhat upgraded Chief Sealth High School. The school board meets, asks even more questions and the battle begins to shape up with no end in sight.

When academics head Carla Santorno came we hoped for strong leadership. We hoped for strong leadership again when new Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson arrived last summer. Still again we wished for some strong leadership when three new members were elected to the board last fall.

But the problems are still here and they still undulate between closed-door meetings and public meeting with angst, and now, once again, we find our Op-Ed and Letters columns brimming with frustration. Sure, we have happy to provide a forum for various sides to have their say, and we stand by our promise to print all sides on the issues, but we are also frustrated.

In the latest battle, first we had meetings with a certain amount of anger over whether a co-located Denny and Sealth was proposed to voters when they were asked to approve a $125 million bond issue, which voters did. It appears now that that was not adequately explained to voters, if at all. (We do note that even if the issue had been explained and that West Seattle voters had rejected the co-location, the rest of the city would still have likely approved the bond issue.)

But this issue is like an old fashioned bomb with a lit fuse, it will blow up if somone does not stop the shilly-shallying.

Can no one at the vaunted John Stanford Center in Sodo make a decision? Get with it, the time for pondering and speculating and snarling is over. Do something, people or it won't matter anymore.

- Jack Mayne