When you consider hiring someone for public office, how do you evaluate them? Perhaps on the basis of how they've conducted their own business or personal affairs?

Bill Martin and Cheryl Maki's hand-picked candidates for the Sierra College Board are John Vodonick and Elaine Rowen. And between the two of them, they've got a lot of 'splaining to do.

We've already heard a bunch about John Vodonick's probation, ethical violations and that he was ordered to attend ethics classes and now brags about his degree on the subject.

What we haven't known so far is that Elaine Rowen and John Vodonick have both plummeted into bankruptcy.

Rowen filed a $1.1 million dollar bankruptcy with only $80,000 in assets in 1999. How do you do that, unless you intended to defraud your creditors? When she had run up debts of $200,000 or $300,000, didn't it strike her somewhere on the way to $1.1 million that she could never pay all of this money back? And how risky would she be with the college's finances?

Vodonick bragged about his small business experience in running the Stonehouse Restaurant in Nevada City, calling it "my restaurant" at several speeches. Yet the restaurant just fired all of its employees, filed bankruptcy, and stiffed hundreds of people out of their deposits for banquets and weddings.

(Given how many weddings Vodonick ruined after pocketing the money, I guess those ethics classes didn't really "take". Perhaps he should try those again.)

And of course, it would be irresponsible not to point out that Bill "Deficit Spending" Martin was the ONLY trustee to call for abolishing the college's balanced budget policy and engage in deficit spending. He couldn't even get a single one of his allies on the board to follow him in such a foolish vote.

John Vodonick and Elaine Rowen. They bankrupted themselves. Will we let them bankrupt Sierra College?