“Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right. Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.” — (Stealer’s Wheel, 1972)

And we thought the circus left town last summer?

I hate to pick on Jen Metzger all the time; she’s such a nice person. But really, people on the sixth floor of the County Office Building should be wearing red noses after the latest details of how Eve Walter got her new job were revealed last week.

Insiders, legislators, pundits, even reporters, had suspected some kind of nefarious insider game in play when Metzger announced her nomination of Walter to be the first “director” of the county Health Department on a quiet Friday afternoon on, of all days, Friday, September the 13th.

It had all the markings of political riggery (I just made up that word) with the county executive calling balls, strikes and outs. Follow this bouncing ball: Walter, briefly a county legislator from New Paltz, resigns last April due to work considerations. The date of her resignation is crucial to the plot since legislators are not allowed to accept a job in county government for a year after they leave.

About a year later, some of the machinations began to go public. The legislature was asked by the executive to change the requirements for head of the county Health Department. Instead of commissioners needing to be physicians, they were told that Ulster, due to its population, could create a director of health who was not an MD: medical doctor. Legislators were divided on the proposal, but it passed by a comfortable margin.

Last March, incumbent Health Commissioner Dr. Carol Smith, twice approved for six-year terms by the legislature, announced her retirement. A few months later the Walter shoe dropped.

Last week, Smith, who apparently left reluctantly, broke her silence. Metzger, she said, had told her of the county’s plans to create the new supervisory position and that she was welcome to apply for her old job. By then, Walter was no doubt already picking out the window curtains in her new office.

Among the several other aspects of this saga that Metzger mishandled, this had to be the worst. Even Metzger admitted to the Freeman that the “optics” weren’t good. Maybe she should have consulted an eye doctor.

Was this any way to treat a department head who had given good and loyal service to the county for 12 years? You can apply for the job if you want it?

I’m not embarrassed to tell people, especially those who have just been canned, that I’ve been fired from almost every job I’ve ever held. My bosses made it quick and clean. It hurt, but I survived.

That Smith was the victim of an insider’s cabal must have stung all the more.

On a broader scale, Metzger’s handling of the Walter situation may raise questions of cronyism, secrecy and competency.

Notes: As a journalist, I thought the Freeman’s Patty (as we call her) Doxsey did a swell job on the health commissioner story. She rounded up the usual suspects to offer readers a timely, balanced report.

A few minor corrections: Freshman legislator Eric Kitchen is not a Democrat from Accord. He’s a Republican from the Town of Ulster and a former town councilman.

Carol Smith was not the first county health commissioner, but she may be the last. Ulster has had physicians as health commissioners since at least the 1960s, probably further back. Having a doctor as a health commissioner used to be important.

Go Tigers!

If I were grading Friday night’s reopening of Kingston’s Dietz Stadium, I’d give the hardhats and their supervisors an A+, city and school administrators an A with a B+ for state and federal agencies that supplied the bulk of funding for the $21 million reconstruction of the Uptown sports complex.

As for the proper recognition of the “grand opening” of what is now the biggest municipal project in county history, let’s just call It’s a work in progress.

Perhaps it was the rush to meet tight deadlines by city mayor Steve Noble and KCSD Superintendent Paul Padalino. “Those two guys were down here almost every day for most of this month,” a construction worker told me. Indeed, workers were still hitting punch lists as upwards of 4,000 attendees filed into the stadium shortly before sunset.

I had hoped for more than a brief acknowledgement of Noble being in attendance. Maybe a ribbon-cutting at the 50-yard line?

There’s still time. How about the famed Kingston Tiger band marching across the field at the homecoming game next Friday night playing “76 Trombones,” with high-stepping Padalino and Noble in full band uniform leading the parade as drum majors? Now, there’s a grand opening.

The football game against a presumably overmatched Beacon High School squad was a disappointment to enthusiastic students and adults. A sportswriter covering the game saw Kingston as a two-touchdown favorite just before kickoff. His reasoning was right off the stat sheet. Kingston is a double-A school with 1,856 students. Beacon, a B-school, enrolls 829, according to its website. B’s don’t beat A’s very often, but a quick, fast Bulldog squad did Friday night, 8-0 in overtime.

Kingston, in any event, is in a rebuilding mode, but let’s put this in perspective. Football games come and go, but a major investment in what many see as the finest sports complex between Westchester County and Albany should last for generations. As long as they maintain it.

Debate and Breakfast at the Best Western

Three of the four local candidates for state legislature will be guests of the Regional Chamber of Commerce at its monthly breakfast meeting on Thursday at 7:30 a.m. at the Best Western in Kingston.

Republicans Jack Hayes for state Assembly and Pat Sheehan for Senate will be in attendance along with two-term incumbent Sen. Michelle Hinchey, D-Saugerties. Rookie Assemblymember

Sarahana Shrestha, D-Esopus, twice turned down Chamber invitations. But that’s her call. Candidates run the campaigns they think will get them elected. Why Shrestha refused to bring her message to the largest business meeting of the season is anybody’s guess. Maybe she doesn’t like capitalists.

In the event, Hinchey, Hayes and Pat will have about 15 minutes each to ply their troths. It’s only the chance for a passing glance, but it’s better than not being there at all.

Friday at 8 a.m., the Me and Mario Show on WGHQ will host Republican congressional candidate Alison Esposito for a face-to-face. We’ve reached out to her Democratic foe, incumbent Pat Ryan of Gardiner.