By Yael T. Abouhalkah, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist

Good job, Ben Hodge.

The Johnson County Community College trustee last week helped the public get a glimpse at the college's possible budget reductions. Hodge released a list of those potential cutbacks after hearing about them at a closed trustee meeting.

By doing so, he attracted the ire of college president Terry Calaway, who apparently didn't have his thinking cap on when he wrote a letter to fellow JCCC employees which essentially criticized Hodge's actions.

It appears Calaway didn't want the public knowing about or talking about the possible reductions -- until it was too late.

Calaway also seemed to think that, because Hodge got a copy of the reductions during a closed executive session, the information shouldn't have been made public.

Wrong.

Hodge and any other trustee could have safely shared the information given to them at the session. Hodge had a spirited, and extremely lengthy, rebuttal to Calaway.

After all, the taxpayers who finance the community college deserve to know what might happen to the JCCC.