This editorial will appear in tomorrow's print edition.

One way or another, Puyallup City Council members should settle their grudge match before it lands the city in court.

Of all the things the City of Puyallup should be spending its legal budget on, a City Council squabble over a footnote is least among them.

Councilman John Knutsen is threatening to go to court unless the council removes a note appended to the July 15 meeting minutes.

The offending footnote says Knutsen was wrong when he suggested Mayor Don Malloy didn’t have the legal authority to remove an item from the council meeting agenda.

Malloy had asked the city attorney to research the issue, and it’s her legal finding that is referenced in the footnote. Knutsen says the after-the-fact addition to the minutes violates his “God-given right to have an opinion.”

Hardly. If the note impinges on anything, it’s Knutsen’s self-righteous indignation. The footnote ensures that his assertion doesn’t go unchallenged in the council’s official record.

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This editorial will appear in tomorrow's print edition.

Lots of people were watching Pierce County’s experiment with ranked-choice voting two weeks ago. Some weren’t crazy about what they saw.

RCV has produced a backlash – though it’s impossible to tell how big or small it might be. Its complex new ballot allowed voters to rank three candidates, in order of preference, for each county office. A common reaction was, “Who approved this thing?”

Well, the voters did – twice, in 2006 and 2007. That double approval argues for much deliberation before deciding whether to abandon the experiment.

RCV does need reviewing by the Pierce County Council. The system scraped the shoals on its maiden voyage this month.

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1. At least some voters are still confused and suspicious about ranked choice voting. Dale Washam’s way-too-near election as Pierce County assessor-treasurer makes a good argument for an early-warning primary. These are not reasons to scrap RCV without further ado; they are reasons to launch a review, after things calm down. The review should consider whether RCV deserves another run in two years or whether its fate should be decided by the electorate sooner than that.

2. Of all the things the City of Puyallup should be spending its legal budget on, a City Council squabble over a footnote is least among them.

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Gerald Arpino died Oct. 29. He was 85.

The news of the great ballet choreographer's passing made headlines in major newspapers around the world. It didn't make The News Tribune, which is too bad.

For four summers in the late Sixties, Arpino and Robert Joffrey, co-founders of the Joffrey Ballet, made Tacoma a pivotal place in the history of American dance.

No one who saw the Joffrey introduce "Astarte," "Clowns" and other innovative works during its summer residencies at Pacific Lutheran University will ever forget the experience.

I was there, as awed and thrilled as everyone else who filled PLU's Eastvold Auditorium.

Joffrey's "Astarte" was a startling, provocative multi-media ballet. Arpino's "Clowns" was a powerful anti-war piece with rock music and multitudes of inflatable sculptures that rose and fell and enveloped the dancers.

I have no doubt that the Joffrey's workshops, rehearsals and performances at PLU from 1967 to to 1970 collectively rank as one the greatest arts events in Tacoma's history.

We were so lucky to see it. Nothing remotely like it has happened here since.

The Joffrey went on to greater fame but suffered financial reversals. Joffrey died in 1988. Arpino took over as artistic director and brought the company back to fiscal stability. Today the thriving and acclaimed Joffrey has permanent homes in Chicago and New York.

Upon Arpino's death, a Chicago newspaper called him "one of the last remaining giants of the mid-20th century movement that revolutionized dance and transformed it into an American art."

Those of us who saw the Joffrey at PLU in those early days were awesomely privileged. We saw artistic history in the making.

That's why it's worth taking a moment to mourn Arpino's passing -- and to give thanks for the wonder and joy he brought to the stage here in our own little backyard.

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See related stories about Arpino in The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune.

And here's a review of a revival of "Clowns" in New York.