There may have been more intrigue behind Scott Seroka’s exit from KARE 11 than he let on Friday night.

Seroka just started a new job as a Minneapolis Police Department spokesman. I heard that KARE news director Jane Helmke made his departure challenging.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Seroka said. “We just had some discussions as to when would work for me and what would work for them and we came to a nice resolution that we all agreed with.”

Was he forced to work a final day when he could have taken a vacation day?

“I don’t know if that is accurate, to be honest with you,” said Seroka. “That was something that came up in our discussions. It’s a pretty convoluted thing and I guess I’m not willing to say how that all went down or what days I could take and couldn’t take. All of that’s contractual or it’s the way the scheduling gets set up through the corporation. It was very confusing. I guess I’m not quite sure of the semantics of it, I suppose. My departure was pretty good.”

Helmke did not return my call. I do not relish writing anything unflattering about Jane because we forged a bond long ago when she was the producer on “A Pat Miles Special” that featured me. We traveled to Michigan, where she interviewed my dearest friends, and I believe she was with us in Alabama, where my mother was interviewed for this Barbara Walters-like show. So I am not enjoying all of what I’ve been hearing about her handling of Seroka. He’s considered a nice, hardworking guy. With reports of other people itching to bail, KARE 11 is starting to sound like a much less friendly place than KSTP-TV, which is no longer the den of dysfunction it once was.

Seroka’s deflecting verbiage makes me think that some of the reports are accurate, especially the part about his thinking he could leave early because he had worked a holiday shift.

Jan. 17 on Twitter, Seroka posted a photo of himself doing his “Last live shot. Going to miss my colleagues at KARE 11. What a great 7 years. Thank you all.”

When a TV reporter is assigned a live shot on his last day, he’s not in a position to knock off early.

 

Weather patterns lead to love

WCCO-TV meteorologist Lauren Casey is engaged to a guy named Paul.

I just noticed the engagement ring on her over the weekend and took heat on Twitter for not knowing that Casey made the announcement a couple weeks ago. Please. I talked to people at WCCO who didn’t know about Casey’s engagement. And hey, at least I was right about KSTP-TV meteorologist Ken Barlow moving to that station’s morning show!

There’s WCCO-TV video of Casey talking about her engagement to this cute fellow she was introduced to by traffic reporter Natalie Nyhus.

I’m guessing that WCCO won’t go overboard covering the Lauren & Paul nuptials, since the last time it spent a lot of airtime on staffers’ weddings, viewers weren’t apparently all that interested.

 

Betting on hardy Harvin

Percy Harvin has to have the game of his career during Super Bowl 2014.

A Super Bowl ring will show the Vikings he was brilliant to get himself traded to the Seahawks, who are facing the Broncos in Sunday’s NFL finale. But the guys on ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption” are not optimistic about how stout the oft-injured Harvin will be.

My boy Tony Kornheiser described Harvin as “made of glass. He’s going to get hit early and he’s going to go out early because he’s Greg Oden with speed. As soon as he hits the deck he’s done.”

My guest boy, Jason Whitlock, a terrific personality and writer with some terrible fashion sense, said since Harvin’s cleared to play after his recent concussion, “You ride him until he’s done. If he can make one play, which he is very capable of, then yeah he could be a factor. When you have Seattle’s defense he doesn’t have to be a factor for long to be a factor.”

 

C.J. can be reached at cj@startribune.com and seen on Fox 9’s “Buzz.” E-mailers, please state a subject; “Hello” does not count. Attachments are not opened.