I have recreated this problem in the kendo dojo... I do not understand why a function within my viewmodel is called 4 times when it is clearly only bound once. I see this in production and in the dojo, so it is clearly an issue with either they way I am configuring/binding/using mvvm or something within kendo.
See the dojo:
http://dojo.telerik.com/uhENaZAh/11
Thanks for any help or clarity,
J. Foulk