Muller, A. D.:

A. D. Muller is a conservative Republican who has been active in Party Politics in the Katy area for many years.

He orchestrated opposition to the 1999 bond.  In a report on that bond I noted, "The bond issue was opposed by A. D. Muller and Annette Hoffman.  Without too much organized effort, the result of the election almost went in their favor.  Of 5,437 voters, only 50.3% or 2,737 of them voted for the bond while 2,700 or 49.7% voted against it. Considering the extreme effort that the District makes to pressure teachers and other employees to vote (carrying Early voting boxes to schools to enable voting and combining that effort with a teachers’ meeting before school on the day the boxes are brought to the school), Mr. Muller and his friends were very effective with their minimal efforts to bring the attention of the voters as to what the District planned to do."

 A. D. Muller was quoted at the time as pointing out that nearly 50% of the people in Katy ISD have “concerns about the district’s spending habits.” Mr. Muller went on to say, The results of the election should be “a wake up call to the district that the community is not ready to give it a blank check.” 

(Please note that A. D. is the originator of the "blank check" remark, with regard to excessive bond amounts, which term  continues to be used up to the present time.)

When vote tallies showed  the schools where voters voted overwhelmingly against the bond  (Katy High School 373 FOR/591AGAINST; Wolfe Elementary 89 FOR/100AGAINST and West Memorial 266 FOR/ 376AGAINST) were the very ones who stood to gain from the bond passage, Superintendent Merrell said “it didn’t mean anything that voters at some schools which would benefit the most from the bond funds voted against the proposal.” 

Opponents of the bond suggested that they objected to the package “because it would push Katy’s tax rate from $1.83 per $100 of assessed property value to the legal limit of $2.  On the other hand, KISD predicted the $324.4 Million bond election, if passed, would ultimately increase taxes on a $100,000 house from $1,555 to $1,700 per year.

Mr. Muller, in an Open Forum at a school board meeting, challenged the superintendent’s statement that the increase amounted to a small “pizza” a month for the average family.   Down the road Mr. Muller sent six small pizzas to the Administration offices with a note that said, “Please accept these pizzas in lieu of six months worth of my school taxes!” 

It was noted that at the time, the record for a bond election was 7,674 votes in 1993.  That election was held in conjunction with a Republican primary run-off election for Kay Bailey Hutchison and her opponent which saw Hutchison handily defeat her opponent and without much Democratic opposition in sight, become the next Senator from Texas. The interest in that race was the reason for the high turnout.  The Katy bond issue was voted on at a separate location, but voters were out anyway and voted there too.

A. D. has been instrumental as a behind-the-scenes guy in many state and Federal elections helping candidates to tap the voting strength of conservative Republicans in the Katy area.  A. D. is the keeper of the "common sense" title, as far as I'm concerned.

Recently, after much coaxing, A. D. listened to the tape of our current superintendent, Alton Frailey, carrying on at the Convocation of Employees before the start of the 2010 school year.  In a moment of frustration at what he heard, Mr. Muller sent the following note to the superintendent: