A CALL FOR TRANSPARENCY AND HONOR:

Our school district is getting ready to hold another school board election.  We have one every Spring. 

This year, I hope the school board candidates will do things a little differently.

Our Country has just been through a grueling election process where we have all witnessed all sorts of devious tricks and schemes and manipulation of the truth by a candidate who wished to get elected.

Down and dirty is no stranger to KISD politics.  I know that as I've been the recipient of some of the dirty tricks when I ran for the KISD school board.

Each year someone calls for everyone to play fair, but "fairness" most often never happens.  Maybe this year it will be different.

 In the past we have had Board members who do not abide by the rules of the Texas Ethics Commission with regard to their campaign reporting.  Some of them have received heavy fines because they do not turn in their reports by the deadlines or they seem unable to fill out the forms correctly.  Let's not have any of that this year.

This year I would ask for two things.

My concerns with contributions are these:  first, I hope that no one this year accepts contributions from vendors, or builders, or developers, or brokers, or insurance salesmen, or contractors, or attorneys, or large land owners, or businesses that want to collect KISD's taxes, or wives or relatives of any of the foregoing either before or after the election.  Our Katy ISD school board members have among them taken contributions from all of the above. 

Also, the practice of taking $50 or less for the sake of avoiding having to report the giver has gotten out of hand.  In the 2014 election when the three incumbents ran the last time, Henry Dibrell posted $1,700 in contributions of "$50 or less."  Courtney Doyle posted $1,395 in contributions of" $50 or less."  Ashley Vann posted $1,470 in contributions of $50 or less."  Are we to think they have lots of $50 friends, or do those amounts reflect an organized effort by "someone" to funnel financial aid from those who feed at the KISD tax trough? Without names tied to amounts, the public can never know the answer to that question.

Joe Adams last year claimed $4,750.00 in $50 donations, which is very hard to imagine, especially when in the past, some years, Mr. Adams had hardly any campaign contributions from anybody. Those $50 contributions collectively constituted almost all of the money he used to run his campaign.

The state law that allows for the under $50 cover-up was designed for state officials, not members of local school boards.

I don't care if the practice is legal--it stinks to High Heaven!

So if you want my vote, and the vote of the upstanding citizens you seek to serve, you'll post the names of all of your contributions.