Speaking of facts, here are some corrections and additions for this article:

1. The "signs" do not criticize Reverend Carmichael.

2. To say that they do is untrue and not logical.

3. The 2013 Bond Referendum last November suggested that they would build a 14,000 seat stadium, not a 16,000 seat stadium. No one has ever put a 16,000 seat stadium on a bond referendum in KISD. Once passed the District can build a stadium as big as they want as they are not tied to the proposal placed before the voters before the election.

4. The committee had 127 people on it, not 200. Depending on which press release or letter one sees, 800, 600 or 500 people applied, 247 or 227 were selected, 128 were put on the real committee, 119 were put on the "B" Team Committee that got no say. Who knows how many were left when some discovered they were being Delphied by a hired Delphier.

5. The 2013 Bond Referendum, after being pushed mightily by the district, drummed up a small committee after the fact that met twice in July of 2013.

6. Part of the cost for the stadium does not appear in the 2014 bond because $750,000 +or- has already been paid to PBK, the architect, for design drawings. That fee was supposed to be paid out of the 2013 bond funds which didn't materialize.

7. Saying that the stadium "only makes up 6 percent of the bond's total cost--much less than in the 2013 proposal..." is duplicitous. The 2013 bond didn't include new schools and repairs.

8. The district may be "expecting 3,000 students this fall," and they may well come, but it will be the first time since 2008 that there have been that many.

9. The signs that were put out "did not make strategic sense" because no one connected with an organized group seems to have put them out. They were just someone expressing an opinion. I think that's called free speech, and anyone can do it.

9. Rice University political scientists have been known to give KISD a bum steer previously. The District paid handsomely for one of them in 2006. That bond was defeated too.

11. What probably defeated the November Bond in 2013 were the signs that said, "No buses, no bonds!" We still don't have any buses for our youngest and most vulnerable children who have to now (and for the last two years) walk in the street to get to their elementary schools. And never mind that all of us who live within .5 miles of an elementary school had the value of our homes decreased whether we have children in school or not.

12. The architect (PBK) who has already been paid by the District for a stadium design is the same firm that designed Allen Stadium in Dallas which is having to be partially torn down in order to fix the flaws and defects that appeared within a few months of its completion. Can anyone explain why KISD is keeping this architect? PBK also has four architects that have been recently fined by the Texas Board of Architectural Examiners. They also have to attend two hours of "ethics training." (The complaint against them was signed by 107 other architects with standing.) Why would KISD still be using such a firm?

13. This is the first we've heard of the "rhetoric [being] from a group of people that wanted to be on the committee but didn't want to be in on the process, leaving when we started the negotiation process... There was blood on the floor when it was done." Please tell us more about those people. Sounds like they saw something reporters are missing.

Mary McGarr

Katy ISD School Board Trustee

1991-1996