DUHON CRITICIZED FOR MAKING HIMSELF THE ONLY SPOKESPERSON FOR THE BOARD:
COMPILED FROM NEWS REPORTS · JUNE 2, 2009 · 8 COMMENTS
The Katy ISD Board of Trustees is under fire from a prominent education commentator, as well as a number of taxpayers, for its purported policy of speaking only through the board president.
The policy was made public after InstantNewsKaty attempted to obtain statements from school board members in the wake of their controversial decision to spend more than $5 million on artificial turf for football fields at the district’s six high schools.
In response to InstantNewsKaty’s request, Trustee Chris Crockett said the board had a policy that only the board president could speak for the group.
“According to our board procedures, only the board president, Mr. Duhon, can speak about matters of board business,” Crockett said in an e-mailed response.
Neither then-Board President Eric Duhon nor any of the other trustees replied to the request for comment.
In an article posted on “George Scott Reports,” a prominent website containing commentary and analysis on the public education issues, journalist George Scott questioned how the Katy school board arrived at that policy.
In his article entitled “Exactly When, How Did KISD Board Decide Its ‘Procedures’ Were For The President To Be The Spokesperson?” Scott noted that no written record of the policy, nor any documented action by the school board to adopt such a policy, could be found.
“When were these ‘procedures’ approved by the Katy school board? Where? What day? What time? How? Why? What were the circumstances?” Scott asked in the story. “Can you show me the agenda of the meeting at which these procedures were adopted? Was this discussed over the telephone; at a conference; rolling quorums in the restrooms?”
Scott also pointed out that he had inspected the Katy ISD policy manual, which is posted on the district’s website, and found no reference to any such policy. He also requested any such policy or policies through the Texas Public Information Act and was told by the district that no documents exist.
In fact, Scott noted, in its own policy, the board only gives the president two duties. Those duties are “to preside at all board meetings unless unable to attend” and “have the right to discuss, make motions and resolutions and vote on all matters coming before the board.”
Scott said if no formal policy exists making the board president the spokesperson for the board as a whole, it should be brought up for public discussion at an upcoming board meeting.
“If it turns out that there really is no formal action on record altering the published duties of the board president and restricting the constitutional rights of individual board members to speak on issues of public policy, then the whole matter should be brought to a formal meeting of the board,” Scott wrote. “If these members of this board are really so intellectually gutless that they have to hide behind the pants or skirt of a sitting board president, let them cast their cowardice in a public vote – where it belongs.”
InstantNewsKaty has also conducted a review of published Katy ISD board policies and found no policy designating the board president as spokesperson.
A request for any unpublished policies has also been made pursuant to the Texas Public Information Act. No response to that request has yet been received.
Additionally, InstantNewsKaty sent individual messages to each trustee, as well as current Board President Joe Adams, asking where this policy can be found and when it was instituted. Adams’ message also asks if he intends to continue this presumed policy during his term as board president.
No responses from trustees have been received.
According to both the Coalition for Open Government and the Freedom of Information Coalition, any formal action by the school board, including establishment of board policy, should be made in a public meeting as required by the Texas Open Meetings Act.
Geraldine Williams with the Coalition for Open Government said policy decisions should be made with the same transparency as any other decision.
“These boards represent the people and are conducting the people’s business. The people need to know how those decisions are made, and those making the decisions need to be held responsible for their actions – that’s called transparency in government,” Williams said. “If this was somehow done in an informal fashion, it would certainly be inconsistent with the concept of transparency in government and could easily constitute a violation of the open meetings act.”
A number of residents have also questioned the Katy school board’s commitment to openness.
Katy resident Ray Williams, who was also a vocal critic of the board’s artificial turf decision, called the board’s unwillingness to discuss their decision-making “cowardly.”
“There’s no other word for it; it’s cowardly. They don’t want to discuss anything they do or any decision they make, and they’re supposed to be our representatives,” Williams said. “The degree of arrogance is incredible. At some point, the taxpayers who are being bled dry by these decisions need to stand firm and hold these characters accountable.”
Williams, who previously called for an investigation into the artificial turf decision, said if board members have violated the open meetings act in setting policy behind closed doors, they need to be prosecuted.
“I just hope the DA has the (courage) to do the right thing if there’s evidence of wrongdoing,” Williams said.
District resident Erica Jackson said she’s been to several board meetings and has been surprised by the lack of discussion among board members.
“It’s like everything’s been decided in advance. I realize they can get information before the meeting if they have questions, but it really makes me wonder how much really goes on behind those closed doors,” Jackson said. “I’ve been to other school board meetings and city council meetings, and they at least discuss a few issues and as a few questions. These people just nod their heads in agreement with everything the superintendent says.”
8 Comments
Mary McGarr
JUNE 2, 2009 AT 10:00 AM
Your readers may be interested in knowing that KISD school board president Joe Adams has a history of causing the board to violate the law. When he was president in 1993, Mr. Adams caused the Board to vote on a matter in closed session. Read about it here: http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=1993_117419
1and here: http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=1993_1174296
In the good old days the Houston Chronicle actually reported real news, and went after people who violated the law.
Thank you, Mr. Pape, for stepping up to fill in the “no real news” gap!
Bob
JUNE 2, 2009 AT 12:36 PM
The blatant dishonesty and double dealing shuck and jive dance done down at the Admin. Palace makes me ill. If there are term limits to the office of the POTUS, then there should be term limits to simple School Board of Trustees sitting in a District.
I totally agree with what Mr. George Scott has written. It IS “intellectual gutlessness” when you vote to go along in order to get along and not vote with your heart and brain. It makes me angry to know that these are the people who hold the education that I and you, PAY FOR, the SAKE OF CHILDREN, and these elected and allegedly educated OFFICIALS, are evidently unable to think for themselves independently and honestly. It does smell highly suspicious of things being done and decided long before they actually come to the dias and sit on the pretty throne.
I, for one, demand accountability, responsibility and transparency in this matter. I, too, want to applaud Mr. Pape for having the courage to report this and many other things that no one else besides Mr. Scott would. I like seeing a return to hard hitting and honest journalism. It’s a breath of fresh air after having so much of what we see, hear and read sanitized for so long.
Thank you, Mr. Pape for having the guts and testicular fortitude to be so brave and bold. No if we can only crack the nuts of the “squirrels” that have been hording the power for so long. Remember, it’s not the crime that gets them, it’s usually the cover up.
muckraker
JUNE 2, 2009 AT 1:51 PM
Good point Bob. After all the county and school district conducts the bulk of our property taxes and we are ranked some of the highest in the state. As for, “crack the nuts of the “squirrels”, well that must be the big vendors that control most school boards. That is a tough nut to crack, but good luck with it. We have the same problem
.Patriot Missive
JUNE 2, 2009 AT 5:44 PM
When ISD school boards imagine that they can act in secret and with impunity they ironically “teach” everyone where their priorities lie. The Texas Public Information Act was created to protect taxpayer interests and not to be twisted by elected officials to threaten responsible citizens who ask for information. Otherwise, how else could we keep ISD board members from working directly for vendors and developers and others?
bahamamamasmama
JUNE 3, 2009 AT 2:47 PM
I think we need to get some state law enforcement to look into the dealings over at KatyISD’s Boardroom. Thing just have not been right there for a long time. I seems like the good old boy system is still at work and is costing us tax payers a lot of money. 5 Million Dollars is a lot of money for so fake turf at six high schools. I remember when Tom Law won the election and the poeple over at KatyISD were telling us he loss. Then the next day after we go to checking the numbers a little closer we found out he had won. After that Merrel said he was leaving KatyISD and the board members wanted all of the KatyISD staff to pitch in so that they could buy him a tractor to cut is lawn.
When the board members stop talking to the news people about items that should be public record then we have a problem. I myself think that Instant News Katy should be calling the Texas Rangers so that they can do an investigation into this matter. Why is the president of KatyISD’s board got all of the members silentsed?
Ross Raymond
JUNE 4, 2009 AT 11:38 AM
Were the truth contained in some of these postings not so frightening I would laugh. Why laugh? Because we only had a three percent voter turnout for last month’s school board election. Why is that? Because folks don’t know what is going on as no one will tell them. However this may be changing slightly due to this Internet presence and more readers posting comments.
Voters have mistakenly come to the conclusion we have good schools because of the board. We risk becoming a declining district is many ways because of the Board’s mismanagement of bond money and its failure to seek citizen input to begin the process of evolving our district into something even better. We just re-elected a Board member who this May went so far as to say if we encouraged high school students to take college level classes it would diminish the value of their Katy ISD diplomas! He was re-elected after saying on the record the Board is NOT a decision making body, but is charged with oversight only. That from a 12 year board veteran.
Ask yourself, if the entire school board resigned in mass tomorrow what would KISD give up? What initiative can a single board member claim as their own which is moving our district forward? Sure we will put up a bus barn and build a school when needed, but outside of the Board working up the “justification” for the dollar amount what does the Board have to do even with that base function? Our Board should be leading and explaining. The public’s business should always be done in the light of day. I mentioned many of these concerns on my web site but failed to get the word out to enough voters. (
www.katyvote.com)Even when open seats are filled the Board members rally around a “chosen one” and the phone calls, emails and eye winks go out for them. Prior to their election the previous two new faces on the Board did not strike me as “go along no matter what folks” but sadly this seems to be the case when the votes are tallied. Now we have a new face and I hope he will strike a different course but am not holding my breath in the meantime.
Our community needs to begin the process of finding two good candidates for the next round of Board elections and then support them during their campaign. Do this for two years in a row and you have the foundation for change and openness at the Board level. Failure to do so will only continue the current situation until we are all old and broke. Given our tax rate, it looks like “broke” will win this race.
Robert
JUNE 4, 2009 AT 1:28 PM
The problem with the people that live in the KatyISD area voting for school board members is a big one. We have a lot of poeple that are here for a very short time because they are on a short term contract to work in the area. Some of these people that really want to change things can’t because they can’t vote. The people that can vote don’t because they don’t know the issues that they are voting for. KatyISD for many years has been run on the old school policy of don’t tell and we don’t need to answer. In the pass e-mails were sent out to KatyISD staff members telling them who to vote for because it could mean their job. Election polling places were closed on election day because of computer problems at Beck one year. That is when the board thought they might loss a long term member because of vote in that area. A lot of people don’t understand that our school system is in a whole lot of hurt that is only going to let worse. Millions here and Millions there adds up! Last time I check KatyISD had 1.3 Billions in bonds that were out standing. That was a couple of years ago. The debt service on this money that the school system owed at the time was 37 cents of every $2.00 that they were collecting in taxes. Every three years we keep having a new school bond election. The next one was postpond till next year or the following. That one I hear is to be about 230 Million dollars. I have been to the school board meetings in the past were everything was just all thumbs up. No dail log or any questions from any of the board members about who was getting the contract or how much it was for. Everything was decidded behind closed doors. That night they said they needed to get kids to school and they purchased a bunch of new buses and portable buildings. If I remember right it was about 26 buses and 12 new portable building even though they said they only needed 10 buildings at the time. Anybody remember the computer company that got 30 Million of our school tax dollars? Then when Merrell was leaving they gave the rights to the software away to a state agency. Remember how that program was going to help all teacher get on the same page for each grade level through out the school system? The reason we have these problems is because the way the school system is being run. We need to have some major changes in KatyISD’s board room. The only way for people to make this change is to start asking questions and start voting. The question right now is do we really need to spend 5 Million on new fake turf at the six high schools? What is the thinking behind this and who is getting the contract? This is not going to make any of the schools any better. I hear the FFA program at Taylor High School got cut because of lack of funds. It seams that some of that 5 Million could have kept that program alive if you ask me. What about the cost that the school system spent on building the FFA stock yards? Each high school has it’s own barn out there?