KISD'S BALLOT BOX PLAN BLASTED:

The following is a letter to the editor of the Katy Times regarding my thoughts on Dr. Hugh Hayes, the superintendent at that time, and his plan to put ballot boxes at certain locations within the District.  I thought there was a reason why the District was moving ballot boxes, and I didn't think it was a good one. I believed that the District was trying to stop those of us who lived in Nottingham Country and Memorial Parkway from having as easy access to a ballot box and an early voting ballot box as those who lived in "old" Katy.  I had run for the Board against Garry Weiss and lost by 110 votes.  I was planning to run again the next year, and I didn't want them hiding the ballot boxes--any of them!

Wednesday, October 3, 1990

Dear Editor:

The KISD School Board is currently studying a proposal to alter and "repair" voting precincts for school board elections.  As you may remember, I requested last summer in an appearance before the Board that the areas on the east side of the Williamsburg box be placed at Mayde Creek because of the difficulty those people living north of Saums in the Fry Road area have in finding Williamsburg Elementary School, the site of their ballot box,  that the Memorial Parkway area be given its own ballot box instead of being arbitrarily divided between Taylor and West Memorial, and that an absentee box be placed at Taylor High School.  In my opinion these three actions would have created a fairer atmosphere for voting.

As usual, instead of doing the logical thing, our administrators are endeavoring to make it worse.  The plan is to only move just the area on the west side of Fry, north of Saums at Mayde Creek (thus leaving the Sundown area that our school district deliberately chooses to ignore) to try to find the well-hidden Williamsburg Elementary location on Election Day, to not put an absentee box in the middle of the District at all, to ignore Memorial Parkway and allow them to continue being frustrated while they try to find out where to vote, and to move the Taylor box from the front of the school where everyone drives by and remembers that there's an election going on, to the back where no one will notice it at all!

The excuses being given are many.  Supposedly, Sundown residents don't vote anyway, so who cares about them! Memorial Parkway can wait until the census comes in and then maybe they'll make a change.  Taylor's box has to be moved because it is in the way of administering the SAT test.  We already have two absentee boxes, and that's enough in the opinion of the administration and the board and who cares that they are terribly out of the way for most of the KISD population--everyone who doesn't live in Old Katy!

Obviously, I think the administration is wrong.  Sundown's residents DO want to vote, but they shouldn't have to drive all over creation looking for the hidden ballot box.

Cy-Fair puts a ballot box at every elementary school on their election day.  After all, it only costs $384 per box, and I can't think of a better way to spend our money. If nothing else, perhaps we should have spent the $5,000 we gave to the superintendent for a raise on ballot boxes instead.

Memorial Parkway DOES need its own ballot box.  There are as many voters in Memorial Parkway as there are in Katy.  Nobody draws the line down the middle of Katy and says, "Figure out why we drew this illogical line to separate you  from your neighbor."

The election judge at Taylor [with regard to the election getting in the way of SAT test takers on election day] says that the only inconvenience was that a sign telling youngsters to enter at the side of the building wasn't put up in advance. As soon as a sign was erected, the "problem" stopped.  It lasted all of two minutes, and no one much was voting at 8 a. m. on a Saturday morning anyway.

The failure to put up an additional absentee box is based on the claim that we have one more than our neighboring school districts already. 

Well, may I remind everyone that our neighboring school districts aren't spread out all over 181 square miles; they are centrally located; their central offices are logically placed in the center of their districts where everyone knows where they are. 

Most people in our district never have occasion to visit KISD's offices that are in Fort Bend County nor do they even know where Wolfe Elementary is or that it is part of KISD.

Let me offer this alternative, since the administration thinks that one early voting ballot box is enough:  place that ballot box at Taylor High school which is in the center of the District and close down the others. 

Walk in our shoes a moment.

I'll re-utter my previous assertion.  Administrators and Board members are always stating that they just can't understand why those of us who live in Houston's suburbs feel constantly slighted by this school district.  May I state in no uncertain terms that this is a prime example of why we feel that way. If you cared about us, you would make sure it was not frustrating and even difficult for us to vote.  I'm not advocating door to door delivery of the ballot box.  I'm just saying you know what is right, and no amount of rhetoric on your part will convince us otherwise.

You're  just afraid we're going to start a single-member districting petition again, and you don't want us to be able to easily vote on the issue next spring.  Well, you're right. We are going to do the petition, but we'll find the ballot box, no matter where you put it.

Mary McGarr

[The result was that the Administration put an absentee ballot box at Taylor, and there has been one there ever since!  They compromised and also put a ballot box at Memorial Parkway Junior High --but they wouldn't put one at Memorial Parkway Elementary.]