OPEN RECORDS REQUESTS:
1. Good Advice About the Public Information Act
2. Definition of Public Information from the KISD Board Policy Manual
3. Houston Chronicle Editorial on Frailey's Lack of Openness
4. Public Fights for Records by Tom Hester, Jr.
When Alton Frailey first came to Katy ISD, he got crossways with the community and its local news outlets when he tried to stem the requests for Open Records information. (He suggested to the Board one night that people needed to tell KISD WHY they needed the information for which they were asking!) He wanted approval to initiate that requirement. The Chronicle (reporter Helen Eriksen) took him on, and the Chronicle's Editorial Board even censured him on the editorial page for trying to interfere with the open records process. Do I think Frailey thought of that on his own? No, I don't. He jumps to the whims of the Texas Association of School Administrators (TASA), and it looked like they tried to orchestrate this matter.
One would think he would have been remorseful, but instead he wrote a letter back to the Chronicle that was very arrogant, in my opinion, about the matter defending his stance.
From time to time, there are problems with the activities of this organ of a public government.
After he was chastised in the Press, Mr. Frailey decided that it would be better to just let people ask for what they were entitled to and live with it and give out the information without charge. Lately there seems to have been a change in that practice.
From time to time there are changes in the personnel that occupy the position of Open Records Clerk. Most all of them have always been very courteous and obliging. One of them, Chris Crockett went from that position to Board Member to head of the Educational Foundation. Some of them just disappear from the face of the Earth.
The most recent clerk was Mabel Adelman. She too did an outstanding job of obtaining information and getting it out within the required amount of time. But she has also disappeared.
At this point in time, the District is NOT getting out the information in the required amount of time. That's not a good way to operate a governmental function! Not only are they not prompt and abiding by the law, they even send out wrong information.
And now...the District appears to be deliberately withholding information that those of us who oppose the bond need. I think that is illegal!
If anyone wants to ask the District for information to which they are legally entitled, he should go to http://www.katyisd.org/dept/communications/openrecords
There one will find instructions for obtaining information. Also on that page one may link to past months of open records requests from others. It is interesting to see what others are asking to see, and I urge you to give those records a look. I've decided to put them on this web site so they are easier for the public to find.
It is also notable, I think, that the District is not putting up the monthly list of Open Records Requests in a timely manner. They should at least be there up until just a month before the current date. [They've now appeared to have followed my suggestion here!]
I recently was asked to pay $50.00 for the list of salaries and the list of stipends that I formerly got for free from the District. To now start asking me to pay for these lists amounts to trying to keep me from showing the public how overpaid most of our administrators are. That's curtailing my "free speech," in my opinion.
It's not the money; it's the principle of the matter. These lists could be produced in a matter of seconds. They are lists that are readily available. They just don't want me to have them and put them on this web site.
I think everyone needs to be aware of what this division of Katy ISD is doing, so I am posting all of the Open Records Requests for the last twelve months.
The person who is hired as essentially an aide or clerk, to handle these requests, I suppose wants to keep her job. Since he arrived in 2007, Mr. Frailey has been through at least five people in this particular position. When they leave, most are not findable, and I can usually find anyone on the Internet. I find that truly interesting.
The Open Records Clerk, Nona Stewart, last year made $27,803.16. She's getting a 1% raise, I read in the papers. She does as she is told, I'm sure, so in no way do I suggest that she is doing anything at all other than what she is told to do.
Since the school district has fixed these so that one cannot copy and paste them, I suggest that you print out a copy if you want to have them for future reference. MM
1. Open Records Requests for September 2014
2. Open Records Requests for October 2014
3. Open Records Requests for November 2014
4. Open Records Requests for December 2014
5. Open Records Requests for January 2015
6. OPEN RECORDS REQUESTS FOR FEBRUARY 2015