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Bond Town Hall April 8 2024

Graphic for meeting notice  on April 8
ICISD’s notice of town hall meeting

ICISD's graphic for this meeting is getting buried beneath the fold, so here it is for all to see.

 

The second town hall meeting for the 2024 bond was on Monday, April 8, 2024. I attended this meeting and you can find my analysis here, last updated on April 11, 2024.


2019 Bond History: Here's some 2019 bond history that may be helpful to some on how we arrived here. By this stage in the 2019 bond process, I attended a similar town hall meeting and presented the District with a substantive paper on how the community was already being flooded by the stormwater runoff from the District's campus. I have been proven correct back then with my very public prediction that the stormwater runoff would only increase and worsen our problems were the 2019 bonds be used to build a new gym. Multiple open records requests from me to the District in the intervening years showed that the District allocated absolutely no 2019 bond money to flood control. (As I have argued elsewhere, the District is literally flooding itself with its capital expansions, so this lack of attention to the obvious is difficult to fathom.) Key to the 2019 town hall process are the previous business and familial relationships that were already in place. First, here is who was at the board table when the school board approved the 2019 bonds. There wasn't a real community committee formed for the 2019 bonds, as Superintendent Moore has already done for the 2024 bonds. This lack of community engagement insulated some special interests and allowed them to avoid a central question: Since we are an educational institution funded by the public, shouldn't we spend some of this money on classrooms? Not a single classroom was built with the 2019 bond funds; the vast majority of the funds were spent on athletics.


Second, Superintendent Gray, who left the district shortly after the bond election, had a previous relationship with architect Jeff Potter, who had designed the new gym build at Gray's prior school, Union Grove ISD. Indeed, Potter attended the 2019 town hall meetings in person, so he was made personally aware of the flooding problems that already existed in the community. I have previously published his drawing showing how much rainwater will be coming off the new gym.


Put another way, those most standing to profit financially and professionally, some of whom were relatives, administrators, board members and local business icons, were at the table crafting the 2019 bond particulars, without community engagement, well before those town halls were even held. The deal was already done, the cake baked. And the District, in particular Supt. Gray and the Board, completely ignored my flooding forecasts from the moment I spoke up. (Potter, likewise remained silent, and he later collected over $900,000 in fees for his design work.) The 2019 town hall process, supposedly intended as an open exchange of information, was further cheapened when, at the 3rd and final meeting, the District used the opportunity to simultaneously host a spaghetti supper. Put simply, at that meeting my protests (and a few others who felt a 3rd gym was not necessary) were drowned out by administrators and parents prompted to speak in favor of the bond, all brought to the town hall table for ... free spaghetti! (I'll cover more below how the District can't lobby for the passage of bonds.) Well, these efforts by the District worked. The 2019 bond passed by a margin of 123 for and 42 against. (The District serves only 300+ students, and the population of the entire county is less than 2,000. Contrary to most of Texas, Irion County is generally decreasing in population, yet it is a "property rich" school district because of its oil and gas reserves.) There is reason to believe a similar margin will pass the 2024 bonds, in my opinion. If there is any comparison to the recent pro District local vote to re-elect Drew Darby, an anti voucher legislator, the District was able to secure a win with 254 votes for him and 133 votes against. If the parents alone get out the vote, it seems likely the 2024 bonds will pass.


 

Moving forward to the present, my attention to detail here dredging up 2019 bond history is purposeful. I will update this page after I attend the April 8 2024 meeting to compare and contrast. And, for certain, I won't be presenting a paper at this meeting. I'll let Jeff Potter's drawing that shows how much stormwater comes off the new gym roof serve as my paper. I'll just be attending with questions.


I encourage you to come with questions, as well.


 

April 8, 2024 Town Hall Meeting Analysis: I have a number of insights regarding this Town Hall.

  1. Two of the three questions I asked related to stormwater flooding. I confirmed that $850,000 is indeed the amount currently dedicated in the proposed bond for stormwater flooding. (This is consistent with what Mayor Stewart said at this meeting. I doubt this will be enough, but let's set that issue aside.) Second, I confirmed that my read of the law is consistent with that of the Parkhill representative who spoke: the school’s new construction can’t dump more water into the basin (and thereby flood nearby homes) than is already going into the basin. I asked the Parkhill representative to repeat that for the benefit of community attending and, in particular, for the benefit of Loye Tankersley, who was in the audience with me. You see, Mr. Tankersley was also in attendance at this meeting, the 2020 meeting in which the school board held a special meeting to reverse the City of Mertzon’s refusal to close 4th Street for the new gym. He spoke at that 2020 meeting with real conviction that 4th street should be closed for the new gym and that he personally would intervene with the City. (Mr. Tankersley, it turns out, had unique ties with the City's mayor then, Bill Taylor. Mayor Taylor was also the Fire Chief at the Irion County Volunteer Fire Dept., while Mr. Tankersley was a fundraiser for and has served in various capacities for the nonprofit in charge of that fire department. Mr. Tankersley also privately sells well water to the City of Mertzon, without which the City would be in violation of certain Texas Commission on Environmental rules.) The rest is history. Within just a few weeks after Mr. Tankersley got involved, the City had released its hold on 4th Street and gave it away to the District for a song. I covered that here in my audio of Jacob Conner's presentation to the City Council. It then took me almost 3 years of PIA requests after that to find a document from the District establishing that the District’s engineer, Robert Maly, was of the opinion that the District was putting more water in the basin after the 2019 bond construction than before. Thus my continued reference to Mr. Potter's drawing of the gym roof runoff.

  2. So, bringing this back to this April 8 2024 town hall meeting, Mr. Tankersley's presence created an opportunity that I was not going to miss. I whispered this to him during the meeting, "Loye, that $850,000 is $850,000 that should have come from the 2019 bonds, and had it come from those bonds we wouldn't be in the position we are all currently in." To which he replied, "Good point." You damn right that is a good point! Every person at that 2020 meeting knew full well they were worsening a community wide flooding problem, and they chose to ignore it. They put athletics over community, and they pursued the largest ever school bond at the time that built no classrooms! And here we were on April 8, 2024 addressing the very problem they intentionally chose to ignore in 2020 to the tune of $850,000! And, Mr. Tankersley was not the only one in attendance at this town hall meeting who was also in attendance at that 2020 meeting. There were board members, administrators and teachers, all of whom share this grand mistake with Mr. Tankersley. And, not a single one at this town hall owned up to it. Not a one.

  3. The third question I asked, also intending to make a point to the community, related to who it is that is responsible for deciding to pay off bonds early. It is not enough that John Blackburn of Live Oak, seller of the bonds, preached the gospel about how the District has done it before and will do it again with these bonds. In fact, it is the school board who is charged with this decision, and they need to re-up their commitment publicly before the bond election to let the community know that they in fact hold the value that paying off bonds early is a must.

  4. Questions I did not have time to ask: - Will the District consider posting the data and findings of the post election bond accountability committee online for the community to see real time during the phases of the build out? (Only because I was sending monthly PIA requests to the District during the 2019 bond build out can I report here my findings that a) more water is going into the basin than ever before, b) the 2019 bonds went over budget, c) the school board failed to pursue a financial audit of the 2019 construction manager, and d) the 2019 buildings were not independently inspected pursuant to TEA rules. (Note: these findings are from when the District was under its previous leadership, though 3 of the board members remain from that period.) A private citizen like myself should not have to go to the lengths I have had to go to prove there was mismanagement of government funds. Internal procedures need to be put in place in advance, and everything needs to be in the sun as they go along. - What internal processes will be put in place to assure that disbursements of funds to the contract manager and other contractors are reviewed and approved by more than just the superintendent? (Supt. DeSpain could not have possibly had adequate time to thoroughly review the invoices I reviewed pursuant to my PIA requests. I likewise doubt that Supt. Moore alone has time to fully review the invoices related to a $55 million bond. Who checks the superintendent?) - Did the District budget its own plan inspector and on site construction inspector? Because the City of Mertzon has no building codes, TEA rules require these independent reviewers that are separate from the architects and construction managers. (None of the 2019 buildings were properly inspected pursuant to these rules, notwithstanding my repeatedly pointing this out to Supt. DeSpain.)

  5. Noticeably absent from the meeting was CFO Robert Helms and High School Principal Shannon Chapman.

  6. April 11, 2024 update: I neglected to mention in paragraph 1 above, upon information and belief, Mr. Tankersley was invited to that 2020 board meeting upon special invitation by a Board member. By all accounts, the goal of that meeting was to generate sufficient enough political force to reverse the decision of the City Council on its refusal to close 4th Street. Mr. Tankersley has not attended any of the board meetings that I have attended since that meeting in 2020, and I've attended probably 95% of their meetings. His name did come up, however, in a board meeting where Jacob Conner discussed who the new gym might be named after. (The gym has been named "Hornet Gym", while I've called it City Gym since the street was not closed properly.)

  7. April 11, 2024 update: The tour of the school facilities was worthwhile. It is easier to understand what the District's goals are when the plant is walked. I have some ambivalence, as the District will be raising some buildings that clearly have remaining life in them. (I've worked in a number of state office buildings not maintained nearly as well.) And, ironically, the old gym, the very gym that was declared absolutely essential when the District was criticized in 2019 for wanting 3 gyms, is slated to be raised and replaced with a new gym at a new location. So, if one studies the justifications used for the 2019 and 2024 bonds, well, there are a few inconsistencies. But, if I am asked, will the replacement of the site improve the learning environment and improve staff's work space, I would say "yes". The tour was not comprehensive, though, so I'm not able to give a full endorsement. (I don't ever anticipate giving an unqualified thumbs up. Remember, there are going to be bonds after the 2024 bond election, so the justifications are always going to be fluid.)


Copyright 2024 G Noelke






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