IC ISD Special Board Meeting April 28 2025

Agenda Analysis | Meeting Review | Meeting Documents | Commentary | Last Meeting

A cowbird dive bombing an antlerless buck.

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The Irion County ISD board agenda for this meeting.

A. Agenda Analysis 1. Approve the prime contractors, item 3: This is a single issue meeting to award the winning bids for Phase 1 of the 2024 bond construction. 2. How to read an agenda: "Special" meetings, as I've addressed before, are meetings called because there is some deadline that has to be met before the next regular board meeting. I am aware in this instance that this is a tariff beating effort, and saving money is a certainly a good enough reason to have a special meeting. 3. More on how to read an agenda: Every "public" meeting where official business is conducted must have an open forum for the public to speak. See item 2. This includes "special" meetings. 4. Still more on how to read an agenda: This is obviously going to be a quick in and out meeting. One way to tell is that a closed session is not scheduled. But, even if a closed isn't posted, the Board can still hold one if there is a legal reason. See the paragraph immediately following the adjournment.

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This adds up to about 1.5” of rain since December, including the bugs. Perhaps Elton or Jose, who worked for my father and grandfather, were making a cruel joke decades ago and wired it shut so that it always reads 33 inches.

B. Meeting Review 1. Approve the prime contractors, item 3: Here is the letter to the District from Gallagher identifying all bidders, scope and amounts. Below is from page 3 of that document and shows the contractors approved by the Board in this meeting.

Winning prime contractors

2. Attendance: Again, this was a "special" meeting, which typically means a bare quorum will be present. President Carlile and VP Rey both were absent, so the Secretary, Ashley Hill, managed the meeting.

3. Discussion: The Board was spot on in its discussion of the bids. The question all taxpayers want asked was asked: Why weren't the lowest bidders being recommended in those areas where the more expensive bid was recommended? The Gallagher VP gave an adequate response, perhaps not as detailed as it could have been, but the point was made. Certain board members may at future meetings drill down and test Gallagher to make sure it is doing its job to analyze the bids and hold costs.

4. Transparency: In contrast to the way the Board and Administration managed the spend down of the 2019 bond funds, this meeting was a bright sunny day. Realistically, the real number crunching happens in Supt. Moore's office, not in a board meeting like this one. But, there was some board member sentiment at this meeting indicating the board itself was relieved to have these numbers disclosed to them. The previous administration kept things under wraps and there was insufficient Board oversight. The type of detail in the image above far exceeds the level of detail ever disclosed during the entirety of the 2019 bond spend down.

5. Tariffs: The Gallagher VP presenting was transparent with the pressure they had received from the bidders. The bidders could not hold their bids if their orders were not placed on or after May 1. This foretells the future, doesn't it? After May 1 the prime contractors are expecting to pay more for all that they need to do the build out. Noticeably missing from his presentation and the discussion of the Board was name "President Trump", as in these tariffs were initiated by President Trump. This is my jumping off point in my commentary below.

6. Before the meeting: I had a few minutes with the Gallagher VP prior to the meeting. He asked some appropriate questions about flooding, and he was obviously concerned about what I consider to be the real dilemma they face: how do they add more impervious cover without adding more stormwater to the basin. I gave him a brief history of the school's growth since I was a student, where the water was coming from and the flooding of my home. (Yes, floodwaters have gone under my home, which is why I pay for flood insurance.) More importantly than all that, I identified the problem as a community wide problem - after the flood waters leave my property they flood other residences, the football field, the County's property in City Park and City Park itself. I also said that I have been saying this since 2019 before those bonds were passed. I am leaving nothing to chance here. Everyone knows, just as they did in 2019.

7. Please read my commentary below.

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Typically, the does fight one another over food by rearing and pawing at one another. The bucks fight using their antlers, except in the spring when they are antlerless as these two are. Unfortunately, the two coons are having the last laugh.

C. Commentary The purpose of this meeting was not just to award the bids, but to do it in a timely way so that the big ticket items like steel could be purchased before Pres. Trump's tariffs kick in. And, there's the rub. Not only did no one mention President Trump's name at this meeting, no one dared complain about having to be present to engage in this extra time sensitive meeting in the first place. The Board appeared either resigned to the inconvenience or perhaps just let silence set in because it might have been perceived as disloyal to complain.

And, no one was present to speak at open forum to ask the painfully obvious: Why are we even here in the first place?! Who is taxing these contractors?! Why?! Is it possible we may not be able to afford this expansion?! I am at least hopeful that the U.S. Supreme Court will eventually rule that President Trump does not have the legal authority to use tariffs in the manner that is impacting these 2024 bond projects. There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution granting the President tariff authority. What statutory authority he is relying on is narrow in scope, and he is using that law without a sufficient emergency basis. But, it could take a couple years for the Court to reach such a decision. Moreover, there's very good reason to believe that once we reach that decision, there will have already been multiple decisions from the Court on other matters that he has outright disregarded. Yes, he is presently setting up multiple cases now to test how far he can go in defiance of the Court.

Consider this essay about the limits to what the courts can do about President Trump by law professor Kate Shaw.

These are terrifying times, indeed lawless times, if you believe in a constitutional democratic form of government in America.

Frederick Douglass said, "The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those they oppress." This is to say that a tyrant's power lasts only so long as it is endured by those who are being oppressed. In context, these tariffs last until the public says, in the multitude of ways that we can, "No" to President Trump on tariffs.

My message is this: Say his name. Say that these are President Trump's tariffs. Do not be silent about who is responsible. He issued these tariffs in his own name, without the cooperation or involvement of Congress. Total party loyalty, for either party, is irresponsible in these circumstances.

This special meeting should have never been necessary, and we are acting like sheep if we fail to publicly call that out. Remember, it was Edwin R. Murrow who said, "A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves."

Say his name, and don't be sheep.

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Copyright 2025 G. Noelke