The Mertzon City Council at its November 6 2023 meeting is considering a radar sign in Mertzon to help with speeding vehicles. Update: Read what happened at this meeting regarding the purchase of the radar sign here. Here is the agenda for the meeting, with my comments underneath: Comments: Here is some full sunlight on a significant City issue - the City of Mertzon does not have an ordinance enforcement system. Former Mayor Bill Taylor once astutely observed that the City's ordinances are nothing more than a book of promises the City hopes citizens will follow. Why? Because the City can't enforce them without a ticketing system and a municipal judge. Why doesn't the City have those things? Well, there is a cost issue. But, I think more than that there has long been an anti regulatory mentality in the city, plus the Council members have not wanted the pressures that come with upsetting their own neighbors when asking them to comply with an ordinance. I raised the question in an earlier post about whether the City is meeting its obligations to create opportunity and community. From my perspective of being flooded by stormwater runoff with every measurable rain, I contend that the City cannot create opportunity and community if it gives Irion County ISD the right to take over its streets and alleys, flood them, flood City Park and then flood the District's football field (which is leased to the District by the City). It's crazy for government to flood its people, it's nonsense for government to flood itself, and it's incomprehensible for government to join forces with another governmental body and for each to flood the other. That's what the City and the District are doing by the City having no ordinances on flooding - it's a mutual pact to flood one another. But, the problem at hand in this meeting is speeding. There are ordinances for speeding in Mertzon. It's a big problem, especially around the school campus. And, often the biggest violators are NOT students. I'm always watchful for speeding school busses and ATVs driven by school employees. These drivers certainly know better, but there are no consequences for speeding, even in a school zone. I've also had to be more careful around town on my bike. A radar sign in Mertzon is a good idea. It will raise awareness and prompt self correction of speed. In an enforcement environment where all the City has is a hope that citizens will keep a promise, then the City should do what it can to increase citizen awareness about when they are violating their promise...and then hope for the best. It is no doubt unusual for a municipality to so heavily rely on hope with something as critical as speed limits, but when there's no enforcement that hope is all any of us have for safety in our streets. Of course, opponents might cynically say a radar sign will symply reinforce that drivers can be lawless in Mertzon. Without consequences for speeding, what difference would it make if a radar sign shows one is driving the speed limit in a school zone or 105 mph in a school zone? There are a number of reasons for not embracing this cynical view, including that it is ethically wrong to speed because of the dangers to other drivers. (Similarly, it is ethically wrong to flood your neighbors even though no ordinances prohibit it.) Thus, our City Council can still prioritize creating community simply by applying ethics (a radar sign promotes the safe speed), even if they are resistant to an enforcement system or robust ordinances that better protect the safety of our citizens. UPDATE: The City Council approved the approximate $3,000 purchase of a radar sign at its November 6, 2023 council meeting. I read the the highlighted language in # 4 above during open forum. During discussion Mayor Stewart pointed out that the City would be providing data from the sign to the IC Sheriff and to DPS, both of whom expressed an interest to him to use it for enforcement. Therefore, while the City does not have an enforcement mechanism like I discussed above in #1, the information collected from it may be used by county and state law enforcement. No one else from the public attended the meeting. I also notified Supt. Moore and Pres. Carlile about the Council's vote and expressed my hope that this would tamp down the speeding around the ICISD campus. Copyright 2023 G Noelke

If approved, this Texas bill will remove parental approval for a student's participation in human sexuality instruction. UPDATE: Neither of these bills survived the legislative session and therefore never became law. Should parents have the right to remove their child from human sexuality instruction in public schools? HB 78, if passed, would take it away, and more. There's also an identical companion bill, SB 59. These bills are currently pending in the Texas legislature. Specifically, they would delete this language from 28.004 of the Texas Education Code: (3) a statement of the parent's right to: (A) at the parent's discretion, review or purchase a copy of curriculum materials as provided by Subsection (j); (B) remove the student from any part of the district's human sexuality instruction without subjecting the student to any disciplinary action, academic penalty, or other sanction imposed by the district or the student's school; and (C) use the grievance procedure as provided by Subsection (i-1) or the appeals process under Section 7.057 concerning a complaint of a violation of this section; The formation of the ICISD School Health Advisory Council was just approved by the Board last week. Their upcoming meetings are public and hopefully will be posted on the District's website, as required by the Education Code 28.004 (d-1). Do parents need more or less sunlight in the classroom when it comes to sexuality instruction? How do you feel about the right to file a grievance being taken away, as these bills also do?

In future rain storms look for the rainwater coming out of this pipe on the northeast corner of City Gym. This is the source for some of the roof water that floods our streets, park and the football field, a consequence that was known - but never planned for - by ICISD and the City of Mertzon before ground was broken for the gym. As I said in this post, It is Wrong to Treat Teacher Pay This Way, I took issue with Governor Abbott using teacher pay as a hostage to get what he wants with vouchers. In a turnaround, however, yesterday he expanded the scope of the special session so that now teacher pay can be considered. Here is his message, with my comments underneath: My comments: Might this mean using teacher pay as a hostage for vouchers was not a winning card in the legislature? Sure looks like it to me. Here is one press account about what is going on, which is to say that no one really knows. Note that the expansion is for more than just teacher compensation. In Texas, one significant power of the governor is to call special sessions and determine what the legislature will consider. Two things jump out here that I have been addressing on this blog: public school accountability and school safety and its funding. Watch for more on these issues. Remember this: for all the property tax relief homeowners may be getting from the ongoing vote on amendments to the Texas Constitution, TEA has stated that their security upgrade rules are costing billions. Here's a handy Reports page on the Capitol web site that will help you search for House Filed and Senate Filed bills. I suspect that the Governor's expansion is so comprehensive because there are already a number of bills filed that he is having to negotiate over. Take the time to be a reader. If you learn to read government documents like this and go to the source to read them for yourself (I found this within seconds on the Governor's web site), you will not be as susceptible to misinformation on the web.

Floodwaters, partly from runoff from the Irion County ISD campus 2019 bond projects, entered 3rd and Duncan last week on the way to the football field. A state district court in Travis County last week granted the Temporary Injunction request of the plaintiff school districts who challenged TEA raising the STAAR accountability metrics. I have previously addressed this litigation here at Note 3, and here is a KERA article on the granting of the TI. You will also find the Plaintiff's Second Amended Petition along with the judge's order granting the temporary injunction request on my new Documents page. Both documents are fully downloadable as pdf's. Irion County ISD is not a party to the litigation. Note: the day after the judge ruled, TEA filed an accelerated interlocutory appeal to the 3rd Court of Appeals. In other words, this case is far from over. Copyright 2023 G Noelke

Flooding at the Mertzon City Park after about 3.5 inches of rain on October 24-25, 2023. That's the football stadium on the right. Here is the agenda for the October 30, 2023 special School Board meeting, with my comments below: Here are my comments: This is a fine example of a special meeting agenda with only one topic - safety. "Special" in this case only means that it is not the regular monthly board meeting. And, unlike that last meeting, this is not an "emergency" meeting held within the 72 hour posting deadline. (More than 72 hours will have elapsed from the time it was posted on October 26 at 2:30.) Most of the meeting will be held in closed session. No problems with that, though when it comes to safety, particularly after the Uvalde school shooting, I think the District needs to balance secrecy with open government. Again, huge dollars are involved, and there needs to be some check on school districts so that school boards also think about costs to their taxpayers. Here is the website for Gallagher Construction Services. Note at agenda item 2 there is an "Open Forum" portion. This is because, yes, even during a special meeting, as in regular and emergency meetings, there has to be part of the meeting dedicated to the governmental body receiving public comments. There was a time under the leadership of prior Superintendent Ray DeSpain and prior board President Vicente Flores that this portion of the meeting was taken off the agenda. I protested, and the agenda item was eventually put back on all meeting notices. Do not ever, ever take your First Amendment rights in a public meeting for granted. Always read to make sure there is an open forum on the agenda. If one isn't on the agenda, find the presiding officer or staff member before the meeting and ask to be recognized for a public comment during the meeting. For more on your statutory rights to speak at an open meeting, see Texas Government Code 551.007. Watch for an update after the meeting.

Updates: Four days after this meeting, the Board held an emergency meeting and approved a $109,190 contract for video security surveillance at the campus. For the specifics on how Texas law changed in 2023 related to school safety, see HB 3 and its $327+ million fiscal note. Here are my comments for the October 16, 2023 Irion County ISD School Board meeting: School safety goes underground. The Board used its executive session in this meeting to discuss the results from the unannounced safety inspection done by the ESC, Region 15. Then upon entering open session they voted to "approve the 3 year safety audit and move forward with recommendations" without any discussion. Taxpayers should receive more information than this. School safety has become a huge expense for Texas taxpayers. In late 2022, before the 2023 legislative session, I objected to TEA's proposed school safety rules (19 TAC 61.1031) that, once implemented, were to have cost Texas schools $2.1 billion. The Texas legislature appropriated hundreds of millions in 2023. And, at ICISD, there was also a $30,000 budget amendment in the 22-23 budget for additional safety expenses. And for all this expense, our community gets a watered down motion to approve a surprise safety audit, discussed in private and with no discussion in public, that was done by a quasi governmental body (ESC 15) that has no enforcement authority to regulate its findings?! And, it is a 3 year audit, meaning the next one won't occur for another three years?! School safety has turned into big dollars, and I believe this is the consequence of our state legislature and Congress being unwilling to regulate gun control. These expenses are largely the legislative response to school shootings. See this comprehensive list of shootings in Texas, including schools. If we don't regulate guns, we have to regulate, and pay, to keep them out of our schools. (My views on gun laws are nuanced, so don't leap to conclusions here. I sure enjoyed going dove hunting last week...) My interest in school safety originates from ICISD using safety as a dog whistle to justify closing 4th Street and its alley to plant City Gym where it is, not from gun control. There was absolutely no evidence of a child ever being injured from crossing the street; the gym's location was really just a matter of convenience to the athletic program, and the public's safety was entirely disregarded even though the District knew about the flood risks. And, one can only wonder whether the on campus stormwater flooding created by the new gym was addressed in the safety audit because that also was not discussed publicly. Financial Report. CFO Helms reported that TEA returned $70,000 recapture overpayment from last year, and Moak Casey finally came back with a revenue estimate for the current fiscal year for the wind farm agreements at $100,000. OPEN RECORDS UPDATE ABOUT MOAK CASEY'S ESTIMATES: Last month I did an open records request for the District to provide me with a copy of any document from Moak Casey explaining their miscalculation on revenue last year. See this page for background on the $800,000 shortfall. No documents were provided because Moak Casey did not put anything in writing. There is clearly no accountability for these wind farm agreements, and there is therefore reason to consider even this $100,000 figure suspect. Remember, as I explained here, what was then considered to be lucrative wind farm agreements were the economic justification ICISD leadership used for the affordability of the 2019 bonds. My comfort level for any 2024 bonds has just decreased. Continued silence on monthly expenses. The Board failed at both Helm's report and during the consent agenda to ask anything, anything, about the monthly expenses report. This is very uncharacteristic, as I reported here last month. I am currently reviewing several months worth of monthly expense reports that I received from my Open Records request last month, and my early impression is that no one wants to talk because the new budget is already getting blown up. When things are going well it is easy for board members to laugh about the inspection expense of an elevator, but when things get rough its hard to laugh away an almost $22,000 a month electric bill. Accountability/STAAR Rankings: Superintendent Moore's report included the litigation against TEA brought by a number of school districts regarding the latest accountability standards that I addressed last month here at # 3. There is a possibility she said that districts might go without standards for 4 years, but ICISD is acting as if standards are in place. I'm not sure of her basis for the 4 years, but any appeal of the case to the Texas Supreme Court could last that long if the parties don't settle. Here's another article that addresses what the kerfuffle is all about. The original petition can be found here. That's "original", meaning "first", and I'm sure it has had lots of revisions since that was posted. I am trying to get more information on the status of the case. Since it was filed only in August, consider it to be in its infancy. Pending.

The sky wasn't falling, best I could tell, immediately prior to the Oct. 20, 2023 ICISD school board meeting. But, the City of Mertzon was in process of paving parts of 5th Street at Fayette, just above the GMPL. I just attended the ICISD emergency meeting, discussed by me earlier here. Frankly, my "the sky must be falling" standard for whether there was a true emergency failed. I couldn't tell whether the sky was falling! The most important issue was approval to purchase (through a new company, Ener-Tel) security audio/video monitoring. While no one ever mentioned any explicit "emergency", Superintendent Moore appeared to talk around the issue of a particular area on campus that was insecure, as determined in the recent safety audit. So, perhaps, perhaps, the Board and Superintendent were being speedy with correcting the deficiencies from the safety audit, and the safety audit itself was the basis for the emergency. But, as criticized here in School Safety Goes Underground, it's impossible to know anything about the safety audit because it wasn't addressed publicly. Was the sky falling? I can't say. But, the Board thought enough of it was falling to approve a $109,190 contract for 10 years with Ener-Tel. A budget amendment wasn't required because the District had available some school safety grant money. Apparently the Ener-Tel services are quite robust, which raises all sorts of issues. The example given by Supt. Moore was that if they wanted to search for a "red shirt" the software would be able to locate the red shirted students. What about facial and vocal recognition? Add AI to this mix and there's real potential...for good...and evil. More on AI in the future. I think we are all blindly walking into the unknown with AI and public education. The other issue on the emergency agenda was approving a DAEP campus. This is an easier call. There isn't a student currently, as in right now, immediately, requiring such a campus location. As such, the sky wasn't falling, and this wasn't an emergency. Was anyone harmed by this apparent failure to strictly follow the law? Probably not. But, it raises the issue of crying wolf that I mentioned before. More on AI and school security in later posts. If you are interested in AI issues, I recommend the Hard Fork podcast.

Here is an urgent special meeting agenda, also called an emergency meeting notice, with my comments below: My comments: This is indeed a rare example of an emergency meeting notice. School districts are required to post their meeting notices for 72 hours, and it appears this one was posted about 9 hours shy of that given that the meeting is at 8:00 am on Friday and the 72 hours would have run at 5:00 pm. Emergency meetings are governed by the Open Meetings Act at Gov't Code 551.045. When you get into the weeds, you will find: (b) An emergency or an urgent public necessity exists only if immediate action is required of a governmental body because of: (1) an imminent threat to public health and safety, including a threat described by Subdivision (2) if imminent; or (2) a reasonably unforeseeable situation, including: (A) fire, flood, earthquake, hurricane, tornado, or wind, rain, or snow storm; (B) power failure, transportation failure, or interruption of communication facilities; (C) epidemic; or (D) riot, civil disturbance, enemy attack, or other actual or threatened act of lawlessness or violence. And, then, there's this: (c) The governmental body shall clearly identify the emergency or urgent public necessity in the notice or supplemental notice under this section. The way I interpret all this, to boil it down, is to hold an emergency meeting the sky must be falling and...you have to say the sky is falling in your notice. On its face, I'm not sure this agenda does that. Why does 9 hours matter? Well, in the big picture it probably doesn't. But, it still has to be an emergency, a true emergency, and one thing is for certain - the unavailability of board members or missed deadlines, for example, shouldn't be the basis of emergencies. And, of course, if a school gets to cry wolf all the time, then when a serious public emergency is happening no one will take the notice seriously. As to "Discuss/Approve budget amendment as presented", again, I think this is insufficient notice. What is this amendment about? And, if this is indeed an emergency, I think that being specific about the amendment is all the more compelling. True emergencies cost money, and an emergency budget amendment ought to be spelled out so taxpayers know how their money is being diverted. I may update these comments up until meeting time...

You'll be seeing the Flame Leaf Sumac next month on the highway between Mertzon and Eldorado. Texas writer Lawrence Wright said this in a recent interview with Fresh Air: "A state has really two obligations. One is to create opportunities. And in that I would say making it possible for businesses to work, making sure our justice system works, making sure our children are educated, you know, these are all ways of creating opportunity. But the other thing that a state, or a city, or any political entity is supposed to do is to create community. And that is where Texas is falling down. And, its not just Texas, it's happening all over the country. But, Texas sets an example that is very contagious, and I think Texas is responsible for a lot of that, and it accounts for the reason people hate Texas so much in way they don't hate Wisconsin or Michigan or places where you have also, you know, radical elements raging out of control. But Texas stands for all that disunity and so we have to shoulder the responsibility of the kind of culture we have been creating." Fresh Air at 31:00 And so, I refer you back to my About page where I mention that Irion County ISD and the City of Mertzon are unique microcosms for our country's experiment with democracy. Here's the question: are ICISD and the City of Mertzon satisfactorily creating opportunity and community? Let me know what you think.

Here is the agenda for the October 16 2023 Mertzon City Council meeting, with a few comments below: Comments: The meeting starts at 6:30, so there is overlap with the ICISD School Board meeting that starts at 6:00. If you miss this meeting, you'll have to physically go to City Hall and listen to the recording. The District has recently started posting its board meetings on this page, but you have to act fast. They have coded their links to expire after a few days! The better approach for the City and District would be to post meeting audio/video on YouTube so that it is easily accessible, particularly on mobile devices. The Council appears to be sticking to their guns on the language prohibiting the attack on character during public comments, and so am I. The language is overbroad and begs for a 1st Amendment challenge if they ever try to enforce it. The District recently abandoned the language on its agendas. The bond matter is for improvements to the drinking water. My understanding is these are no cost bonds, and we will not see an increase in taxes. The insurance item relates to employee health care, based on my recollection the last time this item came up. Government employees need and deserve good insurance, as it is one of the few perks to the job. The Council should be prudent but not over think the costs here. This page may be updated up until the time of the meeting.

As is often the case, the important matters are discussed in private. Here is the agenda for this meeting, with my comments below. Comments: The meeting is at 6:00 pm, and coincides with the Mertzon City Council meeting that starts at 6:30. Athletic Director Conner is listed as giving an administrative report. His appearance at board meetings in the past has been sporadic, even though he commands a large slice of the budget, received most of the 2019 bond funds and the athletic program clearly has the board's attention. He needs to report at every board meeting or have a sub to report if necessary. Reporting publicly creates accountability, and win, lose or draw, Athletic Director Conner is a public servant. The consent agenda is chock full of potentially controversial issues that might go without discussion - sex ed, legal fees and mounting maintenance and operation costs. Similarly the closed session has plenty of meat on it. First, sun worshippers can only hope at this point that the District makes known publicly something about the safety audit. I'm not concerned with the opinion of the Safety and Security Specialist, presumably at Region 15; certainly not everything in the audit is protected. Second, note the bond workshop. To my knowledge, this is the first public notice of a potential new school bond package. Why "health insurance" is worthy of a closed session isn't clear to me. Caveat: my review of any of these closed session matters is not an opinion on whether they do or do not qualify for a closed session. One reason citizens need to observe public meetings through to the end are items like item 11, "Action items from Closed Session". Presumably this section allows the Board to vote on matters discussed in closed session. In practice, at least under Supt. DeSpain, the Board was clearly conducting business in closed session to avoid taking votes in public. (If you've been to as many public meetings and executive sessions as I have, you learn to read a room, if you know what I mean.) In addition, the agenda item is potentially a missed opportunity for the board to make public things it discussed in closed. For example, the Board might want to announce publicly that it did well on its safety audit, or portions of the audit. A different way to address this agenda item would be to revise it to read, "Discuss or take action on items in closed session" or something to that effect. This page may be updated up until the time of this meeting.

Did you know there is more water flowing in Spring Creek in Irion County than the Pedernales River in Travis County? The Pedernales is bone dry. I can't recall a time that I have ever seen Spring Creek dry. Update: This page has been updated. Having been a state employee for 24 years (some of that time as an Assistant Attorney General under Gov. Abbott when he was our Attorney General), I think it is wrong, terribly wrong, for Gov. Abbott to hold teacher pay hostage in order to get the vouchers he seeks, as described in this Texas Tribune article. Government employees, including and especially teachers, are not pawns. The State gets what it pays for, and if the Gov. doesn't value the human element of the teaching profession, the consequence is less qualified teachers. Our state needs to finance permanent funding for teacher pay so that exactly this kind of political leveraging can't occur. Say what you will about the inefficiencies of public education (and I do in this website!) treating teachers in this way underscores our state's lack of dedication to public education. Whatever the solutions proposed in the "voucher like" savings plan the Governor wants, what it will do is take more government out of the sunshine.* My solution, instead, is to increase the sun light and create public accountability where none exists. Creating a permanent funding source dedicated solely for teacher pay is a better approach here. Teachers should not be leveraged this way. *Update. As of the time of this posting, October 15, 2023, the latest version of SB 1 makes absolutely no reference to the Public Information Act or the Open Meetings Act (chapters 552 and 551 of the Texas Government Code). The legislation also allows for gifts, grants and donations (at 29.353). My experience at Irion County ISD is that school districts DO NOT want to disclose their private donors, even to the point of defying specific Attorney General opinions on the matter. Any voucher system ought to require the highest level of public scrutiny. Taxpayers deserve greater accountability, and a private voucher system without safeguards for sunlight for where the funds are coming from will allow corrupt influence and inefficient use of funds. Here is the current version of SB 1. This will, of course, change, and here is where you can monitor its legislative history. The bill that takes teacher pay hostage is SB 2, and you can follow its history here. As discussed above, this bill goes no where if the Governor doesn't get what he wants in SB 1.