Driver or passenger?

I attended a candidate forum Saturday morning at Harrington Library.  This forum was hosted by the Collin County Democratic Party.

The following Plano ISD candidates were in attendance: Michael Friedman, Sharon Hirsch, Yoram Solomon, Missy Bender, and Paul Kaminsky.

In the Q&A portion, an audience member asked Mr. Friedman about the recent TRE ratification status.  Specifically, the questioner stated that the TRE raised approximately $60M over the biennium and that it cost the average taxpayer about $194 per year, the equivalent of one tank of gas per week.

After that, his question to Mr. Friedman was simple: "Do you know where the money went?".

Mr. Friedman's response was also very simple: "I don't know".

This kind of bewildered response concerns me.  I voted for the TRE because the Board of Trustees and others made a really good case for it.  But now I am left wondering whether one of our Trustees was helping to drive the vision or just along for the ride.

Personally, I prefer the person who represents me on our School Board be a driver, not a passenger.

Analyzing the "30 Days before Election" Campaign Finance Reports

I pulled down the most recent campaign expense reports for a quick read yesterday.  Here are a couple interesting items I found.

Source: http://www.pisd.edu/about.us/board.of.trustees/CampaignFinanceReports.shtml

The sitting President of the Board of Trustees appears to have a preference for a Place 4 candidate:

A local PAC made a pretty healthy contribution to that same Place 4 candidate:

This PAC made political contributions over the years to candidates such as Mitch McConnell, Joe Kennedy, Ted Cruz, and Tammy Duckworth.  The balance of Dem and GOP candidates seemed roughly equal.  I noticed the last donation to the Cruz campaign was $1,000, the same amount as this local school board election.  I guess the old adage is true, that "All politics is local."

Here is a quick overview of the PAC I found online:

http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/tigr/political-activities.html#top

Interestingly, that same PAC made a contribution to another sitting candidate who ran (and won) in the last election cycle:

Source: http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/tigr/receipts-disbursements.html

Perhaps this is a mere coincidence, but my common sense tells me otherwise.

Key Communicator's Candidate Forum - April 23, 2015

I have unfortunately been disconnected from our Plano ISD Trustee election activities due to heavy travel for my job over the past year and a half.

But I did get a little free time to attend the Key Communicator's forum that was held this week at the PISD Administration Building.  The forum is always helpful and well-organized.  I appreciate all the hard work from the volunteers who put it on.  Thank you.

The forum archive is here, and I'd encourage everyone to view it and make your decision for the upcoming election on May 9:

http://pisd.edu/about.us/key.communicators/MeetingResources_April2015PlanoISD.shtml

I took very detailed notes so I could reflect before I posted here.  My assessment is that, with one exception, all candidates are high-quality and we should be well-served by two of the three candidates vying for Place 4 and the two candidates vying for Place 7.  Place 6 candidate David Stolle runs unopposed in this cycle, and he will definitely serve us well in the next term.

I decided to distill my notes down to a single word that describes each candidate.  It helps me to classify things like this (I tend to be pretty analytical).  As I thought a little more about it, I decided to choose a word for each that started with the letter "E".  Here goes, in pseudo-random order:

Yoram Solomon - Educated

Missy Bender - Experienced

Sharon Hirsch - Eupeptic (trust me, this is a good thing)

Paul Kaminksy -  Eccentric

Mike Friedman - Egotistical

I do want to mention that I have met each of the candidates personally, and frankly I have enjoyed my conversations over the past couple of years with Mr. Kaminsky.  I believe his heart is in the right place, and he really loves kids and the job he holds as a substitute teacher in PISD.  I don't mean any ill will by my word choice for him above.  I actually think he might get a chuckle out it.

I'm Back!!

Stay tuned, PISD peeps.