I think the reason people don’t get involved and vote is that there are too many damn elections. Who has time to focus when it seems the every week, one governmental body or another is holding an election to get more money from taxpayers?
Amongst the many other elections being held May 10th, the newly renamed Lone Star College System is going to ask the voters within its boundaries to fork over another $420 million in bond money. This is the same system that voters turned away when they asked for $200 million in 2006. I guess the thinking is that if they double the amount, voters will know it is vital for the future!
When you drive down into the details, an ugly picture emerges. The supporters of these bonds tout the needs of the business community and how LSC is providing necessary workers.
Darrell Pile, executive vice president of Tomball Regional Medical Center, applauded the board’s decision to call a bond election and efforts to remedy the critical staffing shortages in the health care industry.
With Medicare recipients expected to double within the next several years, Pile said, “the demand exceeds the capacity. We have the patient beds, we don’t have enough staff.”
Hospitals are facing a severe shortage of nurses, radiologists and other technical positions. The college system, he said, is providing the solution.
“You’re helping us get that staff,” Pile said. “I genuinely know you’ve done the right thing.”
Wow, that sounds great, doesn’t it! Mr. Pile needs workers, LSC is providing them. Not so fast. If you look at the bond proposal, LSC is going to spend $17.5 million of taxpayer money to build a new building at Mr. Pile’s hospital. So that he can continue to treat Medicare patients. Nice sucking at the teat there, eh?
Tom Butler, President of the LSC-Montgomery campus, seconds Mr. Piles notion that LSC is providing workers for the health industry.
With the student population expected to reach 72,000 by 2015, Tom Butler, president of LSC-Montgomery, said it falls to the expanding college system to prepare a competent workforce and give area residents access to affordable and quality education.
“Lots of students are older, have families and a difficult time picking up and moving somewhere else for a degree,” he said.
The system is the primary provider of nursing and health care workers in north Houston, Butler said.
Really? Let’s see what Mr. Butler has to say about growth and expansion in actual courses offered.
In addition to creating more parking space for faculty, staff and students, Butler said the college plans to build a 65,000-square-foot satellite campus in north Conroe, giving north Montgomery County residents easier access to college courses. Conroe has already pledged land to set aside for the new facility.
By hundreds of percents, the fastest growing programs at the Montgomery campus are music and drama, Butler said.
The bond will help fund a 20,000-square-foot arts instructional building for the popular classes, including band, orchestra and choral practice rooms.
Got that? By “hundreds of percents”, students are flocking to band, orchestra and choir classes. Lots of workers going to be blowing horns, playing fiddles and singing vibrato in the unemployment line or while they are dishing out Big Macs.
And if you look at LSC’s own propaganda, out of the $420 million, only $240.6 million, 57.3%, is going to actual classroom instruction. And of that $240.6 million, $34.9 million will be used for instruction in the arts, meaning that less than 50% of the $420 million will actually go to viable skills for employment. Not good.
$44 million will be used to build a few comfortable lounges for students. Hey, these students are tired at the end of the day! They need their comfort.
The AFT represents the faculty and staff. After they were defeated in the last election, they “grieved” over the loss.
We also grieve the loss on the bond referendum and wonder what we will do now.
Why were they so sad? Because temporary buildings might have to be used and it will put them on “the wrong side of the tracks”.
If public schools are any indication, “temporary” eventually becomes permanent, adding a certain “wrong side of the tracks” quality to our otherwise well planned and beautiful wooded campuses.
Yeah, what works for public schools, from which your students come, isn’t good enough. Now that you are “professors”.
The LSC propaganda is located here, in your choice of English, Spanish or Vietnamese. You might want to take one of the handy dandy pocket cards with you to the polls so that you can see where your money is flowing.
Lastly, I was given a copy of a questionnaire sent out to candidates for the LSC board of trustees on official union stationary by one of the “professors”, Robert Locander, Political Science Professor, AFT-LSC Executive Board Member.
This is the first question:
1. Describe you qualifications for the office of college trustee.
Nice.
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40 Responses to “Lone Star College Bond Election”Search
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*snork* LOL. Ya know what I mean? muahahaha. Great write-up, BJ.
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$420 Million and no tax increase? This sounds vaguely familiar:
Even the question mark is the same. I’m a few sammiches short of a picnic, but this seems like a tax increase. Am I wrong?
Bu…bu….it’s for the chilren’, right?
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It’s less than 30 days till we vote. Most people will not go to the polls. The only voters will be us and those who are invested in seeing this idiotic bond issue pass. We are being screwed once again. You know at some point, since it happens so often, you would think I would start liking it.
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Thanks Big Guy. Is LSC just Montgomery County?. I think it is high time that Education enter the market place. I realize that there are exceptions, but with distance learning, internet possibilities and other market place ideas. Maybe we could lower the amounts that the tax payers ‘donate’ to the Engineers, Architects etc. who seem to be the prime beneficiaries of the bond money. ( see also Toll rd. Sports Auth. MTA’s and Gov.Medical systems.) I think we should at least get Dan Patrick to make the Sate of Texas require ALL such boards to be elected. All elections to be on election days.
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Another problem inherent in the bond/trustee election are voting locations. Once again the majority of early voting locations are located on district property. When I checked out the polling location for my district to vote on election day, May 10th, I had to pull up mapquest to even find the location!
It’s garbage as usual. Why our schools are run by a bunch of politicians and educrats who are out to get into our pockets with no real benefit to the community just astounds me.
But - I hope people get out and VOTE DOWN this bond. I don’t know of any better way to send a message to LSCS that they need to go back to the drawing board, and next time ask a few people other than their hand-picked committee members what the community really wants and is willing to support financially.
List of voting sites:
http://www.lonestar.edu/135710/
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What is our current LSC tax rate? Isn’t it 11.44?
I’m working on a letter to the editor for The Villager. Help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance! I’ve tried to get back onto the Mudgomery County website to further review the bond on the ballot, but can’t back into it.
Don’t worry AW. I’m trying to do my part to help smash this bond again.
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On that same day the voters will be asked to approve a $640 million dollar bond for Klein ISD, and guess what! You’ll have to go to TWO different polling locations to vote in the two bond elections.
Over a billion dollars in bonds are in play and they are actively trying to minimize the number of voters voting. in a climate of falling real estate markets and valuations.
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St share with me any info you can scare up….. I’ll go block to block here in my subdivision.
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People in my subdivison are going to be clueless about this. I need simple talking points. Where do I go to put together ideas for a simple flier?
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Rorscach, are you in the Klein area? If so, get my e-mail address, I might have a story for you about the school board.
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I am being election judge again for this one…someone PLEASE come vote so we can actually have a number to post on the door!! I am working Hirsch Elementary if anybody is in this area.
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AW: am working on it. I want to steal some lines from BJ, upon his approval of course!
BJ, please check your e-mail in 5 minutes or your earliest possible time. I want to submit this for next’s weeks paper. Thanks.
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This is a rerun of my prior notes posted elsewhere:
Lone Star College System District
link to map of included school dists at:
http://www.lonestar.edu/7557/
LSCSD (recently rebranded at something over $300k cost)states growing enrollment is driver for the almost half billion borrowing. I don’t have numbers of increases in campus based clients vs distance learners and concurrent credit high schoolers who DO NOT regularly attend a campus. If the remote student population is growing faster than campus based clients we do not need major campus expansions. Does anyone have those numbers?
As to candidates, Stephanie Marquard has occupied P3 for 12 years, presiding over the ‘06 bond debacle and never seeing a spending/tax increase she didn’t like. Take a good look at Fred Blanton for P3, he’s expressed interesting takes on marketing the district and combining efforts with other entities to better use the resources we’ve got.
Priscilla Kelly, P9, is a career educrat with the Klein district, which coincidentally wants big bond borrowings as well. Of the challengers I’ve met Gail Stanart and plan to speak with her at length, the others did not show at the meet & greet I attended.
John Fox, P4, is stepping out. Of the contenders Robert Adam,is unimpressive, at least in a group setting. I have not seen Terry Morton.
Alan Quintero, P6, has substantive business/technical bachground. Challenger Jason Roper has financial svc and political experience in his resume,and states he wants reduced appraisal caps. We know the college dist doesn’t do appraisals but don’t know if this desire for caps translates to revenue neutral budgeting or not, will ask him about that. I’ve not seen Bob Wolfe.
In my view the bond will pass, the candidates are not discussing it, leaving the cheerleading to Ray Laughter, a district mucky muck.
If you view the district website, you’ll not find much info on the incumbent trustees, just name, position, residence and business affiliation.
I hope this is viewed as contributing to the discussion. Most candidates have some web presence, you’ll have to hunt for ‘em, but it’s worth your time and effort, otherwise the thieves and scoundrels whip us again.
Let’s at least boost the usually dismal dist voting numbers! They want half a billion bucks, not so fast bucko!
Best
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Duhmoose, I don’t have access to your email but you can have mine, redinktexas(at)gmail(dot)com. and yes I am in Klein. I was asked to be a election judge for the LCS bond election at Revival House Church but I passed on it. It would have been the third election I ran in 6 months and I just needed a break.
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I will also point out that state law precludes a school district employee from holding a college trustee position, so Priscilla Kelly is in violation of the law and has been for a while. Bob Wolfe is the father of Michael Wolfe, the guy that tried to endorse his father (among other people) for district clerk through the candidate review committee report that was rejected at the HCGOP EC meeting. This is the same Michael Wolfe that is on the Harris County board of Education and who is about to be censured and asked for his resignation. and who was in charge of running the GOP primary until he was fired by Woodfill for his circulation of his “non-endorsement endorsement” list.
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We should pass all bonds because they will only cost a few pennies a day and property values will always be increasing because HCAD told me so and this will produce educated and well rested workers who are cultural because of all the art classes they are taking and besides all students have grown accustomed to these educational perks because we have already raised the bar with the $100 million high schools that we are building and free laptops for seniors though to be fair we should be giving laptops to every student because I’m sure the Europeans are doing that because their education is much better than ours anyways since they know all about that global warming stuff caused by President Bush’s evil war for oil.
(what my mind would look like if I actually believed the brainwashing that we’re told)
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Gail Stanart is a well known in Senate district 7. I don’t know if that means anything, but she was on the stage at the district senate meeting. There were 3 or 4 people on stage who were with the lonestar college district. This appears to be a stepping stone in Texas politics.
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I was recently told trustees receive the benefit of taxpayer provided health insurance. And that they may take it along when they leave, at our cost, for life.
On 4/16 I sent a simple email query to the dist, asking:
Does the district provide health insurance coverage to board members during their tenure and after their departure?
How extensive is this coverage?
How many current and past members are enrolled?
What did this cost in calendar year 2007?
On 4/17 I was advised by return email that said questions are deemed covered by TXFOIA and were being forwarded to the dist piro (public info request officer). I do not recall the allowable time frame for response but the early vote may well be done before a response arrives.
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Well Grumpy that tidbit of info tells me that being a trustee is considered lucrative. Free insurance for life….. unbelievable. Time to start digging, get the facts and let the truth be known. I’ll take any info anyone can supply.
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Grumpy,
The requirement is 10 business days. If you get it in before 4:30 pm today, you will have it on May 2nd.
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Friends and fellow tax serfs:
I’m in the Humble area and the following is a verbatim copy of a ‘blog’ entry from the Atascocita/Humble/Kingwood Tribune of Mar 11, 08. It is attributed to Wilson Calvert.
I post it w/o comment though you, gentle readers, may have a few.
College District Election
First, the college district had its you-know-what kicked the last time they went to the voters with a bond issue. Last week, the board of directors voted to call for a new $420 million bond - and - in my opinion as a permanent faculty member there, they need the money! There are more students than ever at the campuses, they have done a good job with the money they’ve been given and we NEED good community colleges. I have to question the fact that they have a community board for input to which I say, hello! - think I’d invite the media to show up if I wanted to pull off a successful bond issue, especially considering the humiliating failure they suffered last time. Remember? They tried to change the polling locations at the last minute and begged all the faculty and staff to help out only to find that they couldn’t do that.
Additionally, the district is under seige from a real contingent of NUTS. There are a handful emanating from Spring, mostly, who want to destroy the status quo. It was so bad the last time that the district hired a top gun from Austin to handle PR.
There is a group out there who are determined to ruin the district and Kingwood’s Stephanie Marquard has one running against her. There is already one on the board and two more running for positions. If folks don’t get educated and see the truth, I really fear for our great college system. If you want to know who they are, email me at ccalvert@ourtribune.com and I will tell you.
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Thanks Big J…the effective date of the inquiry should show on dist logs as 4/17 then. I’ll advise findings soonest available.
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Grumpy I think I have some of that info myself, let me see what i can find in my records. If i can find it I’ll post it.
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I’ve saved everything y’all have posted so far. I googled Gayle and nothing came up.
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Why can’t our wonderful state legislature pass a law that requires all elections for public entities to be held on the same day and that there will be only two such days per year, one in November and the othe in the spring?
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Grump, I’m not having any luck finding it, I’ll keep looking though.
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#24 if you are looking for information about Gail Stanart, she is the wife of Stan Stanart (runs CLOUT and is the Republican candidate running for Harris County Education Trustee position in November)
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#25 N/A, they already have, but there is no requirement that they hold them AT THE SAME PLACES. so the result is you have TWO elections running on the same day at two different polling locations. Actually probably more because I’m sure some mud districts and ESD districts are holding bond elections too.
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As to head counts, this was emailed to me the other day:
http://www.lonestar.edu/5453/
The on campus head count has actually decreased from 2006 to 2007 in both the fall (’07) and spring (’08) semesters.
Take the total number of growth, from each semester (fall and spring) and then subtract the increase of concurrent and distance learning, and you will see that the actual on campus enrollment decreases.
The main justification for the bond is the increase in enrollment….. yet these figures show the on campus physical enrollment has decreased. Net increase is from those not using facilities that are slated as the main reason for the bonds….i.e. physical facilities!
Check my reading of the numbers, but you see the concurrent and distance in the lower rows of the spread sheet.
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Another link on enrollment numbers:
http://research.nhmccd.edu/iepublish/studpsp2008.pdf
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More info on how much is going to what and the people involved with the “citizens review committee”
http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/6/26/1214829/LSCS%20Bonds.pdf
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What we need is a law out of Austin (okay, so we’re already into ain’t-gonna-happen territory) which stipulates that all school district elections, bond elections, etc, etc all fall on the ballot for the Primary or the General elections.
– Ken
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Hey, the changes their name - what else do you want?
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#32. Ken Kelley Says:
all school district elections, bond elections, etc, etc all fall on the ballot for the Primary or the General elections.
I couldn’t agree more. It would also help to cut down on the costs associated with running the local elections by cost sharing initiatives. The 2006 election for LSCS must have cost the taxpayers a bundle, because it had to be run twice. Freaking crooks. And the fact that the board of directors approved the first 2006 polling locations is a full indication that they did everything they could to try to hide the election from the public.
We most certainly need a change in the status quo.
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Wow, what a boondoggle the LSC looks to be, and not just the upcoming bond election. Is this outfit accredited by a reputable agency? Is it a community college/junior college? More power to you folks who live within its boundaries in derailing this madness.
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#25 & #32 have it right!
We need to vote on any school bonds/taxes with the rest of the crooks infesting our government offices {in November}. The ONLY reason why the school districts have their votes in May is for the light/non-existent turn-out.
Normal people are preparing for their summer vacations and not interested in voting for bond elections. Each and every single school district employee is VITALLY interested in the school bond elections and will show up, insuring passage, most of the time.
Write your Texas legislators.
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Foolme once…but not twice.
No candidate forums…..
No debates…..
No….. nothing, but employees voting.
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Bu…bu…but they changed their name and they are after all only asking for twice as much two years later?
What a crock….
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Sounds like an obvious no vote to me.
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As one of the candidates pleas feel free to look at my modest website http://www.ropercampaign.com
I do here and agree with what you are all saying.
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