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That golden color you might be seeing in Irion County now is not our Fall coloring, but could be the native Tickle Tongue tree losing its leaves from the heat and lack of rain. Update: this page was updated with new language at the first bullet point at about 5:00 am on August 28, 2023. Below is the agenda for the 6:00 ICISD board meeting on Monday, August 28, 2023, with my comments below the agenda. GOOD PARENTING CIVICS TIP: Parents, consider coming to this meeting and at agenda item 3 a asking the school board to increase the salary of your child's teacher. (Discussions at the previous two board meetings indicate that teachers may only get a one step raise for the 23-24 budget cycle, which will likely be less than the rate of inflation. In other words, teachers at ICISD will essentially be getting a pay decrease.) I attended school board meetings when my own children were in public school, and during open forum I advocated for increased teacher pay. I can assure you that being a public advocate for better teacher pay (it is not enough to tell the principal) will garner both you and your child great good will with their teachers and directly impact their education in a positive way. "Democracy is not a spectator sport" can also mean speaking positively during open forum about how you want your tax dollars spent. Comments: Unless you have been either monitoring this site or regularly attending meetings like I have, you wouldn't know from this agenda that it is at this meeting that the District will be making up for an approximate $145,000 budget deficit. Taxpayers should not be kept in the dark about budget shortfalls, nor should they be kept in the dark about budget amendments. (The "as amended" language does not give a citizen sufficient notice to protest the budget amendment during open forum.) The wording in this public meeting is not taxpayer friendly, and it is taxpayers who are the lifeblood of our public education system. Here is the Board policy on public comment, should you choose to speak on the proposed tax rates or teacher pay. To be safe, read both the Legal Framework and Local Policy. If Irion County Tax Assessor Collector Joyce Gray makes a presentation, as she usually does at this meeting, listen up. You are certain to learn from her. Proposition 4 of the November 7, 2023 constitutional amendment vote will likely come up during this meeting. Here is the ballot language that you will be voting on. Watch for updates to this site following the August 28 board meeting.

August has been so hot and dry that the cactus up on Cowboy Hill are wrinkled. A half inch rain was welcomed, unless you were downstream of Irion County ISD. After visiting with Supt. Moore yesterday (literally in the streets as she was surveying the flooding from her car), I realized I needed to re-educate the school since those who have created the flooding by building City Gym and the GMPL are not taking responsibility and inspecting the damage on their own. So, click on the image below to see what the tail end of a sudden 1/2 inch end-of-summer downpour looks like on the north side of the ICISD campus: This is nothing, folks. In due time, there's going to be several inches of rain...and...

One consequence of having Irion County ISD basically tell the City of Mertzon how high to jump is permanently flooded city streets that ALL city taxpayers must pay for. Are we getting our money's worth when we pay tax dollars to city council members and the mayor just to attend meetings? Update: This page was updated Tuesday morning, August 22, 2023. The Council on August 21, 2023 approved the 23-24 budget that kept in the $35,000 for council pay. Other than myself, no member of the public was present. Did you know the City of Mertzon, unlike other nearby cities of similar size, has a budget of $35,000 annually just to pay its city council members and its mayor to attend meetings? The City's new Mayor, Aubrey Stewart, is trying to trim the budget and this is clearly one area he wants to cut. Here is the audio of a lively budget debate from the Council's August 16, 2023 budget meeting on this issue. Mertzon City Council Disagree over Council Member Pay at https://youtu.be/teYAe9cg0LU. Council members Danny Crutchfield, Charlene Holland, Jayton Lindley and Randy Councilman favor leaving the $35,000 in place for the next year, while Mayor Stewart and Council Member Micah Elliot favor reducing it or zeroing it out. The budget has not been voted on, so citizens still can weigh in with their opinions. Below is the information collected by City Administrator Michelle Wardlaw regarding how much the nearby cities are paying: What do you think? I think I'll let my photo at the top of this page do my talking.

The skeleton of the previous bus barn torn down to make way for City Gym lays rusting on the north side of the ICISD tennis courts. Ironically, the District is at total build out, so that if it creates any more impervious cover (like putting this barn back up) it worsens the flooding of itself...and its neighbors. Updated: This page was last updated during the early a.m. hours of August 18, 2023. I have uploaded some audio on the presentation given by CFO Robert Helms, and you can access that here: August 14, 2023 ICISD Financial Report with video of stormwater sources at new gym: https://youtu.be/QI6-6s7Mf0s You can see earlier video of the same area under floodwaters on this page. Take away the silos - what income from taxes and expenses are mandated and untouchable - in any government budget and what you'll get is a more wholistic view of community values. The same goes for the report given by Irion County CFO Robert Helms this month. Take away the silos he discusses and you can ferret out our community values. If you listen closely what you hear is that the District is going to have more than enough to pay on its bonds next year. In fact, the District is going to be able to pay off extra, on top of the minimum. But, the District will only be able to give an embarrassingly small raise to its teachers next year. Which is to say, it will most likely be a pay cut because it won't keep up with inflation. And, what about that $840,000 projected deficit that was disclosed last month? That has been whittled down to about $145,000 by mere luck more than anything else. High interest rates. Interest income from investing the bond money was higher than expected because of higher interest rates, creating more interest income than previously budgeted. "It is what it is," said Helms. But, is it? What is the "it"? The "it" that is not readily transparent (but no doubt tangibly felt by our teachers and their families) is that our funding system and budgetary values have created an incentive to build buildings, particularly for athletics, at the expense of paying higher teacher salaries. Imagine a Helms' report that went something like this: "We have enough money in the budget to give every teacher a 5 percent raise, plus a cushion for the next budgeting cycle because we have dedicated teacher salary investments; we will always have money for teacher pay raises." This just won't happen. There are silos to build buildings, but no silos to pay for teachers. Buildings and budgets represent community values. It is really that simple. ICISD's 2019 bond build out was indeed building athletic facilities to knowingly flood itself, our streets, property, park and even its prize football stadium, while at the same time the District's 23-24 budget will squeeze teachers essentially to the point of forcing them to take a pay cut. All the while the District plans for the future by paying off its bonds early so that it can go into debt again. (And, don't miss this in Helms' report: the District was rated "Superior" in TEA's Financial Integrity System of Texas (FIRST). This is in spite of my notifying TEA from the very beginning of the great flood potential from using the 2019 bond funds to build the gym. I have yet to hear a single response from TEA.) These are strange values. Add to this that children are going to have to navigate the District created floodwaters and, well, this all qualifies as something totally bizarre. Just as I said here, you can't make this stuff up. If Texas and this community want a better education for our children, we will place a greater value on paying our teachers, and a lesser value on paying our coaches to do things like ICISD has knowingly done - build a gym that floods the community and ICISD itself. The gym, City Gym as I call it, is clearly a symbol for our misplaced values.

Above is the August 14, 2023 school board agenda, with my highlights in yellow. Below are my comments regarding this agenda - Supt. Moore's first agenda as superintendent: At last, there is relief from the language prohibiting an attack on character of board members and employees that I argued was unsupportable here and here. In its place is a reference to "Policy BED". Here are the links to the local BED policy and its legal framework. I enjoy reading such policies, but you might find them tedious. I would boil it down to these 3 things: a public speaker in open forum needs to not incite a riot or be violent; the presiding officer needs to give at least one warning that the policy is not being complied with; and, staff and board members need to have thick skin and check their feelings at the door - democracy is not a spectator sport. And, of course, everyone needs to remember these are the days of bountiful ink. A trigger happy errant superintendent or presiding officer who wants to shut down public comment runs the risk that the public speaker will respond with, yes, a web site in protest. Not to bury the lede here, but the most significant part of this meeting will be the presentation by Irion County Tax Assessor Collector Joyce Gray at agenda item 2. This will be the third year I've listened to her tax rate presentation to the District (and I've listened to her for 3 years at the City), and she really is excellent at boiling down the latest tax law changes to an understandable form. Her presentation is part 1 of the board (not Assessor Collector Gray) setting the tax rate for next year, so if you intend to complain about high taxes this is the meeting where you would lodge your first protest. This should also be the first public presentation about the potential impact on school finance if the November 7 2023 constitutional amendment is approved by voters. See Proposition 4 here at the Texas Secretary of State site. The introduction of a "consent agenda" at agenda item 5 is a great tool, so long as the board members come to the meeting prepared. It has been painful to watch board members review financial documents for the first time at the meeting and fail to have substantive questions for the CFO. If they are diligent and come prepared they can pull something off of consent to discuss separately, if need be. But, if they have "checked out" they will regretfully use the consent agenda to speed through the meeting without any prior preparation. Consent agendas can be both good and bad tools. The itemized topics in executive session at item 7 are a good way to keep both the board and public focused on what will be discussed. Executive sessions must be tightly controlled, and one that lasts for 2 to 3 hours (as this board does sometimes) is a sure sign the board is off agenda. Also new is some of the language in the next to last paragraph, including a reference to their policy on what is permitted in closed session. See the BEC Legal policy here. It was my experience after serving as counsel in quite number of executive sessions that board members were inclined to treat the laws limiting what was permitted in closed session as only guidelines, not the law, unless the presiding officer and executive director were strong leaders and knew the seriousness of a violation. Watch for audio of a portion of this meeting to be posted on this site a few days after the meeting.

This is a portion of the architect's drawing calculating the gallons per minute of rainwater that will flow from the new gym during a 4.25 inch rain in 1 hour. I spent some serious dough back in 2019 merely trying to get ICISD to measure the amount of stormwater runoff that they were planning to direct into our streets, my property, my neighbors' property, our City Park and our football stadium if they built the proposed gym and cafeteria kitchen as planned with the bond funds. If you would like your government to be a good Scout and plan ahead for the disaster they are about to unleash upon you, try out the Texas Private Real Property Rights Preservation Act for size. (The law itself is at Chapter 2007 of the Texas Government Code.) In the hands of a school board and former superintendent hell bent on spending tax payer dollars for a new gym and a football field that needs to be converted from 11 man to 6 man, such private property right protection laws are as counter intuitive as government budgeting for disasters in advance, what I call the Grand Mistake. To date, since 2019 and after many, many Public Information Act requests, ICISD has refused to release any data on how much stormwater from all the impervious cover related to the new gym and cafeteria kitchen. But, I found a back door that offers some insight. Some. Architects are required to meet certain standards under the International Plumbing Code for roof drainage systems. Gutters, downspouts, scuppers, etc. all have to have the capacity to manage the worst of the worst rain storms - the 100 year flood. Here is that law. And here, obtained through my Public Information Act request to ICISD, is ICISD's architect Jeff Potter's architectural drawing for the roof of the gym intended to comply with the IPC requirements. According to this document, the roof system for the entire gym must be capable of managing 1,547.7 gallons of stormwater per minute in a rain of 4.25 inches per hour, the estimate used for a 100 year flood. Were it to rain 4.25 inches in an hour, that would be 1,547.7 x 60 minutes = 92,862 gallons! My estimate is that would be about 1/3 of an acre foot of water, or 1 acre of water 4 inches deep. In one hour, from the roof. To be accurate, this relates only to the rainfall upon the roof of the gym. The area of the gym exterior walls, sidewalks and parking, including the Grand Mistake Parking Lot, would have to be calculated by someone with far greater math skills than me to come up with a more precise and comprehensive figure. There is also the stormwater from the upper end of the basin that has to be added. So, 92,862 gallons in an hour is merely a starting figure. Is that enough for ICISD to develop an emergency plan to protect the children in its care and to protect its down elevation neighbors in a time of flooding...flooding that it contributes to from its own campus? We shall see when the rains come. But the District's refusal to share the public documents that will forecast a more accurate flood event than I can predict here is causing me to think that when the rains do come it is going to deny all responsibility. I hate to think that way, but the truth is they already have the data.

Were these 2019 upgrades to the football field fiscally prudent when the District knew its decisions to build the gym in its location was certain to increase flooding at the football field? Ask that question the next time you see the football field flood. And it is going to flood again... One goal of this site is to create a historical record so that when new government leadership is elected, appointed or moves up in rank that they have some foundational understanding of how past decisions were made and who made them... In the spring and summer of 2023, our community all at once underwent a significant leadership change. We now have a new Mayor (Aubrey Stewart), new Mayor Pro Tem (Jayton Lindley), new ICISD Superintendent (Nikki Moore), and new ICISD board leadership (President Maegin Carlile*, Vice President Ricky Rey*, Secretary Ashley Hill* and new board member Tony Martinez). While I've covered the decision to close 4th Street on the pages City Gym and Alley Oops, I thought now would be the opportune time to add some audio to the mix so that this new leadership could hear it straight from the horse's mouth. So, here is the August 17, 2020 audio of Irion County ISD Athletic Director Jacob Conner's presentation to the Mertzon City Council to close 4th Street, along with the Council's vote to close. The "Description" link on the YouTube page show the indexed times, so you can click on those to jump around in the audio to save time. Here are a few of my observations: Conner's presentation clearly avoids the elephant in the room - that the gym location he proposes will cause storm water runoff that will not only flood streets, homes and the City Park, but ALSO will flood the very football field he manages and at the time of his presentation was being upgraded. He simply does not address the issue of storm water flooding. And, he can't claim ignorance of the issue. The District paid approximately $25,000 for its own hydrology study, the Hydrologic and Hydraulic Study Irion County ISD Football Field, which was completed in May, 2020, just 3 months before this presentation. This study transparently shows that the 4th Street proposal by Conner was in the same basin as the football field. Conner is obviously failing to disclose this study. And to put a fine point on his failure to address this huge issue, only moments before his presentation I had spoken in open forum against the same location because of the storm water flooding it would cause. I have been speaking against the new gym because of flooding issues since April 2019, prior to the bond election. There is no clearer evidence of the District's willingness to flood itself - and its neighbors - than its failure to heed my repeated warnings while ignoring its own hydrology study. (And the District continued to ignore the study as recently as June 2023 when it completed what I have labeled the GMPL, the Grand Mistake Parking Lot. The storm water runoff from this lot is in the same basin as City Gym and the football field.) Consider whether Conner's statements proclaiming that there would be plenty of parking have aged well. It already appears that in its first year that there was not sufficient parking. This will be something that the City has to contend with for the life of the gym, a cost they didn't discuss. Texas law provides that coaches are responsible for keeping emergency access lanes open during competitive events, so it would appear that Conner is dependent upon the City for his compliance with the law, a cost that he likely failed to consider. The City Council's failure to ask Conner a single question during his presentation and, after the executive session, their lack of discussion of the motion to close the street are quintessential signs of a pre-engineered outcome. Another sign that the decision to close the street was pre-determined was the technical motion to close, which was likely approved by the lawyers for the District and the City. (It is commonplace for lawyers to draft motions in advance for their clients in controversial situations.) The motion, however, failed to close the alley, an issue I cover at Alley Oops. This audio makes it crystal clear that there was no public discussion as to the alley. The City Council's failure to discuss Council Member Danny Crutchfield's motion to close after the executive session was a fatal failure to establish a record that the Council believed it was for a good governmental purpose to close the street. Establishing that good purpose, or essentially that their act was in the public interest, is essential under their statute (Texas Local Gov't Code 51.001) to pass an ordinance, which is required when closing a street. See City Gym. Had the City Council handled this motion properly, however, they would have been hard pressed to establish a good purpose given the street, residences, park and football field flooding that were a forgone conclusion were the gym to be built at the 4th street location. Moreover, the District leases the land for the football filed from the City, so the City was always in a double bind to establish that it was in the public interest to close a street that would contribute to the flooding of the land it oversees for the public's interest. For even more on the dispute over where the gym should be located, see my post Pickin' A Fight. To be certain, Conner's comments here come after the City Council had previously told the District they could not have the 4th Street site and the Board - except for one member - voted to approve an alternate site that would not have flooded me. I may add additional comments here in the future. Stay tuned. *Carlile, Rey and Hill were on the ICISD Board on the date of Conner's presentation, but they didn't hold leadership positions at the time.

When drained for maintenance or by failure, this new fire suppression water tank for City Gym first will drain onto Juanita, 4th and Fleming streets, then it will drain onto my property...and then onto my neighbors' property. The audio for the Irion County ISD School Board Approval of Monthly Bills and Budget Amendments, July 2023, can be found at this link https://youtu.be/NKa2qXzoxaY. I've added an index to this audio to save you some time, and you can find that by reading the Description of the audio on YouTube. Below are my comments on this audio and more: This was new Superintendent Sara "Nikki" Moore's first meeting as Superintendent of ICISD. Former Superintendent Ray DeSpain is now at Giddings ISD. The report by CFO Robert Helms includes that the District costs for electricity for the new gym, City Gym, is approximately $4,000.00 a month. F-o-u-r thousand. That's outrageous. Based on Helm's report the District needs to have someone evaluate whether the gym is programed for energy savings. Clearly, the units are not programmed as even from a block away it is possible to hear the units cycling on and off. Helms also stated that the District was about to have to replace some AC units at great expense. Four thousand a month, or $48,000 a year, is enough to pay for a 9 or 10 year experienced teacher, counselor or nurse at the current ICISD salary schedule. If the Athletic Department had been required to reduce its budget by the amount of electricity for the gym, not to speak of other upkeep during its lifetime, its leadership might have been a little less eager to promote that the District needed 3 gymnasiums. Anticipating that the District wasn't budgeting in the massive expenses associated with a new gym, back in June 2022 I requested a copy of the District's most recent long range energy plan required by Texas Education Code 44.902. No documents were provided in response by Supt. DeSpain. Section 44.902 requires the Board of Trustees to develop a long range plan to reduce annual electric consumption by 5%. I am providing the full text of this section at the very bottom of this page. I stand by my earlier comments that any agenda using the term "as presented" (as in "Discuss/Approve budget amendments as presented" at Item 6 of this meeting agenda) is too vague under the Open Meetings Act. Helm's report clarifies that the budget amendments in this agenda relate to bus driver stipends, bus aides and appraisal expenses. The public needs to know at least the general areas where the District has missed the mark on budgeting. As it is currently, the District does not stream or archive its meetings and posts no updated financial data online, so the only way a taxpayer would know about budget mishaps like these is to appear in person at the meeting wondering what "as presented" could possibly mean. (That's what I did!) More specificity would also create some accountability in situations like the recent $98,000 budget amendment for already purchased athletic equipment. There is simply no transparency with agenda items using "as presented". The fix is simple: "Discuss/Approve budget amendments related to bus driver stipends, bus aides and appraisal services". Helms also states (around 1:15 in the recording) that the recapture to the State is over $15 million. This amount is probably the largest ever for the District. ICISD is a "wealthy" district because of its mineral wealth - it sits on the eastern shelf of the Permian Basin oil reserve. Roughly 98% of the tax base in Irion County is from its minerals, unlike, for example Travis County, where there are no minerals and the tax base is from the value of its prized real property. The way the state educational funding mechanism works ICISD is effectively rewarded for its capital improvements because the funds used for that are not subject to recapture. The anti property right attitude of its school board is in part due to the District's lack of reliance on appreciating real estate values. (So, if they flood their neighbors' homes and render them valueless, it is meaningless to them; they still have ample funds from the mineral wealth to build and pay all maintenance and operations expenses from the mineral tax base income!) This is not a sustainable funding mechanism for public education. When there's a glitch in budgeting like there is here - the wind farm revenue falls short $840,000 and leadership failed to budget for the costs of electricity for the new gym - it becomes readily transparent that the values of this school board are for athletics and not the funding of education's principal resource - it's teachers. Paying teachers more and creating incentives for an appreciating real estate market so that families want to move here to increase their financial wealth will improve our education system. Here is the law I referenced above that requires the school board to have an energy conservation plan: Sec. 44.902. LONG-RANGE ENERGY PLAN TO REDUCE CONSUMPTION OF ELECTRIC ENERGY. (a) The board of trustees of a school district shall establish a long-range energy plan to reduce the district's annual electric consumption by five percent beginning with the 2008 state fiscal year and consume electricity in subsequent fiscal years in accordance with the district's energy plan. (b) The plan required under Subsection (a) must include: (1) strategies for achieving energy efficiency that: (A) result in net savings for the district; or (B) can be achieved without financial cost to the district; and (2) for each strategy identified under Subdivision (1), the initial, short-term capital costs and lifetime costs and savings that may result from implementation of the strategy. (b-1) For purposes of Subsection (b), a strategy for achieving energy efficiency includes facility design and construction. (c) In determining under Subsection (b) whether a strategy may result in financial cost to the district, the board of trustees shall consider the total net costs and savings that may occur over the seven-year period following implementation of the strategy. (d) The board of trustees may submit the plan required under Subsection (a) to the State Energy Conservation Office for the purposes of determining whether funds available through loan programs administered by the office or tax incentives administered by the state or federal government are available to the district. The board may not disallow any proper allocation of incentives.

4th Street in May 2020 looking South at the location where City Gym now sits. This is before demolition and construction started. The City's property at this location is 80 feet wide. UPDATE: Listen to audio of Irion County ISD's meeting on this page. The City of Mertzon and ICISD each are having regular meetings on Monday, July 17, 2023. For ICISD, it will be Supt. Moore's first meeting as superintendent. Below are agendas for each meeting and a few of my comments follow. My comments: When these meetings conflict, I have found the City to be quite accommodating in allowing me to drop in later and listen to their audio recording of their meeting. Audio of public meetings is public. To date, ICISD has taken a polar opposite view. Even when I have formally requested audio the response from Supt. DeSpain was that the District did not record its meetings. (A digital recording by any board member or school employee, by the way, is most certainly a public document.) A recent change in their policies requires that they not only record them, but they also should post them on their website. I favor live streaming of public meetings with archived access to prior meetings. This is 2023, after all. If a government body wants the public engaged, they will make their meetings accessible 24/7/365. Note especially this language on the ICISD agenda: Discuss/Approve budget amendments as presented. I have previously argued that "as presented" was too vague for notice to the public in a posting. Why not be more specific and tell the public something like, "Duscuss/approve budget amendments related to athletic and transportation departments," for example? As stated previously, I can find no authority for the language prohibiting an attack on character found in both agendas. Each agenda calls for an executive session under Texas Gov't Code 551.074 relating to personnel matters. Here is how that law reads: "Sec. 551.074. PERSONNEL MATTERS; CLOSED MEETING. (a) This chapter does not require a governmental body to conduct an open meeting: (1) to deliberate the appointment, employment, evaluation, reassignment, duties, discipline, or dismissal of a public officer or employee; or (2) to hear a complaint or charge against an officer or employee. (b) Subsection (a) does not apply if the officer or employee who is the subject of the deliberation or hearing requests a public hearing."

Road Runner on Cowboy Hill, Irion County, July 2023. This is a terrible time for ICISD to be in the hole $840,000. Read this article at the Texas Tribune about the impact of the Legislature's inaction is having on other school districts.

The north side of City Gym. This photo shows where 4th Street once went through - and still exists in a legal sense because the street was not closed properly. Also, note the two downspouts that drain directly into 4th Street. At tonight's special called ICISD Board meeting, the Board unanimously approved Dr. Jessica Parker, current Principal of ICISD Elementary, as Interim Superintendent. As previously mentioned, this appointment was necessary to cover the 21 day waiting period before Superintendent Moore takes the chair. There was little discussion around the motion to approve, and there was no executive session. Interim Superintendent Parker will serve until July 16, 2023, assuming my math is correct and Superintendent Moore starts officially on July 17.

There is a special board meeting on Friday, June 30, 2023 to hire an interim superintendent. Here is the agenda. My best guess is that this meeting is necessary because, technically, Superintendent Moore can't formally do the job until the 21 day wait has expired. An interim would be needed to do the work of a superintendent if DeSpain's resignation is already effective or would be effective the last day of this month, June 30. My understanding is that an interim would have the same authority as the permanent superintendent. Back in 2019, it was an interim superintendent, Johnny Clawson, who signed the contracts for the Phase 1 bond construction with WBK Construction. Mr. Clawson was pleasant enough, but the contract didn't have any teeth in it for delay penalties. So, an interim superintendent can really tie the hands of the permanent. This interim superintendent needs to start praying for clear skies. Here is my video of the July 1, 2020 flood. So, we do get summer floods. This video is from BEFORE City Gym was completed. Now that the gym is complete, the next one will be far worse. Here is some good info on how to purchase FEMA flood insurance for my downstream neighbors. I have this flood insurance and encourage everyone in the downstream area to purchase it ASAP. You will not be turned down, but there is a 30 day waiting period after purchase before the policy is effective.