2009 FBISD Tax Hearing (On YouTube)

CLICK HERE FOR THE 2009 FBISD CONTROVERSIAL TAX HEARING (YES THEY ARE RAISING THEM AGAIN--see petition of over 500 district taxpayers asking for board accountability) --In case anyone missed it they raised the property tax rate again (4th time) in 2010 and more than likely will do so again in 2011 facing another projected 15-20 million dollar budget deficit, according to some media reports. ***NEW*** ..Petition TO STOP THE GSTC (Global Science Museum being planned at the district central office--near $30 million dollar project that superintendent Jenney is pushing): http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/stopthegcst/ (see update below on this apparently ending this project after 2 years)

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

FBW Exclusive: FBISD ORDERED BY TEXAS ATTORNEY GENERAL TO TURN OVER REQUESTED "GLOBAL SCIENCE CENTER" DOCUMENTS!

FBISD ORDERED BY TEXAS ATTORNEY GENERAL TO TURN OVER REQUESTED "GLOBAL SCIENCE CENTER" DOCUMENTS!

After numerous requests over several months and before public hearings by taxpayers of FBISD and many formal requests for all documents and communications surrounding the $27 million dollar taxpayer funded controversial "Global Taj Mahal" and continued district attempts to block these requests (by the superintendent) until after the 7-0 school board vote in June, the Texas Attorney General has ordered the school district to comply.

The following order from the AG's office is reprinted below in it's entirety (Feldman, Rogers, Morris & Glover, LLP are one of the legal vendors for the school district, which we pay our taxes to regarding issues like the one below. How much did they bill the district to help with-hold this information from the public until after the school board voted on this project?):


ATTORNEY GENERAL OF TEXAS
GREG ABBOTT

July 20, 2009

Mr. David M. Feldman
Feldman, Rogers, Morris & Grover, L.L.P.
5718 Westtheimer Road, Suite 1200
Houston, Texas 77057
0R2009-09996

Dear Mr. Feldman:

You ask whether certain information is subject to required public disclosure under the Public Information Act (the "Act"), chapter 552 of the Government Code. Your request was assigned ID# 349446.

The Fort Bend Independent School District (the "district"), which you represent, received a request for nine categories of information pertaining to a specified district-created committee. You state the district has released most of the responsive information. You claim that the marked e-mail addresses within the submitted information are excepted from disclosure under section 552.137 of the Government Code. l. We have considered the exception you claim and reviewed the submitted representative sample of information. 2. We have also considered comments received from the requestor. See Gov't Code § 552.304 (providing that interested party may submit comments stating why information should or should not be
released).

The district initially raised sections 552.1 0 1, 552.111, and 552.117 of the Government Code but has since withdrawn its claims under those exceptions. 2. We assume that the "representative sample" of records submitted to this office is truly representative of the requested records as a whole. See Open Records Decision Nos. 499 (1988),497 (1988). This open records letter does not reach, and therefore does not authorize the withholding of, any other requested records to the extent that those records contain substantially different types of information than that submitted to this
office.

Mr. David M. Feldman - Page 2

Section 552.137 excepts from disclosure "an e-mail address of a member of the public that is provided for the purpose of communicating electronically with a governmental body" unless the member of the public consents to its release or the e-mail address is of a type specifically excluded by subsection (c). See Gov't Code § 552. 137(a)-(c). Subsection (c)(l) states that subsection (a) does not apply to an e-mail address "provided to a governmental body by a person who has a contractual relationship with the govemmental body or by the contractor's agent" and subsection (c)(2) states that subsection (a) does not apply to an e-mail address "provided to a govemmental body by a vendor who seeks to contract with the govemmental body or by the vendor's agent[.]" Id. § 552.137(c)(1), (2). You inform us that the owners of the e-mail addresses at issue have not consented to their release. Accordingly, the district must withhold the e-mail addresses you marked under section 552.137, except to the extent that any such address is the address of a person or agent of a person who has or is seeking a contractual relationship with the district. The remaining information must be
released.


This letter ruling is limited to the particular information at issue in this request and limited to the facts as presented to us; therefore, this ruling must not be relied upon as a previous determination regarding any other information or any other circumstances.

This ruling triggers important deadlines regarding the rights and responsibilities of the govemmental body and of the requestor. For more information conceming those rights and responsibilities, please visit our website at http://www.oag.state.tx.us/open/index orl.php, or call the Office of the Attomey General's Open Govemment Hotline, toll free, at (877) 673-6839. Questions conceming the allowable charges for providing public information under the Act must be directed to the Cost Rules Administrator of the Office of the Attomey General at (512) 475-2497.


Sincerely,


Bob Davis
Assistant Attomey General
Open Records Division
RSD/cc
Ref: ID# 349446
Ene. Submitted documents
cc: Requestor
(w/o enclosures)


FBW comment: The only question now is will the district continue to with-hold this lawfully requested information and potentially invoke further sanctions from the state?

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

How many months has this been going on?

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Patriot Missive said...

WONDERFUL!! With the lights on this wasted venture cannot continue!

Maybe now we can "reframe" our science needs in a way that will truly help students and taxpayers. Building a shrine to science in a bad (or good)economy is simply a misguided ISD venture.

only_time_will_tell said...

I agree patriot! I believe I read in the report that they are spending the same amount on this wasteful building project as they could have spent on new science labs for all the schools. Is this true?

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Anonymous said...

I find it interesting that the order only states that the school system can with-hold the e-mail addresses. Hopefully that means they must turn-over all the information contained in those e-mails with the exception of the e-mail address and not the letters themselves as I'm sure the lawyers for the district will claim?

Patriot Missive said...

Admittedly it is a tough letter to read, which is why reporters and watchdogs called the AG and confirmed that FBISD must give over ALL the documents that were requested.

No one ever requested private email addresses. That tactic was a smoke screen by the FBISD attorney to get the AG to drop the case.

This ruling is a big breakthrough for taxpayers, students, teachers, and the Private Houston Museum of Natural Science satellite in Telfair.

Don't miss the tax meeting at the FBISD Lexington location at 5:00 August 10th!

Anonymous said...

I wonder why our so called "school leaders" seem to stop thinking critically when it comes to indiscriminate spending like this project. This doesn't put more resources in the classroom but has the indirect consequence of removal of them via the funding diverted to pay for this thing.

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Anonymous said...

Please---Google Tim Jenny.


Then you will see this is just a pattern that little TIMMY follows everywhere he goes. How did he get hired?????????
Total disreagard for the Law. And a total disregard for the voters wishes. How much longer will the voters tolerate a rubber stamp board that puts up this ths Little Timmy.Don't worry he's spending your money not his!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the tip. Wow, it's hard to believe all that. I remember reading about how he'd built a project like this at his last school administrative post. I wonder why they didn't wait until after the economy improved and some of this debt problem with the district was cleared up.

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