School Daze

You know, we really are having a school board election in the school district that I live within. We really are.

But that would come as a big surprise to those candidates who have filed to run in the May 11^th election, but as of yet, have not filed a campaign finance report.

As of today, of the 6 people running for 2 positions on the Fort Bend ISD Board of Trustees, only 3 of them have filed the month out campaign finance report.

I like to read these reports to help make my mind up as to which set of construction company owners I want to have representation on the school board.

Jim Rice, an incumbent for Position 3, has filed an actual campaign finance report.

He has thousands of dollars at his beck and call. The guy has a giant war chest for someone running for a position that pays nothing. He raised over 16 grand and spent over 7 grand, mostly on consultants.

But 4 days after the filing deadline, his opponent, Venesia R. Johnson has yet to have a link to her campaign finance report posted at the Fort Bend ISD Trustee web page.

In Position 7, two of the 4 candidates have filed papers. Rodrigo Carreon was first to file an affidavit that states that he has no intention of raising any funds or spending any funds greater than $500 which is the limit allowed by the TEC.

Cynthia Lenton Gary filed an expense report with a bunch of zeros in it for the period covering 3/11/2013 to 4/11/2013 and the link was updated to the Fort Bend site yesterday.

But the two other candidates, Keciana Enaohwo and incumbent (no less) Dave Rosenthal have not filed. Rosenthal is one candidate that I know for a fact has campaign expenditures because his signs are popping up all over the county. I know Rosenthal has some lucre, but not how much or from whom.

Now it could just be that the people who maintain Fort Bend ISD’s website are simply unable to keep up with the vast workload that goes into scanning a hard copy and posting a link to the PDF. Or it could really be that the 3 candidates have really not filed a campaign finance report. That might be of interest to the TEC which is a “fine” organization. Or if the former is the case, the District needs to know that this is a real election and failing to post relevant information on the school board candidates is a poor service to their “clients.”