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Monica Flores Richart

I don’t see any issue with HCC campaign contributions and the Maldonado vote

Mar 7th, 2023
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

I appreciate the reporting in this story, but ultimately I think it’s a nothingburger.

The four trustees who voted to extend Houston Community College Chancellor Cesar Maldonado’s contract received a combined $78,000 in campaign donations from a political action committee whose chair was found expressing interest in the renewal effort, according to records obtained by the Houston Chronicle.

Questions have arisen about the potential involvement of Jonathan Day from the Houston Business Education Coalition, after a voicemail recording surfaced where a man identifying himself as Day asked to speak to Chairwoman Cynthia Lenton-Gary about the issue.

Maldonado’s contract extension still failed, with five trustees – including Lenton-Gary – voting Wednesday against re-signing. (Lenton-Gary’s available campaign finance filings do not show any contributions from the PAC.)

“I’d be very interested in talking with you briefly about the pending issues with the renewal of the chancellor’s current arrangement with the college,” Day, naming himself as the chair of the coalition, said in the voicemail. “Please give me a call at your convenience.”

The recording signaled a more drawn-out fight over Maldonado’s contract than was previously known: Conversations about the pending deal had largely taken place behind closed doors in executive session. But several administrative problems in Maldonado’s nine years as chancellor were part of the fight. Two of the trustees who voted against the renewal afterward cited steep declines in admission as well as lawsuits brought under the chancellor’s tenure – including one alleging discrimination against Black employees – as some of their personal reasons for opposing his continued leadership.

Trustees Monica Flores Richart, Eva L. Loredo, Charlene Ward Johnson and Adriana Tamez voted in favor of the extension. While they each reported campaign contributions from the business education PAC, all four denied financial influence in their decision making. Day also denied any ethical conflict occurred.

“We’re people who pay taxes, we have an interest in the performance of the college,” Day said in a phone interview. “That’s materially affected by the selection of the chancellor, the chief executive officer. We of course have an interest in that. I think it would be very disappointing if the business community here in Houston was not vitally involved in that kind of a matter at the college.”

[…]

The five trustees who voted against Maldonado’s contract extension did not offer any reasons immediately after the Wednesday vote, nor did the chancellor react. He did not respond to requests for comment.

In a letter issued to the HCC community, however, Maldonado cited several gains in student achievement and building a financial reserve of $256 million as some of his biggest accomplishments.

“I am proud of my service as chancellor of HCC and of the many accomplishments, awards, and recognitions we have achieved together since May 2014,” Maldonado said. “The best is yet to come and we must all keep advancing the institution’s goals – keeping true to our North Star, the ultimate student experience, which shines bright and guides us from good to great in every aspect of our college’s service.”

But in separate phone calls, two trustees pointed to a number of management issues in Maldonado’s administration as their reasons for voting ‘no.’ One of those is a systemwide decline in enrollment, with more than 12,000 students lost between fall 2019 and fall 2020 – although system officials say they expect more than 30-percent increase in enrollment growth through 2035.

“I voted not to renew chancellor’s contract because of the precipitous decline in enrollment, underperforming campuses, poor fiscal management, absence of a turnaround plan and an astounding number of lawsuits involving current and former personnel,” District IV Trustee Reagan Flowers said. “I fundamentally believe that we need to move this institution in a new forward direction under different leadership.”

One of those lawsuits is seeking $100 million from the system. Filed in 2020 on behalf of hundreds of current and former Black employees, the suit alleges that 90 percent of the longtime black professionals at the community college have either been terminated or demoted since Maldonado arrived, compared with 10 percent of white employees who have been displaced. Hispanic hires and promotions, however, have increased by 50 percent, according to court documents.

The plaintiff’s attorneys also claim that Maldonado used a list of tactics to undermine and get rid of black employees, including padding their personnel files with false complaints to be used as reasons to fire them, using the word “transformation” as a code word for getting rid of black employees, placing doubt on black employees’ claims, and forcing black employees to take leaves of absence without cause in order to use those as grounds for termination.

[…]

Several of the trustees with donations from the PAC said they took issue with any claims that their votes were cast under financial influences. Richart said she received many perspectives and opinions on the matter of Maldonado’s contract, but the decision was hers alone.

“As a Trustee bound by law, ethics rules, HCC bylaws and policies, and my own moral code, I made this decision, as I have all other decisions as Trustee, based on the best interest of the College,” she said. “To suggest otherwise is an insult to not only me, but each one of my colleagues who have received campaign contributions from individuals and groups who care about the future of HCC and Houston.”

See here for the background. It’s very easy to slide into whataboutism when arguing about the ethics of campaign contributions, so let me just say that I found the case for possible shenanigans here to be unpersuasive. You can feel however you want to feel about Mr. Day and his PAC – I’d have to take a deeper look at their donation history, but it would not surprise me if I viewed them unfavorably, given the context. Lobbyists lobby, it’s what they do. That includes lobbyists for causes and organizations that most of us here support. As far as this example goes, put me down as in agreement with what Trustee Richart says.

The thing here is that there’s a perfectly good case for casting either vote on this matter. I thought it made sense to move on from Chancellor Maldonado, for reasons mostly in line with those of Trustee Flowers. Against that, it’s clear that he did a lot of good work – read the comments on my previous post for a strong defense of Maldonado – and retained the confidence of a significant portion of the HCC community. I don’t see any reason at this time to doubt the sincerity of anyone’s vote. I’m happy to have this phone call come to light – more sunlight, please do bring it on – I just don’t think it made any difference. If there’s more evidence out there to suggest otherwise, let’s hear it. For now, I have no issues with what happened.

January 2023 campaign finance reports: HCC

Feb 9th, 2023
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

Previously: City of Houston, Harris County, HISD

As with HISD, I last checked in on HCC Trustee campaign finance reports was last January. Three of these people will be on the ballot if they all run again, but we’ll see about that.

Monica Flores Richart – Dist 1
Charlene Ward Johnson – Dist 2
Adriana Tamez – Dist 3
Reagan Flowers – Dist 4
Robert Glaser – Dist 5
Dave Wilson – Dist 6
Cynthia Lenton-Gary – Dist 7
Eva Loredo – Dist 8
Pretta VanDible Stallworth – Dist 9


Dist  Candidate     Raised      Spent     Loan     On Hand
==========================================================
1       Richart          0          0        0       2,608
2       Johnson      1,585      2,781    5,000       1,196
3         Tamez          0        127        0      10,980
4       Flowers          0        991        0       2,199
5        Glaser          0          0    4,000       8,292
6        Wilson          0          0        0           0
7   Lenton-Gary          0          0        0           0
8        Loredo          0      1,427    7,000       4,777
9    Stallworth          0          0        0           0

Reagan Flowers, Robert Glaser, and Pretta VanDible Stallworth are the Trustees whose terms are up this year. Glaser is the interesting case, given the lawsuit alleging sexual harassment against him. I still don’t know where that stands despite the previous agenda item to discuss a possible settlement. HCC campaigns are small dollar and low profile, so it’s not like he’d face months of having his name dragged through the mud if he runs again. But he still might decide to go away quietly, because who needs this trouble? It could go either way.

Charlene Ward Johnson, who won a special election runoff last June to fill the remainder of Rhonda Skillern-Jones’ term, is the only person to raise any money in the last six months. Glaser’s cash on hand total is exactly the same as it was in last January’s report, meaning he has neither raised nor spent any money in the past year

Reagan Flowers closed out her state campaign finance account after her unsuccessful run for HD147, so she doesn’t have any further funds at her disposal.

That’s it for the January finance reports. The July 2023 ones will tell us more about where the election is this year. Let me know what you think.

January 2022 campaign finance reports: HCC

Apr 1st, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

Previously: City of Houston, HISD

If HISD campaign finance reports are less sexy than city of Houston finance reports, then HCC finance reports are like HISD finance reports wearing thermal underwear. Nevertheless, we persist.

Monica Flores Richart – Dist 1
Adriana Tamez – Dist 3
Reagan Flowers – Dist 4
Robert Glaser – Dist 5
Dave Wilson – Dist 6
Cynthia Lenton-Gary – Dist 7
Eva Loredo – Dist 8
Pretta VanDible Stallworth – Dist 9


Dist  Candidate     Raised      Spent     Loan     On Hand
==========================================================
1       Richart          0          0        0       2,608
3         Tamez      9,775     15,040        0      12,641
4       Flowers      8,561     18,440        0       2,985
5        Glaser          0          0    4,000       8,292
6        Wilson          0     14,879        0           0
7   Lenton-Gary          0          0        0           0
8        Loredo     10,589      6,418    7,000       8,520
9    Stallworth          0          0        0           0

The July 2021 reports are here, and the 30 day reports for November are here. As you might expect, all the action comes from the trustees who were on the ballot in November.

Dave Wilson sigh is now listed in the HCC campaign finance reports system as “David Wilson”, which I’m pretty sure is new. I’d say for sure, but there are no past reports for him that I can find, even though he’d been a trustee before and has been a candidate for trustee many times. Every other incumbent has every single finance report for their time in office available through this interface, but not Wilson. I don’t know if this is because of a quirk in their reporting system that can’t handle trustee with discontinuous service time or if they just forgot that he used to be there. Either way this is all we get.

As is usually the case, Wilson doesn’t raise money, he just spends whatever he spends out of personal funds. He has normal looking expenditures for mail, yard signs, advertising, and campaign consulting. I guess because he was technically unopposed, he didn’t have to dip into his usual bag of tricks.

I didn’t spend much time looking at the other reports. About $15K of Reagan Flowers’ expenditures was a transfer to her state campaign account. Perhaps she’ll move some funds back now if she has them left over; we’ll see that in the next July report if so.

The next finance reports of interest will be for the special election in District 2 in May. I’ll check on those at the 30 day point. I will also have interviews with the candidates in that race the week after next.

July 2021 campaign finance reports: HCC

Aug 16th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

PREVIOUSLY: Congress, Harris County, Houston, HISD

Last but not least, we have the HCC Trustees, three of whom are on this year’s ballot. HCC trustees serve six-year terms, so one-third of them are up each time around.

Monica Flores Richart – Dist 1
Rhonda Skillern-Jones – Dist 2
Adriana Tamez – Dist 3
Reagan Flowers – Dist 4
Robert Glaser – Dist 5
John Hansen – Dist 6
Cynthia Lenton-Gary – Dist 7
Eva Loredo – Dist 8
Pretta VanDible Stallworth – Dist 9


Dist  Candidate     Raised      Spent     Loan     On Hand
==========================================================
3         Tamez          0        127        0       2,694
6        Hansen          0          0    5,000       8,136
8        Loredo          0         76    7,000       2,731

1       Richart          0          0        0       2,608
2       S-Jones          0        198        0          27
4       Flowers     12,895      1,824        0      13,410
5        Glaser          0          0    5,000       8,292
7   Lenton-Gary          0          0        0           0
9    Stallworth          0          0        0           0

As with HISD, the table is separated by those who are on the ballot and those who are not. The search tool for their reports does include non-incumbent candidates when they are present, but at least as of when I checked there weren’t any. I’m told there’s at least one potential opponent for someone out there now, and I’m sure someone will post a link in the comments as they did for the HISD reports. I don’t have a good way of knowing about that situation, so I just limit myself to what I can reasonably know, and that’s who has filed what. (*)

And that means just the incumbents, and what they have filed doesn’t amount to much. Not a big surprise, as HCC trustee races are among the lowest-dollar races out there. Other than Reagan Flowers, no one raised a dime this past period. I’m sure things will look different on the 30-day reports, but for now this is what you’ve got. And that completes our tour of the July finance reports. Hope you’ve enjoyed it.

(*) As before, I should take this opportunity to note that I can claim some measure of credit for these reports being publicly available at all. Someday, when I am asked what I managed to do with my life, I will be able to include that on the ledger.

HISD and HCC results

Dec 15th, 2019
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

From the HISD runoffs:

Early election results showed Houston ISD school board candidates Kathy Blueford-Daniels and Patricia Allen with comfortable leads in their runoff races Saturday, as they aim to fill the final two seats on the district’s closely watched governance team.

With absentee and early votes counted, as well as 38 percent of precincts reporting, Blueford-Daniels, a retired postal manager, led City Council aide John C. Gibbs by a wide margin, mirroring her strong showing in the November general election.

Allen, a retired HISD administrator, appeared poised to break away from management consultant Matt Barnes after the pair each earned about 30 percent of the general election.

The two victors Saturday will join two newcomers who defeated incumbents in November’s general election. Judith Cruz and Dani Hernandez easily topped Diana Dávila and Sergio Lira, respectively, each earning about 64 percent of the vote.

Blueford-Daniels was leading by about 25 points as most voting centers had reported. Allen was up by about nine points. Congratulations to them both, and all the best in what should be a very challenging next few years.

And some very good news from the HCC races.

Monica Flores Richart

Early results in two Houston Community College Board of Trustees runoff races show Rhonda Skillern-Jones with a commanding lead, while Monica Flores Richart and Dave Wilson are locked in a tight battle.

With absentee and early-voting results tallied, as well as 38 percent of precincts reporting, Skillern-Jones, who has served on the Houston ISD school board for the past eight years, comfortably led longtime educator Kathy Lynch-Gunter in the race for District II. Skillern-Jones entered as a clear favorite after taking 45 percent of the general election vote to Lynch-Gunter’s 25 percent.

In District I, Flores Richart, a lawyer, held a slight lead over Wilson, who resigned from his HCC trustee seat in August and switched districts ahead of the race. Flores Richart nearly emerged from the general election with an outright victory, earning 48 percent of the vote to Wilson’s 32 percent.

[…]

The two winners will join newcomer Cynthia Lenton-Gary, who ran unopposed, on the nine-member board. A fourth new trustee will join the board next year if current HCC Board chair Carolyn Evans-Shabazz were to maintain her strong early lead Saturday in her Houston City Council race. Evans-Shabazz will have to resign her seat to join the council.

Flores Richart built on her lead on Election Day. May we never be cursed with Dave Wilson again.

Carolyn Evans-Shabazz is on her way to winning in District D, so we’ll have a new Trustee in her place early next year. With Neeta Sane running for Fort Bend County tax Assessor, we could have two new HCC Trustees before the 2021 election.

Initial thoughts on Election 2019

Nov 7th, 2019
by Charles Kuffner.
4 comments

All bullet points, all the time…

– Here’s my opening statement on the election returns debacle. We have more information about this now, but we still need more before we can go anywhere else with it.

– All incumbents want to win without runoffs, but for an incumbent that was forced into a runoff, Mayor Turner did pretty darned well. Including Fort Bend, he got about 12K more votes than Buzbee and King combined, and missed by about 2K outscoring Buzbee plus King plus Boykins. Suffice to say, he’s in a strong position for the runoffs.

– We are going to have a cubic buttload of runoffs. In addition to the Mayor, there are seven district Council runoffs, all five At Large Council races, two HISD races, two HCC races, and HD148. We might have had pretty decent overall turnout without the Mayor’s race included, but with it at the top it will be a lot like a November election. I’ll put the initial over/under at about 175K, which is roughly the 2009 Mayoral election runoff total.

– Among those Council runoffs are districts B and D, which along with HISD II and IV and HCC 2 will favor Turner. There are no runoffs in E or G, which would have favored Buzbee, and the runoff in A is almost certain to be a serene, low-money affair. Districts C and J went for King in the 2015 runoffs, but the runoffs in those districts involve only Democratic candidates. Turner has a lot more wind at his back than Buzbee does.

– For a more visual representation of the above, see this Mike Morris tweet. Nearly all of those Buzbee areas are in districts A, E, and G.

– In a sense, the main event in November is the At Large runoffs, all five of which feature a Republican and a Democrat. A Council that includes Mike Knox, Willie Davis, Michael Kubosh, Anthony Dolcefino, and Eric Dick is a Council that (including the members in A, E, and G) is fully half Republican, and could thus throw a lot of sand into the gears of the second Turner administration (or really grease the wheels of a Buzbee administration, if you want to extend the metaphor). Yes, I know, Council doesn’t really work like that, but the difference between that Council and one that includes three or more of Raj Salhotra, David Robinson, Janaeya Carmouche, Letitia Plummer, and Sallie Alcorn, is likely to be quite large. You want to have an effect on the direction Houston takes over the next four years, there you have it.

– Council could have been even more Republican, but at the district level it looks to remain at least as Democratic and possibly a little more so than it is now. Districts C and J may have gone for King in 2015 as noted, but Democrats Abbie Kamin and Shelley Kennedy are the choices in C (Greg Meyers and Mary Jane Smith finished just behind Kennedy), while Ed Pollard and Sandra Rodriguez are the contenders in J. (Yes, Pollard is considerably more conservative than most Dems, especially on LGBT issues. He’ll be the next Dwight Boykins in that regard if he wins.) District F has been (with a two-year break from 2013 to 2015) Republican going back to the 90s, but Tiffany Thomas is in pole position. She will no doubt benefit from the Mayoral runoff.

– I should note that in District C, the four candidates who were on a Greater Heights Democratic Club candidate forum I moderated in September – Kamin, Kennedy, Candelario Cervantez, and Amanda Wolfe; Kendra Yarbrough Camarena was also in the forum but switched to the HD148 race – combined for 55% of the vote in C. That’s a nice chunk of your HD134, CD02 and CD07 turf, and another illustration of how Donald Trump has helped kill the Republican Party in Harris County.

– Speaking of HD148, 69% of the vote there went to the Democratic candidates. Jessica Farrar got 68% in 2018, and she was on the high end.

– Remember when I said this about HD148 candidate Adrian Garcia? “It’s certainly possible some people will think he’s the County Commissioner, but whether they’d be happy to vote for him or confused as to why he’d be running for another office is a question I can’t answer.” I would say now the answer is “happy to vote for him”, because with all due respect I cannot see how he finishes third in that field if he was differently named. Low profile special elections are just weird.

– To be fair, name recognition also surely helped Dolcefino and Dick, neither of whom had much money. One had a famous name, and one has been a candidate multiple times, while littering the streets with his yard signs, so there is that.

– I’m just about out of steam here, but let me say this again: We. Must. Defeat. Dave. Wilson. Tell everyone you know to make sure they vote for Monica Flores Richart in the HCC 1 runoff. We cannot screw that up.

– If you still need more, go read Stace, Nonsequiteuse, and Chris Hooks.

Final results are in

Nov 6th, 2019
by Charles Kuffner.
9 comments

Here they are. Refer to my previous post for the initial recap, I’m going to be very minimalist. Let’s do this PowerPoint-style, it’s already been a long day:

Mayor – Turner fell short of 50%, landing up a bit below 47%. He and Buzbee will be in a runoff. Which, if nothing else, means a much higher turnout for the runoff.

Controller: Chris Brown wins.

District A: Peck versus Zoes.
District B: Jackson versus Bailey.
District C: Kamin versus Kennedy. Gotta say, it’s a little surprising, but quite nice, for it to be an all-Dem runoff. Meyers came close to catching Kennedy, but she hung on to second place.
District D: Brad Jordan had a late surge, and will face Carolyn Evans-Shabazz in the runoff. If Evans-Shabazz wins, she’ll need to resign her spot on the HCC Board, so there would be another new Trustee if that happens.
District F: Thomas versus Huynh. Other than the two years we had of Richard Nguyen, this seat has pretty much always been held by a Republican. Tiffany Thomas has a chance to change that.
District H: Cisneros verusus Longoria.
District J: Pollard versus Rodriguez. Sandra Rodriguez had a late surge and nearly finished ahead of Pollard. Very evenly matched in Round One.

At Large #1: Knox versus Salhotra. Both candidates will benefit from the Mayoral runoff, though I think Raj may be helped more.
At Large #2: Robinson versus Davis, a rerun from 2015.
At Large #3: Kubosh slipped below 50% and will face Janaeya Carmouche in overtime.
At Large #4: Dolcefino versus Plummer. We will have somewhere between zero and four Republicans in At Large seats, in case anyone needs some non-Mayoral incentive for December.
At Large #5: Alcorn versus Eric Dick. Lord, please spare me Eric Dick. I don’t ask for much.

HISD: Dani Hernandez and Judith Cruz ousted incumbents Sergio Lira and Diana Davila. Maybe that will make the TEA look just a teeny bit more favorably on HISD. Kathy Blueford Daniels will face John Curtis Gibbs, and Matt Barnes had a late surge to make it into the runoff against Patricia Allen.

HCC: Monica Flores Richart inched up but did not make it to fifty percent, so we’re not quite rid of Dave Wilson yet. Rhonda Skillern-Jones will face Kathy Lynch-Gunter in that runoff.

HD148: A late surge by Anna Eastman gives her some distance between her and Luis La Rotta – Eastman got 20.34%, La Rotta 15.84%. The Republican share of the vote fell from 34% to 32%, right on what they got in this district in 2018.

Now you are up to date. Go get some sleep.

2019 election results: Houston and Metro

Nov 6th, 2019
by Charles Kuffner.
7 comments

Unfortunately, we have to start with this:

Results of Tuesday’s election could take until 2 a.m. Wednesday after the Texas Secretary of State issued a new regulation that upended plans by the Harris County Clerk’s Office to speed vote counting.

The first tubs containing electronic ballot cards from across Harris County arrived at central count just before 9:30 p.m., where election judges and poll watchers waited to see the vote count in action.

Dr. Diane Trautman said she had hoped to have votes come in from 10 countywide drop-off locations, fed in through a secured intranet site, leading to faster results on election night.

Instead, Secretary Ruth R. Hughs ordered on Oct. 23 that law enforcement officers would instead escort the ballot box memory cards from each of the 757 polling sites to the central counting station.

That change, made nearly two weeks before Election Day, led to a major delay that left voters wondering for hours how races up and down ballot would turn out.

Early election results trickled in shortly after 7 p.m., but remained virtually unchanged for hours Tuesday.

Here’s the County Clerk’s statement about that order. I don’t know what was behind it, but it sure did gum things up. In the end, final results were not available till quite late, with no more partial results after midnight because producing those was slowing down the input process. Here’s the later statement on when results would be expected. Suffice to say, this was a mess, and no one is happy about it all. Expect there to be an extended fight between the County Clerk and SOS offices.

Anyway. I’m still groggy from a late night, so I’m going to hit the highlights, and we’ll get final results later. Here we go.

Mayor: Turner leads, is close to a majority.

Mayor Sylvester Turner held a wide lead over Tony Buzbee in limited early returns late Tuesday and was within striking distance of an outright re-election win, though it was unclear at press time if he would secure enough votes to avoid a runoff.

Buzbee, a millionaire trial lawyer, jumped out to an early second-place lead that he appeared likely to retain over Bill King, an attorney and businessman who narrowly lost a 2015 runoff to Turner but struggled this time to compete financially with Buzbee, his main rival for conservative votes.

With a small share of Election Day precincts reporting, Turner remained a shade under the majority vote share he would need to avoid a December runoff against Buzbee.

Councilman Dwight Boykins, who competed with Turner for the support of Democratic and black voters, trailed in fourth place, while former councilwoman Sue Lovell was further behind in fifth. Seven other candidates combined for the remaining share of the vote.

Adding in the Fort Bend results, and we get the following:


Turner     63,359  47.28%
Buzbee     39,361  29.37%
King       17,878  13.34%
Boykins     7,848   5.86%
Lovell      1,433   1.07%
The Rest    4,121   3.08%

Three things to think about: One, Turner has at this point more votes than Buzbee and King combined, so if we do go to a runoff that’s not a bad position to start with. Two, the Election Day results reported so far came mostly from Districts A, C, E, and G, so they would be more favorable to Buzbee and King than the city as a whole. And three, the election polling was pretty accurate, especially at pegging the support levels for Boykins and Lovell.

Oh, and a fourth thing: Tony Buzbee’s drunken Election Night speech. Yowza.

Controller: Incumbent Chris Brown leads

It’s Brown 62,297 and Sanchez 54,864 adding in Fort Bend, and again with mostly Republican votes from yesterday (Sanchez led the Election Day tally by about 1,700 votes). Barring a big surprise, Brown has won.

City Council: Most incumbents have big leads, and there’s gonna be a lot of runoffs. To sum up:

District A: Amy Peck has 44.3%, George Zoes 16.8%
District B: Tarsha Jackson 21.0%, Renee Jefferson Smith 15.1%, Cynthia Bailey 13.7%, Alvin Byrd 10.7%
District C: Abbie Kamin 30.8%, Shelley Kennedy 15.8%, Greg Meyers 14.4%, Mary Jane Smith 14.0%
District D: Carolyn Evans-Shabazz 19.0%, Carla Brailey 12.3%, Brad Jordan 11.9%, Rashad Cave 11.4%, Jerome Provost 10.4%, Andrew Burks 10.3%
District E: Dave Martin easily wins
District F: Tiffany Thomas 39%, Van Huynh 24%, Richard Nguyen 18%
District G: Greg Travis easily wins
District H: Karla Cisneros 38.9%, Isabel Longoria 27.5%, Cynthia Reyes-Revilla 24.0%
District I: Robert Gallegos easily wins
District J: Edward Pollard 32.4%, Sandra Rodriguez 26.4%, Barry Curtis 19.7%
District K: MArtha Castex-Tatum easily wins

At Large #1: Mike Knox 38.1%, Raj Salhotra 21.1%, Yolanda Navarro Flores 16.3%, Georgia Provost 14.7%
At Large #2: Davis Robinson 38.9%, Willie Davis 28.8%, Emily DeToto 18.8%
At Large #3: Michael Kubosh 50.8%, Janaeya Carmouche 20.6%
At Large #4: Anthony Dolcefino 22.9%, Letitia Plummer 16.4%, Nick Hellyar 12.8%, Ericka McCrutcheon 11.3%, Bill Baldwin 10.5%
At Large #5: Sallie Alcorn 23.2%, Eric Dick 22.0%, no one else above 10

Some of the runoff positions are still very much up in the air. Michael Kubosh may or may not win outright – he was only at 46% on Election Day. Name recognition worth a lot (Dolcefino, Dick) but not everything (both Provosts, Burks). Not much else to say but stay tuned.

HISD: Davila and Lira are going to lose

Dani Hernandez leads Sergio Lira 62-38, Judith Cruz leads Diana Davila 64-36. Kathy Blueford Daniels is close to fifty percent in II but will likely be in a runoff with John Curtis Gibbs. Patricia Allen, Reagan Flowers, and Matt Barnes in that order are in a tight battle in IV.

HCC: No story link on the Chron front page. Monica Flores Richart leads the execrable Dave Wilson 47-34 in HCC1, Rhonda Skillern-Jones leads with 45% in HCC2 with Kathy Lynch-Gunter at 26%, and Cynthia Lenton-Gary won HCC7 unopposed.

Metro: Headed to easy passage, with about 68% so far.

That’s all I got for now. Come back later for more.

Endorsement watch: One more HISD, two in HCC

Oct 19th, 2019
by Charles Kuffner.
5 comments

Some pretty easy calls for the Chron here. In HISD VII, they go with Judith Cruz.

Judith Cruz

Houston Independent School District does not need more of the same in its leadership. The embattled district must move away from the dysfunction that has tainted the current school board, from the in-fighting and public squabbles that have left its reputation in tatters and taken focus away from the needs of students.

State intervention, triggered by Texas law when Phillis Wheatley High School failed in yearly accountability ratings, will likely result in a state-appointed board of managers. But voters must also do their part by electing trustees who are well-prepared to guide the district no matter what is ahead.

In HISD’s Board of Trustees District VIII, which includes the East End and some of the city’s top performing schools, that means rejecting incumbent Board President Diana Dávila.

A Texas Education Agency investigation found that Dávila made false statements to state officials during an inquiry into potential violations of the Texas Open Meetings Act in late 2018, when she and other trustees unsuccessfully tried to oust Interim Superintendent Grenita Latham. Dávila also faces accusations of improperly interfering in district vendor contracts.

Dávila, who declined to participate in a candidate screening by the editorial board, has denied wrongdoing, but the allegations and her role in the board’s missteps would only be a distraction.

Her opponent, Judith Cruz, 44, brings a commitment to rebuilding trust and transparency, as well as experience as a classroom teacher and in an educational nonprofit, DiscoverU. She began her career with Teach for America, and went on to teach ESL at Lee High School (now Wisdom) in HISD, and at Liberty High School, where she was a founding teacher.

[…]

It is time for a change in HISD. We recommend Cruz for Board of Trustees District VIII.

I expected this, based on the Chron’s endorsement of challenger Dani Hernandez in District III. Even without Dávila’s other baggage, the Chron was almost certainly going to call for a clean slate. My interview with Judith Cruz is here. Some but not all of the 30 day finance reports for HISD are up, I’m going to wait a little more before I post on them to give time for them all to appear. The Chron still has to make a call in HISD IV.

Also a trivially easy decision was to endorse Monica Flores Richart in HCC District 2.

Monica Flores Richart

Former Houston Community College District 2 trustee Dave Wilson announced in August he was quitting his seat in order to focus full time on running to represent District 1. Trouble is, he said he had moved from District 2 to District 1 seven months before, in January — and was only just then getting around to vacating an office he appeared to be no longer eligible to keep. He called Texas residency rules “vague” but there’s nothing vague about keeping a job representing a district you no longer even live in.

Now that he’s running to fill a different seat on the same board, we do not encourage anyone to vote for him.

Fortunately, the majority Hispanic District 1 on the northeast side has a really good candidate running against Wilson, and we heartily endorse her for the job.

She is attorney Monica Flores Richart, 45, who has an undergraduate degree in public policy from Princeton University, a law degree from Columbia University. She worked for U.S. Rep. Nick Lampson, the Democrat who in 2006 won the heavily Republican district vacated by Tom DeLay. He got swept out of office in a Republican wave in 2008.

[…]

Richart is smart, has good ideas and strikes us as someone who can accomplish positive change in a professional way.

We endorse her for District 1 on the HCC board of trustees.

My interview with Monica Flores Richart is here. Honestly, they could have written dozens of paragraphs about what a bigoted jackass Dave Wilson is and then ended with those last two sentences above. But Richart really is a strong candidate, so better to emphasize that as well.

Finally, the Chron endorses Rhonda Skillern-Jones in Wilson’s old district, District 2.

Rhonda Skillern-Jones

The District 2 candidates are former HISD board president Rhonda Skillern-Jones, longtime educator and community leader Kathy Lynch-Gunter and attorney Brendon Singh.

Retired teacher Linda Murray, 70, is on the ballot but told us she has dropped out and supports Skillern-Jones.

Skillern-Jones, 52, is the heavyweight in the field, having served eight mostly laudable years on the Houston Independent School District board of trustees, including two as president.

The Texas Southern University grad’s reputation took a hit in April 2018 when she presided with a heavy hand over a failed attempt to transfer control of 10 troubled schools to a charter school company with a questionable reputation.

The emotional meeting resulted in two people being hauled off by police and, in the end, the transfer of schools was abandoned. Skillern-Jones, who had asked the police to help quiet the protesters, accepted blame for the debacle.

[…]

There were a lot of things to like about Lynch-Gunter, 56, and Singh, 24, an HCC alumnus, but Skillern-Jones’ experience and knowledge of educational governance is hard to beat.

We agree with Skillern-Jones that her long record of public service shouldn’t be reduced to her actions during a single meeting. We urge voters to elect her to the HCC board of trustees, District 2.

You may ask, why does Skillern-Jones not get the same level of skepticism that fellow HISD Trustees Sergio Lira and Diana Dávila got? One, she wasn’t named in that TEA ethics investigation, and two I presume either the Chron didn’t consider her a part of the problem in the same way, or they decided that even with that on her record she was still the better choice for HCC. There’s one more HCC race, though it appears to be uncontested, and one more HISD race, the open seat in District IV. We’ll see what the Chron has to say about them.

Interview with Monica Flores Richart

Sep 23rd, 2019
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

Monica Flores Richart

I’d say there are three things I want to see happen this November. I want to see Mayor Turner get re-elected, I want to see the Metro referendum pass, and I want to see Monica Flores Richart kick Dave Wilson’s sorry ass off of the HCC Board of Trustees. You know about Wilson and his shenanigans, so enough said there. Richart is an attorney who has also worked as a political consultant, including Nick Lampson’s Congressional campaign in 2006. She has been an education advocate with a focus on HISD’s magnet school program, and more recently served in the Harris County Clerk’s office, where she worked on the county voting centers project. You want to make Houston a better place with better government, support Monica Flores Richart in HCC District 1. Here’s the interview:

As always, refer to the Erik Manning spreadsheet for all your candidate info needs. My 2017 with Richart when she ran for HISD Trustee is here, and my 2013 interview with Zeph Capo, the outgoing HCC Trustee in this district, is here.

Dave Wilson’s residency shuffle

Aug 28th, 2019
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

There he goes again.

Dave Wilson

Dave Wilson, a controversial Houston Community College board member, has resigned from his position as a trustee for HCC’s District 2 and has announced that he will run for a District 1 position on HCC’s board.

Fellow board members questioned Tuesday whether Wilson’s latest move is lawful.

Wilson resigned in an email to the board around 10 a.m. Tuesday writing that his resignation will help him “focus full time” on his candidacy for HCC District 1.

“It has been a privilege representing the great citizens of District 2,” Wilson wrote. “The only regret I have is that I will not be able to cast my vote against the property tax increase at the next board meeting.”

“I’ve always had a plan to resign to run for District 1. I was planning on the right time to,” he said in an interview with the Houston Chronicle.

But Monica Flores Richart, an attorney and HCC District 1 [candidate], calls Wilson’s latest move a clear conflict, noting that Texas law requires candidates to live within the district they intend to serve for six months before filing for election. State law also requires an elected official who moves outside of the district in which they serve to vacate their seat.

This brings into question how Wilson, who previously served District 2, is now running for District 1.

Wilson confirmed that he no longer lives in District 2 and moved from the area in January, and he calls the state’s laws about residency “a real convoluted deal.”

“The law is vague, and I didn’t want to be on the wrong side of the law, so out of caution, I went ahead and resigned,” Wilson said.

“The one thing I do firmly believe, which is the real travesty of it all — the board can’t make a decision on residency,” said Wilson, who declined to comment further about his residency.

Richart, however, believes Wilson is attempting to take advantage of the situation.

“He’s spent six months giving the illusion that he’s living in District 2, while at the same time trying to establish residency in a completely different district in order to run for the seat,” Richart said.

See here for the background. The story gets a little convoluted from here, but the bottom line is that Wilson moved from one of his warehouses to another, in order to establish “residency” in District 1 while still serving as the trustee in District 2. He originally claimed the board couldn’t do anything about that, but in the end he resigned from his District 2 seat. The remaining members of the Board, as has been done in the past when other members have resigned, will appoint an interim member from the community, someone who is not running in November.

The bottom line is that Wilson is up to his usual shenanigans. If you live in HCC District 1 – check your voter registration if you’re not sure – you get to vote his sorry ass out of office this November. Here’s the press release Monica Flores Richart sent out about Tuesday’s hijinks:

Despite clear Texas law that requires a six month residency to run for HCC Trustee, and that establishes that an elected official vacates their seat when they move outside of the District in which they serve, Dave Wilson, who has been serving as Trustee of HCC District 2, has filed for a place on the ballot in HCC District 1 for the November 2019 election. This deceptive behavior is nothing new for Wilson, who made national news by winning his seat six years ago in a majority African American District by purposely giving voters the impression that he himself was African American.

The HCC Board today took decisive action and found that Wilson has vacated his seat as HCC District 2 Trustee. The College will be seeking a temporary replacement to serve in the seat until the conclusion of the November 2019 election. While this is good news for the voters of HCC District 2, the voters of HCC District 1 must continue to contend with a candidate whose fluid residency and antagonistic behavior bring conflict to HCC.

Since being elected to the Board, Wilson has used his combative style to publicly criticize his fellow Trustees in an attempt to erode the strong working relationship of the HCC Board. He has brought various losing lawsuits against HCC, and has also used his role, time and again, to spread his bigoted views of the LGBTQIA community.

The Houston Area and HCC District 1 deserve better than Dave Wilson.

Monica Flores Richart is an attorney and long-time education advocate in the Houston area. She and her family have resided in HCC District 1 for almost 15 years. She has an undergraduate degree from Princeton University in Public Policy and a law degree from Columbia University. More information about Monica and her campaign can be found at MonicaForHCC.com.

We have a chance to fix the travesty of Wilson’s 2013 election. Let’s not blow it.

The 2019 lineups are set

Aug 21st, 2019
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

Barring any late disqualifications or other unexpected events, we have the candidates we’re getting on our 2019 ballot.

More than 125 candidates turned in paperwork to run for city office by Monday’s filing deadline, setting up a packed November ballot likely to leave every incumbent with at least one opponent.

The unusually crowded field is driven largely by the city’s move in 2015 to extend term limits, allowing officials to serve two four-year terms instead of three two-year terms, said Rice University political science Professor Bob Stein.

“It used to be that you just wouldn’t run against an incumbent. You would wait until they term-limited out,” Stein said. “Candidates are no longer getting the two-year pass.”

Thirteen candidates have filed to run for mayor, including incumbent Sylvester Turner, who is running for a second four-year term. Turner’s challengers include his 2015 runoff opponent, Bill King, lawyer and business owner Tony Buzbee, Councilman Dwight Boykins and former councilwoman Sue Lovell.

By Friday evening, the city’s legal department had approved applications from at least 97 candidates. Another 28 candidates had filed for office and were awaiting approval from the city attorney’s office, and an unknown additional number of candidates filed just before the 5 p.m. deadline.

Ten candidates were officially on the ballot for mayor, with three others awaiting legal department approval by the close of business Monday.

Early voting begins Oct. 21 and Election Day is Nov. 5.

Late additions include retreads like Orlando Sanchez, who I guess hasn’t found steady work since being booted as Treasurer, and Eric Dick, seeking to become the next Griff Griffin, who by the way also filed. Sanchez is running for Controller, while Dick is in At Large #5, and Griff is once again running in At Large #2.

And there’s also HISD.

Two Houston ISD trustees filed paperwork Monday to seek re-election and will each face a single challenger, while several candidates will jostle to fill two other open seats on a school board that could soon be stripped of power.

HISD Board President Diana Dávila and Trustee Sergio Lira made their re-election runs official hours before Monday’s afternoon deadline, while trustees Jolanda Jones and Rhonda Skillern-Jones will not seek another term.

Thirteen newcomers will aim to unseat the two incumbents or win vacant spots on the board. The prospective trustees will square off in a November general election and, if necessary, runoff elections in December.

So much for them all resigning. You can read each of the stories in toto to see who gets name-checked, or you can peruse the Erik Manning spreadsheet, which is fortified with essential vitamins and minerals. Note also that in the HCC races, Monica Flores Richart has the task of taking out the reprehensible Dave Wilson, while Rhonda Skillern-Jones faces Brendon Singh and Kathy Lynch Gunter for the trustee slot that Wilson is abandoning in his desperate attempt to stay on the Board, and Cynthia Gary appears to have no opposition in her quest to succeed Neeta Sane. Leave a comment and let us know what you think of your 2019 Houston/HISD/HCC candidates.

July 2019 campaign finance reports: HISD and HCC

Aug 15th, 2019
by Charles Kuffner.
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One last look at July finance reports. I’m lumping together reports for HISD and HCC, in part because there’s some crossover, and in part because there’s not all that much to these. As always, refer to the Erik Manning candidate spreadsheet, and note that for a variety of reasons people may not have had a report to file for this period. January reports for all HCC incumbents are here and for all HISD incumbents are here. I only checked on those whose terms are up this year for this post.

Yes, despite the recent unpleasantness (which as of today may be compounded), there will be elections for HISD Trustee. HISD incumbent reports can be found via their individual Trustee pages, while reports for candidates who are not incumbents are found on a separate Elections page for the year in question, which for 2019 is here. Annoying, but it is what it is. Reports for HCC incumbents and candidates can be found here, though this includes a number of people who are not running for anything but have had reports in the past. There doesn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason to it, but at least they’re online now. Here are the reports of interest:

Rodrick Davison – HISD II

Sergio Lira – HISD III

Jolanda Jones – HISD IV
Matt Barnes – HISD IV
Ashley Butler (CTA) – HISD IV

Diana Davila – HISD VIII
Judith Cruz – HISD VIII

Dave Wilson – HCC 1

Rhonda Skillern-Jones – HCC 2

Neeta Sane – HCC 7


Candidate     Raised      Spent     Loan     On Hand
====================================================
Davison            0          0        0           0
Lira               0          0        0       6,007
Jones              0          0        0      12,260
Barnes        18,246      2,586    2,491      15,310
Davila             0          0   19,178           0
Cruz          14,717      3,340        0      10,043

Wilson             0          0   12,782           0
S-Jones        9,300      4,310        0       5,281
Sane               0      4,766        0       6,553

As before, not a whole lot of activity, so let’s talk again about who’s running for what. So far, Rodrick Davison is the only candidate for the now-open HISD II position. Amazingly, Rhoda Skillern-Jones was first elected in 2011 when the seat was vacated by Carol Mims Galloway, and she was unopposed in that race. I did not find a website or campaign Facebook page for Davison (his personal Facebook page is here), but a Google search for him found this, which, um. Matt Barnes, Ashley Butler, and perennial candidate Larry McKinzie are running in HISD IV, which is now also an open seat. Still no word about what Diana Davila will do, but the filing deadline is Sunday, so we’ll know soon.

As we know, Monica Flores Richart is the candidate tasked with ending the execrable Dave Wilson’s career on the HCC Board. Brendon Singh is also running in HCC 2. Cynthia Gary, who has been a Fort Bend ISD trustee and past candidate for Sugar Land City Council, is the only candidate so far seeking to win the seat being vacated by Neeta Sane. We’ll check back on this after the filing deadline, which is August 16 and thus rapidly closing in. If you know of any further news relating to these races, please leave a comment.

Previous interviews with current candidates

Aug 11th, 2019
by Charles Kuffner.
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I’ve said a few times that I’m going to be doing just a few interviews this fall. I will start publishing them tomorrow. I may pick up some more for the runoffs, but for now my schedule just does not accommodate anything more than that. But! That doesn’t mean you can’t listen to past interviews with some of the people on your November ballot. Many of the people running now have run for something before, and in many of those cases I interviewed them. Here then is a list of those past interviews. The office listed next to some of them is the office they now seek, and the year in parentheses is when I spoke to them. Note that a few of these people have been interviewed more than once; in those cases, I went with the most recent conversation. Enjoy!

Mayor:

Sylvester Turner (2015)
Bill King (2015)
Dwight Boykins (2013)
Sue Lovell (2009)

Council:

Amy Peck – District A (2013)
Alvin Byrd – District B (2011)
Kendra Yarbrough Camarena – District C (2010)
Carolyn Evans-Shabazz – District D (2017)
Richard Nguyen – District F (2015)
Greg Travis – District G (2015)
Karla Cisneros – District H (2015)
Robert Gallegos – District I (2015)
Jim Bigham – District J (2015)
Edward Pollard – District J (2016)

Mike Knox – At Large #1 (2013)
Georgia Provost – At Large #1 (2013)
David Robinson – At Large #2 (2015)
Michael Kubosh – At Large #3 (2013)
Letitia Plummer – At Large #4 (2018)

Controller:

Chris Brown – City Controller (2015)

HISD:

Sergio Lira – District III (2015)
Jolanda Jones – District IV (2015)
Judith Cruz – District VIII

HCC:

Monica Flores Richart – District 1 (2017)
Rhonda Skillern-Jones – District 2 (2015)

An update on the races in HISD and HCC

Jul 20th, 2019
by Charles Kuffner.
7 comments

As you know, there’s been a lot of action not just in the Houston City Council races but also in the 2020 election races. That doesn’t mean things have been dull in HISD and HCC, which of course have elections this November as well. I’m going to bring you up to date on who’s doing what in HISD and HCC, which as always deserve more attention than they usually get. We will refer to the Erik Manning spreadsheet for the names, though there will be some detours and some plot twists. Settle in and let’s get started.

There are four HISD Trustees up for election this cycle: Rhonda Skillern-Jones (district II), Sergio Lira (III), Jolanda Jones (IV), and Diana Davila (VIII). Lira, running for his first full term after winning in 2017 to succeed the late Manuel Rodriguez. He has no declared opponent at this time.

Rhonda Skillern-Jones has decided to step down from HISD and is now running for HCC Trustee in District 2. That’s the district currently held by the execrable Dave Wilson. (Hold that thought for a moment.) Her jump to HCC has been known for about a week, but as yet no candidate has emerged to announce a run in HISD II. I’m sure that will happen soon.

Diana Davila is being challenged by Judith Cruz, who ran for this same seat in 2010 after Davila’s abrupt departure when she was first an HISD Trustee; Cruz lost the Juliet Stipeche, who was then defeated by Davila in a return engagement in 2015. Davila has been at the center of much of the recent chaos on the Board, especially the disputes over interim Superintendent Grenita Lathan. I would expect that to be part of this campaign.

Jolanda Jones has two challengers for what would be her second term on the Board. One is perennial candidate Larry McKinzie, the other is Matt Barnes, a career educator with some charter school experience that I’m sure won’t cause any issues at all for anyone in this election. Ahem. A possible complicating factor here (we do love complicating factors) is that there has been chatter about Jones running for City Council again, this time in District D. It’s not the first time that this possibility has arisen. To be clear, as far as I know and unlike that other time, Jolanda Jones herself has not said anything about running for Council. This is 100% speculation based on other people talking about it, which I as an irresponsible non-journalist am mentioning without bothering to check for myself. I do that in part because it allows me to dredge up the past discussion we had about whether the term limits law that existed in 2012 would have allowed Jones to run for Council again, and from there to pivot to whether the same questions apply to the updated term limits law. Jones served two two-year terms and would hypothetically be running for a third and final term, which would be for four years. Council members who were first elected in 2011, such as Jack Christie, got to serve a total of eight years via this mechanism, and because the updated term limits law that was ratified by voters in 2015 was written to exempt current Council members who were not on their third terms. Would that also cover a former Council member who had served two terms? I have no idea, but if the question became relevant, I feel confident that lawyers and courtrooms would quickly become involved, and we’d eventually get an answer. See why this was irresistible to me? Anyway, all of this is probably for nothing, but I had fun talking about it and I hope you did, too.

Now for HCC. There are three HCC Trustees whose terms are up: Zeph Capo (District 1), the aforementioned Dave Wilson (District 2), and Neeta Sane (District 7). We’ll start with Sane, whose district covers part of Fort Bend County. She is running for Fort Bend County Tax Assessor in 2020 (she had previously run for FBC Treasurer in 2006, before winning her first term on the HCC Board), and while she could run for re-election in HCC first, she appears to not be doing so. Erik’s spreadsheet has no candidate in this slot at this time.

Zeph Capo is also not running for re-election. His job with the Texas AFT will be taking him to Austin, so he is stepping down. In his place is Monica Flores Richart, who had run for HISD Trustee in my district in 2017. Capo is Richart’s campaign treasurer, so that’s all very nice and good.

And that’s where this gets complicated. Dave Wilson is the lone Trustee of these three who is running in 2019. He is not, however, running for re-election in District 2. He is instead running in District 1, where I’m guessing he thinks he’ll have a chance of winning now that the voters in District 2 are aware he’s a conservative white Republican and not a black man or the cousin of former State Rep. Ron Wilson. I’m sure Rhonda Skillern-Jones would have wiped the floor with him, but now he’s running for an open seat. He won’t have the same cover of stealth this time, though. You can help by supporting Monica Flores Richart and by making sure everyone you know knows about this race and what a turd Dave Wilson is. Don’t let him get away with this.

(Hey, remember the big legal fight over Wilson’s residency following his fluke 2013 election, and how he insisted that the warehouse he moved into was his real home? So much for that. I assume he has another warehouse to occupy, which is totally fine because our state residency laws are basically meaningless.)

Finally, while their terms are not up, there are two other HCC Trustees who are seeking other offices and thus may cause further vacancies. Eva Loredo, the trustee in District 8, has filed a designation of treasurer to run for Justice of the Peace in Precinct 6 next March, while current Board chair Carolyn Evans-Shabazz in District 4 is now a candidate for City Council District D. If Wilson loses (please, please, please) and these two win theirs we could have five new members within the next year and a half, which would be a majority of the nine-member Board. The Board would appoint replacements for Evans-Shabazz and/or Loredo if they resign following a victory in their other elections, and there would then be an election for the remainder of their terms. I will of course keep an eye on that. In the meantime, if you can fill in any of the blanks we’ve discussed here, please leave a comment.

Harris County settles ADA voting rights lawsuit

Mar 13th, 2019
by Charles Kuffner.
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Chalk up another accomplishment for our new county overlords.

The U.S. Department of Justice will monitor Harris County elections, at county expense, for up to four years under the settlement of a federal lawsuit over inadequate access to polling places for voters with disabilities.

Commissioners Court approved the 15-page settlement during at its regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday. The item originally was designated for a closed-door executive session, but court members simply agreed to First Assistant County Attorney Robert Soard’s recommendation they sign off on the deal.

Under the agreement, Harris County will have to make minor accessibility improvements to as many as 300 of its 750 regular voting sites, hire two outside election experts to supervise balloting and designate an in-house Americans with Disabilities Act compliance officer. The county does not have to concede it has violated the ADA in past elections.

“It’s a fair settlement,” Soard said. “It’s a reasonable way to conclude this litigation.”

Toby Cole, a quadriplegic attorney who almost exclusively represents wheelchair users, said the settlement and extended federal supervision are essential because disabled voters often are reluctant to complain about problems they encounter.

“They don’t want to make a huge fuss,” Cole said. “So, you don’t vote the first time, then the second time. We cut things out of our lives already, and voting is one more thing to say is too difficult.”

County Judge Lina Hidalgo said after the meeting she is confident the county will be able to show the federal government much sooner than four years it is capable of running an election in which each polling place meets ADA guidelines.

“We’ve got a court, and a county clerk, and a county attorney that are committed to equitable access to elections,” Hidalgo said. “We’re all working to make sure we adhere to that settlement.”

[…]

Monica Flores-Richart, whom County Clerk Diane Trautman hired in January as the county’s ADA compliance officer, said the office will re-examine each polling place. In most cases, she said problems can be identified and addressed quickly.

“We’re not talking about permanent improvements,” Flores-Richart said. “If there’s a gap of a certain size in the sidewalk, you need to put a mat down. Those are the kind of things we’re talking about.”

The settlement requires the county to submit a new ADA compliance plan to the Justice Department within 120 days. The county also must hire at least 20 contractors, or use county employees, to monitor each countywide election.

See here, here, and here for the background. I’ve expressed a modicum of sympathy for the County Clerk in the past regarding this litigation, which was filed in August of 2016 following a letter of finding in 2014, but if this is all it took to settle the case, I have to wonder why it took so long. Well, okay, I know the answer to that, and it has to do with whose picture you see when you load up the harrisvotes.com website. But seriously, this should have been wrapped up long before now. Be that as it may, kudos to all for getting it done. I share Judge Hidalgo’s confidence that Harris County can complete the terms of the settlement in less than the time allotted. The Trib has more.

Endorsement watch: HISD I and III

Oct 13th, 2017
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

We have our first candidate endorsements of the season.

Monica Flores Richart

Houston ISD, Trustee, District I: Monica Flores Richart

In this heated race between three passionate candidates to represent Garden Oaks, the Heights and Near Northside, we endorse Monica Flores Richart.

No other candidate in this race or others has demonstrated such a clarity of vision about the problems vexing HISD’s complicated school-funding system, with specific ire reserved for magnet programs and gifted and talented programs that divert funds toward already-wealthy schools.

“We have never really had a cohesive set of priorities and goals for our magnet program,” Richart told the editorial board while rattling off the statistical specifics with ease. Also on her agenda is a thorough auditing of the school budget, zero-based budgeting and a dedication to equity.

“What bothers me most about HISD is the disparate educational opportunities among the communities.”

[…]

Sergio Lira

Houston ISD, Trustee, District III: Sergio Lira

Longtime trustee Manuel Rodriguez, Jr. passed away in July and four candidates have stepped up to fill his seat.

Two stand out: Sergio Lira, an assistant principal at Bellaire High School, and Rodolfo (Rudy) Reyes, a former League City council member and court-appointed child advocate.

Lira, 56, has a record as an outstanding educator and has spent virtually his entire career in the district he is seeking to govern. An educational background is a plus for a trustee, but in a perfect world, a trustee should have experience beyond the immediate classroom.

Reyes has a broad professional background that ranges from employment as a contract specialist for the National Cancer Institute to teaching English to four-year-olds in public school. He currently serves as a court-appointed child advocate.

While his budgetary expertise would be useful, this accomplished candidate seems to equate service on this board with his experience on city council. School trustees need to understand that principals aren’t their primary constituents.

Undoubtedly Reyes would be a quick study, but we’re tipping our hat to Lira, as he seems to be in a better position to govern immediately.

Here are all the interviews I did in these races:

Monica Flores Richart
Elizabeth Santos
Gretchen Himsl

Carlos Perrett
Jesse Rodriguez
Sergio Lira

Rodolfo Reyes never replied to the email I sent him asking for an interview. The Chron was complimentary to Himsl, and appreciative of the others. I figure both of these races are going to a runoff, and if so we know who their backup choices are if it comes to that. Early voting starts on Monday the 23rd, so get ready to get out there and make your voices heard.

Interview with Monica Flores Richart

Sep 18th, 2017
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

Monica Flores Richart

So it’s been a very strange election season. I’m sure you don’t need me to go over all the reasons for that again. Let me cut to the chase by saying I will be presenting an abbreviated set of candidate interviews, mostly with HISD Trustee candidates. I’m not going to be able to talk to all of the candidates I’d normally want to, but I’m going to try to talk to most of them. I may wind up revisiting some races in the runoffs. It is what it is this year.

There are three candidates running in HISD I to succeed outgoing Trustee Anna Eastman. Monica Flores Richart is an attorney who has also worked as a political consultant – I met her when she was working with Nick Lampson’s Congressional campaign in 2006. She subsequently became an education advocate with a focus on HISD’s magnet school program, and has served on the Houston Heights Association Education Committee and the HISD Hispanic Advisory Committee. Please note that I conducted this interview before Hurricane Harvey paid us a visit, so as a result my focus is different than it will be in subsequent interviews. I have always tried to be consistent in the questions that I ask candidates, but in this case that just wasn’t possible. Here’s the interview:

I will have more interviews with HISD District I candidates this week and with other candidates going forward.

July 2017 campaign finance reports – HISD

Aug 11th, 2017
by Charles Kuffner.
4 comments

We still don’t know what’s happening with city of Houston elections this fall, but there’s plenty of action with HISD Trustee races. You can see all of the candidates who have filed so far and their July finance reports here. I’ve got links to individual reports and summaries of them, so join me below for some highlights.

Elizabeth Santos
Gretchen Himsl
Monica Richart

Kara DeRocha
Sue Deigaard

Holly Maria Flynn Vilaseca
Daniel Albert
Robert Lundin

Anne Sung
John Luman

Wanda Adams
Gerry Monroe
Karla Brown
Susan Schafer


Name        Raised    Spent    Loans   On Hand
==============================================
Santos      13,161    2,037        0     7,845
Himsl       17,685      832      500    17,352
Richart      5,565    5,996    6,197     5,765

DeRocha     17,676    2,006      355    15,669
Deigaard    22,716      769        0    20,381

Vilaseca    14,043      157        0    13,613
Albert           0        0   30,000         0
Lundin      13,480    1,565        0    11,915

Sung        31,660    1,673        0    29,208
Luman            0        0        0       456

Adams            0    6,484        0       421
Monroe           0        0        0         0
Brown            0        0        0         0
Schafer      4,690    2,543        0     2,026

So we have two open seats, in Districts I and V as Anna Eastman and Mike Lunceford are stepping down, one appointed incumbent running for a full term (Flynn Vilaseca), one incumbent who won a 2016 special election running for a full term (Sung), and one regular incumbent running for re-election (Adams). We could have a very different Board next year, or just a slightly different one. That includes all three of the traditionally Republican districts – V, VI, and VII. Interestingly, there is no Republican candidate in District V as yet, and the Republican runnerup in last year’s special election in District VII has apparently been idle so far this year. Daniel Albert is Chief of Staff for District F City Council member Steve Le, so I think it’s safe to say that he’s a Republican. Robert Lundin is a Rice faculty member who has been an HISD teacher and administrator and also opened YES Prep Southwest. I don’t have a guess as to what his politics may be. Whatever the case, I have to assume there will be more of a Republican presence in these races, but it’s starting to get a little late in the cycle.

The next most remarkable thing is Wanda Adams’ report. I’m not sure if it was filled out incorrectly or if she really did raise no money while spending her account almost empty. I don’t know what to make of that.

Otherwise, and putting the weirdness of the Sung/Luman situation aside, it looks like we have some competitive races shaping up. If you didn’t know anything but what is in this table, you might be hard-pressed to tell who’s an incumbent. I know there’s a lot of activity already for 2018, and I feel like we’re in a bit of a holding pattern until we know for sure what the deal is with city races. I suspect there’s a lot more to come in these races. Maybe we’ll see it in the 30-day reports.

June CEC meeting candidate update report

Jul 7th, 2017
by Charles Kuffner.
6 comments

The June County Executive Committee meeting for the Harris County Democratic Party was a few days ago. There was some official business to take care of, mostly swearing in new precinct chairs, but in addition to the good crowd in attendance there were numerous judicial candidates, there to collect petition signatures to get on the primary ballot. I was pleased to see that among the handouts for the meeting was a document listing all of the judicial positions, incumbents, and Democratic candidates who are aiming to be on the ballot next year. I’ve scanned and uploaded a copy of that document, which you can see here. So far, there is at least one Democratic candidate for every position except the 315th Juvenile Court, the 14th Court of Appeals, Position 5, and Justice of the Peace in Precinct 8. I’ll be surprised if at least the first two of these aren’t filled by the deadline.

There was not a listing of statewide judicial candidates in this document because people file with the state party for that. I inquired about getting a similar document for candidates for other offices, but as most people don’t collect petition signatures to get on the ballot for other positions – you are required to get them for judicial races – the HCDP doesn’t necessarily know who’s running for what at this time. Some people make themselves better known than others. Hopefully more people will be making themselves more visible in the coming weeks. The end of June finance reports will also help locate some candidates.

In the meantime, I do have some candidate news, and the first bit I have is unfortunate. Angie Hayes, who has been running for HD134, announced last week on her Facebook and Instagram pages that due to personal health reasons, she will be ending her campaign. I’m sorry to hear that, and I wish her all the best. I have heard that there is another candidate for HD134 out there, but at this time I don’t know who that might be. If you know anything more, please leave a comment.

The top priorities for State House in Harris County are HDs 135 and 138, with 132 and 126 right behind. Adam Milasincic is running for HD138, against Rep. Dwayne Bohac. HD138 went (very slightly) for Clinton last year, and was roughly 55-45 at the judicial level. Milasincic is an attorney and first-time candidate, and if you want to see some younger people run for office, he’s someone you should check out. If you know of candidates for the other three districts, please let us in on it.

Finally, one election for this year: I reported Anna Eastman’s retirement announcement in May, but I have not mentioned who is running to succeed her. There are three candidates in the race for HISD Trustee in District I. They are Monica Flores Richart, Elizabeth Santos, and Gretchen Himsl. I’ve known Richart and Himsl for years, Richart through previous work as a campaign consultant (she worked with Diane Trautman in the past) and Himsl on the Travis Elementary PTA board. I’ve not yet had the opportunity to meet Santos, but I’m sure that will happen sooner or later. I’ll certainly be doing interviews with them all. I don’t expect there to be any more candidates in this race, but you never know. As noted, the finance reports will give us a better picture of who’s running for what.