All Personal Finance Reports for League City Council are available.
You can receive an electronic copy of the PFS by submitting an Open Records Request to the City Secretary or you can read them here. You can read them if you want but they are not very interesting except for Mayor Pro Tem Hicks. Hicks reported having been employed with TNM LLC out of Henrietta New York as a Projects Manager. He has a lot, I’m assuming that is his home, but the value is not listed. That’s it. I became interested in this TNM LLC and performed a search but could not find them. Hicks lists himself as a Project Manager. If you are looking for controversy this is all you will find.
The PFS should show more of the fiscal stability of each member including debts, lawsuits, liens, etc. The public should know if the individuals responsible for the fiscal well being of their city and stewards of their taxes are also fiscally responsible. It’s just common sense.
Other than that the PFSs are pretty boring. You can view Mayor Long and Mayor Pro Tem Hicks PFS here. The rest of the Council PFSs are here.
Harris County Department of Education Trustee, Eric Dick, is at it again. This time he is meddling in Harris County Democratic Party primaries. Dick is a republican. He is a MAGAt and yet he donated $25,000 to a PAC called Community Justice. The PAC has filed 3 reports raising $136,000 with $125,000 coming from 4 individuals/organizations including ERIC DICK for $25,000.
Dick joined lawyers from the law firms of Lowenberg, Posch & Nguyen, Spagnoletti, and Armstrong Lee & Baker. One of the candidates they supported was Erica Hughes against a very popular and excellent Judge Mike Engelhart. Hughes won. I’m begging to wonder if these law firms had a case in front of Engelhart in the past.
Dick seems to have enough money to meddle in another party’s primary but he doesn’t have enough to pay his $40,000 fine issued by the Texas Ethics Commission.
This ought to be interesting. Last year the co-founder of Mom’s for Liberty, Bridget Ziegler, was caught up in the sexual three way with her husband, Christina Zieger Chair of the Florida Republican Party, and a woman who has accused him of rape. There were a number of stories as well as videos.
Ziegler was appointed to the Sarasota School Board by Governor Ron DeSantis. She is still on the board even after parents called for her resignation. The accusation of rape has since been dropped by the woman but the Republican Party removed him as the Chair.
Mom’s for Liberty is a white wing, Florida based, extremist organization with chapters in 48 states. According to Bloomberg they have advocated for book banning, as well as:
fought against equal treatment for LGBTQ children, and railed against sex education and the teaching of Black history. Its members falsely claim there’s a widespread conspiracy in American schoolsto expose children to concepts about sexual orientation and gender identity that don’t conform to the Moms’ idea of traditional family values.
Bridget Ziegler
I guess they occasionally enjoy a three way once in a while. Great family values! And now they are coming to Houston’s own Gallery Furniture with Kirk Cameron, who has a boner for the Gay community. He claims a legal process called marriage is “unnatural” between same sex among other things. His interview on CNN is disturbing.
So come to Gallery Furniture and enjoy the event. (no videos please)
Last month a group called Harris County Democratic Endorsed was sending texts with their endorsements. It looks as if it was coming from the Harris County Democratic Party. Their logo is very similar to HCDP as is their website which is hosted on WordPress. (rookies) Their endorsement is paid for by Community Justice PAC a PAC created late last year.
Here is what I found back in February:
They raised $50,000 from two individuals/entities, spent over $13,000, and has over $36,000 COH. Joshua Lee donated $25,000 and the law firm Push & Nguyen donated $25,000. Of the $13,000 $7626 was paid to Christian Alexander with a PO Box for JC National for consulting expense and $5000 to John Humphries with a PO Box for Loud Inc for a reimbursement for the the JRR Dinner.
Since then they have filed 3 reports raising $136,000 with $125,000 coming from 4 individuals/organizations including ERIC DICK for $25,000. Yes, that Eric Dick, the republican on Harris County Department of Education who has not paid his $40,000 fine by the Texas Ethics Commission. All of these top donors are associated with law firms, Dick, Lowenberg, Push & Nguyen, and Spagnoletti. Lee works for Armstrong Lee & Baker.
Community Justice spent $60,800 with $40,000 spent on “CONSULT”. One of the candidates Community Justice supported is Erica Hughes who defeated long standing Democratic Judge Mike Engelhart. I have to wonder if these law firms had any cases in front of Judge Engelhart. Here are the top donors
After a scathing report from the Department of Justice concerning the mass shooting at Ross Elementary Texas Governor Greg Abbott has called for swift consequences for all involved law enforcement. “21 crime victims in Uvalde never even had their crime investigated. That includes 19 young children ,” Abbott wrote on X on Thursday. “The state must impose consequences for this neglect & provide solutions to prevent acts like this that allow criminals to get easy access to military firearms.”
The response by local law enforcement was swift. “We were confronted by an 18 year old with a military style weapon one that Abbott provided easy access to. Maybe Abbott ought to shut his goddamn mouth, get off his lazy ass, and get these damn weapons off the street. “
What a rotten crippled bastard. Welcome to Satire Sunday.
Unlike Erica Hughes who ran against an excellent Democratic Judge, Takasha Francis actually has excellent experience for the job but it still make me ask “Why in the hell would anyone recruit and finance someone to challenge a great Democratic Judge who has served the Courts and the County honorably?”.
According to the Texas Ethics Commission Francis raised $24,500 including $5600 for legal services. She spent $18,018 with $5591 for Advertising, $1502 for Poll Workers and $3250 for fees, food, and fundraising.
As with the others I wonder who recruited her and financed her campaign. She won 55/45 against a very successful Democratic Judge. Surely there were other judges that needed to be challenged. Judge Schaffer was not one of those.
There needs to be a conversation about this. We lost a great Judge and we lost.
Unlike Erica Hughes Judge Elect Boyd-Cora has little if any applicable experience for the 1st District Court of Appeals and yet she won. By a lot, 60-40. Don’t take my word for it. Go look at her list of experience posted on her website. (I’ll save you the time) Her site has a email that bounces and her phone number is listed as (123)456-7890 and it has nothing listed about her experience beside generic statements like:
As a judge, Amber vows to be a voice for the people, ensuring her decisions reflect the community’s needs and values.
ChallengerAmber Boyd-Cora, 43, has no experience in courts of appeal, while the incumbent, Peter Kelly, 60, was an appellate specialist before winning this place in 2018. It’s an easy call.
So like I said with Erica Hughes “Why in the hell would anyone recruit and finance someone to challenge a great Democratic Judge who has served the Courts and the County honorably?”. I just don’t get it. Boyd-Cora doesn’t have the experience for the job. She doesn’t have the endorsements from the Democratic community, and she didn’t raise money.
According to the Texas Ethics Commission she only raised $12,856 yet spent $23,125. Those numbers don’t make sense. Her largest donation was $3100 for legal services. She spent $5000 on advertising, $7100 on fees, food, and fundraising, and $4300 on salaries for poll workers. As with Erica Hughes she donated $1750 to the Houston Black American Democrats for mailers. It is almost as if someone told her to just put her name on the ballot and she will win. And she did.
The Party needs to have a very serious discussion concerning those in the party who are recruiting and funding candidates who are challenging well qualified, honorable, elected officials. If not it will happen again and we will lose. Again.
It’s a good question and I don’t have any answers. Yet.
BTW. This has nothing to do with the qualifications of Judge Elect Erica Hughes. Her qualifications are impressive. Take a moment and read them. But the question remains “Why in the hell would anyone recruit and finance someone to challenge a great Democratic Judge who has served the Courts and the County honorably?”. Seriously there are judges who NEED to be challenged. Judge Engelhart was not one of them.
So, who recruited Ms Hughes? Who funded her campaign? According to her campaign finance reports it is clear she must have had help. It is very difficult to search the Texas Ethics Commission for organizations or donors that support candidates. There is no search function titled “Who supported [fill in the blank] and I don’t have a clue on how to start that type of search, but I do know this. Hughes must have had help.
According to her campaign finance reports Hughes only spent $23,125. Her largest expenditures was for signs $2641, and for mailers to the Houston Black American Democrats for $1750. She spent $5282 on fees, food, and fundraisers as well as $240 for hair and makeup. She also spent $4300 for poll workers. (which by the way, statistically, is NOT a great investment)
Hughes raised $55,000 with $38,000 coming from $1000 donations or more from about 26 donors. This includes $4100 for legal fees.
Democrats need to have a difficult conversation about what happened this past Tuesday. Judge Engelhart is a fantastic individual, a great Judge, and an asset to the community and our party. We did not deserve this.
The Ugly. What the living hell is happening to the white, male, Democratic Judges in Harris County? The purge continued with the loss of Judge Mike Englehart and Judge Robert Schaffer and I do mean “loss”. The losers are the citizens of Harris County who demand Judges who follow the law, do their fuckin job, and are fair to all parties. That is what Englehart and Schaffer brought to the courtroom. Why would anyone challenge them and why would anyone vote for their opponents? This is ugly. Real ugly. And stupid.
There is more ugly. After leaving the Mayoral race when Sheila Jackson Lee entered, Amanda Edwards endorsed Lee and ran for her congressional race. After being wiped out in the election Lee reentered her congressional race and won last night. Amanda lost and the Democratic Party has probably lost her as a candidate in the future. I wouldn’t blame her. The Party that wants young, talented, candidates to run for office didn’t vote for the young and very talented candidate. She lost.
The Bad. With 6 candidates in the race to replace Senator Whitmire Representative Jarvis Johnson will be in a runoff with Molly Cook. This is bad only because Johnson is the best of the bunch and shouldn’t be in a runoff. Representative Harold Dutton won. Representative Shawn Thierry will be in a runoff for her seat. Her opponent received 49.79% of the vote while Ashton Woods caused the runoff with 5% of the vote. That is bad. Judge Ursula Hall won. That’s bad too.
The Good. There is a lot of good that came last night. Sean Teare defeated District Attorney Kim Ogg by a wide margin. The good she has done for Harris County was all wiped out by her pettiness. Let’s thank her for her service and move forward. Senator out of Arizona, Kristen Sinema will not seek reelection. Yeah! The Democratic Socialist Pervez Agwan running against Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher was wiped out by 60 points. Favorites Christian Menefee, Ed Gonzales, Jerry Garcia, and Judge Delgado will all move on to the general.
Email obtained via an open records request (not by me) show that the Patriot Mobile Trustees Sandi Walker, Micah Young, and Joni Smith were notified about the Dutch film crew and was in communication with them. A Facebook post explains it in depth.
The poster asks some very valid questions like who else knew about this? What devices were used to conduct KISD business? Are any of them personal devices? From the emails it sure seems like all of them received the email from the Dutch crew then went silent choosing to conduct their business on their personal account.
I believe it was made very clear that if you use your personal device for official business then you could possibly be in violation of the open records laws if you delete them. I do not believe a person filing a grievance would be able to obtain any records, but I bet if a lawsuit is filed these records will have to be produced.
The emails clearly show the filming was political in nature. They contacted Walker and Smith and Walker forward it to Young asking for comments. The crew said:
Trustee Walker, who has since resigned, responded with:
There is going to be a lot of sunshine being shoved up someones back end in the near future. Trustees who had any prior knowledge of this need to come out, come clean, and then resign.
The Republicans in Austin required elected officials in cities with a population of over 100,000 to file a Personal Finance Statement. The PFS for League City officials are now available. The city secretary is responsible for their storage and can be obtained by filing an open records request. If interested you can view Mayor Long’s statement and Mayor Pro Tem Hick’s statement here. Believe me, it’s boring.
After looking at what they are required to disclose I have to wonder why anyone would object to disclosing the information. You are required to identify who you are employed by but not how much you make. You have to identify investment assets such as mutual funds and how much they are worth if sold, up to $47,000. You are NOT required to list your financial stability such as your debts, bankruptcies, or liens against your property. You can see the entire list below.
Hick’s and Long’s PFS can’t be any more different. Hicks reported having been employed with TNM LLC out of Henrietta New York as a Projects Manager. He has a lot, I’m assuming that is his home, but the value is not listed. That’s it.
Long’s PFS is a bit more detailed. He has a job with Allianz Insurance Services, a home, many different investments such as mutual funds and interests in a number of business entities.
The purpose for a PFS is to provide transparency to the voters and residents. Elected officials should recuse themselves if they have a conflict with a proposed expenditure in the city and their investments. You would like to know if an elected official is voting to provide a contract to a company they own or one they have a significant interest in. It isn’t rocket science. It isn’t all that intrusive.
Here is what is required to disclose in a PFS. This list is from Hick’s PFS:
That’s Bianca Gracia meeting with Enrique Tarrio, head of the Proud Boys and Stewart Rhodes head of the Oath Keepers the day before the Jan 6 riot. Tarrio and Rhodes were convicted of seditious conspiracy against the United States by a unanimous vote by a jury. They are each serving over 20 years in prison.
Gracia is running for the Texas House against State Representative “Little Baby” Briscoe Cain, of Deer Park, pictured below with his mom and younger siblings. Cain was one of those republicans who voted to impeach Ken Paxton and has little if any accomplishments to brag about but as the Houston Chronicle has said:
We’re no fans of state Rep. Briscoe Cain and his botched attempt to lead the passage of a voter suppression bill, but we’ll take his buffoonery and occasional principled stand over the far edges of extremism.
So who is funding Gracia? Since filing Gracia has raised over $173,000 which is nothing to sneeze at. $105,000 came from those giving $5,000 or more. Patrick Byrne of Utah and former CEO of Overstock, gave her $25,000. Over $100,000 came from out of state. Only $11,000 came from within Deer Park.
CCISD Trustee elections for District 4 will be held on May 4, 2024. Candidates should raise money from within the district and refuse all PAC money.
Over the last couple of years school districts across the State have been flooded with out of district, special interest, PAC money. It used to be a school board election would cost about $2000 and a few signs. That has changed. In Keller ISD Patriot Mobile PAC spent $150,000 to elect three white wing MAGAts to the board. One has since resigned and one will soon. CCISD has had it’s own infusion of PAC money.
In 2023 Defend Texas Liberty, a PAC that has since become irrelevant due to their association with a known white supremacist, financed Peter Lauzon’s campaign with a $5000 donation. They attempted to donate to another candidate but she refused their donation. They donated $2000 to Trustee Scott Bowen who has refused to return it. Harris County Republican Party has also donated by sending out mailers.
School Board elections should be about three things and three things only, Students, Teachers, and Parents. Nothing else. This years election should be local. Candidates should pledge the following:
Will not accept PAC money
Will not accept out of district donations
Will not accept in-kind donations from partisan organizations
Will not self finance their campaigns
Trustee Jeff Larson and Albert Wittliff should both take this pledge. Raise money from within the district, from your neighbors, parents and teachers. Out of district influence must stop. This is our school district. We do not need meddling from white supremacist organizations or any political organizations in our elections.
You can find campaign finance reports for both candidates at the CCISD Elections webpage. Both candidates start the campaign with little or no funds. First reports are due April 5.
Harris County DA Kim Ogg has criticized her primary challenger for taking support from the republican boogey man, George Soros. Before all you republican bed wetters start whining like a bunch of little bitches, just remember your own two billionaires, Timothy Dunn and Farris Wilks, have pumped nearly $4 Million into primary races in just the last two months. So, yes, both sides are doing it. Sort of.
The Texas Justice and Public Safety PAC since 2018 has raised over $8 Million. $7.8 Million was donated by George Soros. The PAC has spent $9,717,012 with $1.6 Million spent in support of DA candidate Sean Teare. That is a HUGE amount to be spending in a DA race, but before all you Democratic bed wetters start whining just remember Soros spent $500,000 to get Ogg elected in 2016. Soros has since soured on Ogg and is looking for the next far left “progressive”. I think we will be disappointed once Teare is elected.
Teare isn’t the only DAs race Soros is supporting. He gave to candidates in Travis, Bexar, Dallas, Tarrant, and Fort Bend. I wonder if he will continue contributing during the general election.
The cameras never showed the crowd but it sounded like it was big. And loud. You can view the public address section here starting at about 1:13:20 into the meeting. It runs for about 2 hours. Over 800 people were watching online.
The President of the Board made a statement at 1:02:00 about the Dutch film crew incident followed by Trustee Micah Young. Young claimed he was invited to participate by the Trustee who arranged the filming. He checked in at the front desk and not once questioned if the crew had a security clearance to be there, had permission from parents to film kids, or had permission to be there from the board. He knows the answers to these questions. The Board was never made aware of the film crew. He is on the board. He should have known this was wrong. He should have declined the invitation. He claims he didn’t know students were going to be filmed BUT HE KNEW THE FILM CREW WAS THERE. I bet he did know it was wrong but participated anyway.
The first board meeting for Keller Independent School Board after the filming incident at a high school is schedule for 5:00 PM Feb 29 (tonight). It is expected to be wild.
Parents are not happy with the board, specifically Trustee Micah Young, who escorted a foreign, right wing, extreme, evangelical film crew through the school, filming students without consent from their parents. School board Trustee Sandi Walker organized the event and resigned immediately once outed. Trustee Young’s Facebook post apologizing for the incident has been flooded by hundreds of parents calling for him to resign.
NOTE TO SPEAKERS: Those wishing to address the Board during the Audience with Individuals portion of the agenda can do so by filling out the online sign-up form. Individuals may not sign up in person at the time of the meeting. To provide staff with sufficient time to organize a report of speakers for the presiding officer, the deadline to submit your request to speak is noon on the day of the meeting. Please click here to access the online sign-up form.
I recently wrote about the two Texas billionaires, Timothy Dunn and Farris Wilks, who funded Defend Texas Liberty. DFT leadership was caught having a long meeting with Nick Fuentes, a known white supremacist. The backlash was brutal with calls for elected officials and candidates, including CCISD Trustee Scott Bowen, to return their contributions. The leader of DTL was fired and he changed his company’s name. DTL’s donations have dried up.
Dunn and Farris worked quickly to defund DTL and start up a new PAC called Texans United for a Conservative Majority PAC. It was formed in late 2023 and has raised, sort of, a couple of million. So far they have raised $3,928,000 with $3,740,000 coming from Wilks and Dunn and $188,000 coming from a few wannabes.
They have spent $3,300,162 trying to influence the republican primary. Here are the candidates they are supporting and the amounts they are contributing. This list includes Katrina Pierson the Trump kiss ass and Shelley Luther who lost in 2020 and 2022. She was the hairdresser, who violated the COVID restrictions, turned politician. David Covey is challenging Speaker of the House Dade Phelan. Brent Money has already lost a special election.
The Harris County Democratic Convention Committee decided to invite, and pay for his travel and appearance, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to speak at our County convention in March. So why is this controversial? Well, glad you fuckin asked.
Ellison is the only elected official to endorse Pervez Agwan, the Socialist candidate running against the Democrat Congresswoman, Lizzie Fletcher, in the Democratic Primary. Ellison joins a couple of unknown extreme far left organizations and the author of Lone Star Left in endorsing Agwan even after the Houston Landing reported on a sexual harassment suit against him. (It’s along, disturbing article)
This week Agwan’s supporters disrupted the Meyerland Democrats club meeting where Congresswoman Fletcher was to speak. Art Pronin, the long time President of the very prestigious club, wrote an op-ed in the Houston Chronicle detailing the incident. It is worth a read. If you aren’t going to take the time to read it at least read this:
I was told — and yes, I’m Jewish — that I am “owned by AIPAC” (American Israel Public Affairs). One of our members was asked if she were a Jew. Law enforcement hauled out protestors one by one as they disrupted. Each time I resumed the meeting, another wave would pop up, running around with their phones, filming what they were doing to us.
Once all were escorted out, they began pounding at the entrance doors.
For 30 minutes, they pounded and screamed. I thought the glass panels would break.
This is the group Ellison is going to come and pacify. At a time when cool heads need to prevail concerning the powder keg in Israel, and when the party has to be united to defeat the white supremacist Donald Trump, HCDP invites a divisive extreme far lefty from outside the State, the County, the City to further divide us. We have plenty of elected officials right here in Houston that could bring unity to the party including Hidalgo, Menefee, Hollins and others. Yes, we all agree:
Hamas is a terrorist organization
Israel has a right to defend itself against Hamas but NOT the Palestinians
A two State solution is the only solution to end the continued violence
Netanyahu eventually has to go for peace to actually be achieve
We can all agree on those points, but causing a disruption at the Club/County/State/Federal Convention is NOT the way to move forward. Fucking progressives think that all you need to do is yell and scream and let everyone else do the heavy lifting. You are suppose to make fuckin progress! In response to this obvious stupidity the Committee Chair, Sarah Syed, admitted to the Chair of the Party:
The CD Chairs met last night again and we had a conversation with a 100% vote to continue with Keith Ellison as the keynote speaker for the convention with the intention that we would have increased security and an emergency plan.
The Committee did this purposely. It reminds me of 2016. How in the fuck did that turn out for you? For us?
Parents are pretty mad about KISD Trustee Walker and Young invited a foreign, evangelical, film crew into a public high school and filming their children without their consent. So who helped put these candidates into office and how much did they donate? Patriot Mobile. A lot.
Patriot Mobile PAC was created in January 2022 and funded mainly by Patriot Mobile LLC, a cell phone company. Since then they have raised $1,341,515. Of this total, 98%, came from two donors. $1,200,000 came from Patriot Mobile LLC and $120,000 came from Bryan Bradford, an investor in Austin, Texas. Patriot Mobile’s share is 90%.
Since January 2022 Patriot Mobile PAC spent $985,385. Of that $392,000 was spent on candidates in school district races and MUDs. Each KISD candidate Walker, Young and Shaw received $45,321 for their campaigns. As I said, this is A LOT for a school race that usually costs a couple of thousand dollars. All three were elected.
If you look at their personal campaign finance reports they each raised just a few thousand dollars but let Patriot Mobile PAC spend $45,321 on each of their campaigns hidden in campaign finance reports on the Texas Ethics Commission website. They never denounced their participation. They never denounced an LLC meddling in local school boards. They gladly accepted it. They took their money and have done their bidding.
And now two years later one has resigned (Walker) and one should (Young)
Posted by johncoby 
