Bay Area Houston

I thought this was coming and it did last night at the CCISD board meeting.

The public comment section of the CCISD board meeting had the usual conspiracy theorist spouting off some random talking points. Followed by an individual who pointed a finger at Scott Bowen for bringing partisan politics into the board. That was followed by a couple of people wearing matching t-shirts and attacking our schools concerning the gay community. This activity has Scott Bowen written all over it.

Scott and his supporters hammered the dead horse of CRT (that has never been taught in schools, isn’t being taught in schools, and will never be taught in schools). Now that that issue has fizzled they seem to have been given new marching orders, attack the gay community. Attack the schools for “indoctrination” of kids, as if our teachers have the time to do that. It’s nothing more than another made up controversy probably orchestrated by the Republican Party and Scott Bowen. This is what they do.

One individual claimed that the board was not sensitive to his “family values”. I would bet he is the same guy who voted for the former guy who porked a porn star, paid her off, and then lied about it to his supporters. He is the same guy who watched as TFG mocked a disabled American, the same guy who supports a habitual liar, the same guy who watches TFG lie, cheat, steal, and encourage violence. Yep. Family values.

The gay community is here, in our schools, as teachers, as students, as parents, as family members. They want nothing but to live and learn in peace without being targets of hate. They are our kids, our students, our teachers, our friends, our family members. Bowen should know that. 

So in the coming months this will probably be the new target of the Bowen Bunch after attacking our teachers, our school board, the voting systems, and education in general. I hope his $20,000 loan to his campaign doesn’t pan out. He is a cancer.

Bear with me a bit…..

Yesterday the extreme right wing lead of the Harris County Republican Party, Steven Hotze, was indicted by a grand jury. According to ABC13:

Hotze’s attorney, Jared Woodfill, confirmed with ABC13 on Wednesday that his client is charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and unlawful restraint.

According to ABC13 Hotze’s organization paid an investigator who was indicted last year for allegedly holding an air conditioning repairman at gunpoint while in search of phony ballots. This is what Hotze is now charged with. 

This is odd.

Jeff Larson is a CCISD Trustee and was talking with a Facebook group called The Trailer Park Show. He was describing the election of 2019 with a coalition of “conservatives” running together. He starts at 31:45 describing the election. It runs for a couple of minutes until he freezes out and picks up again at 38:46. Larson barely won while Parizo lost by 25 percentage points at 38:46 he begins to discuss the night Parizo was escorted out of the meeting. It is entertaining. It ends at 46:25. 

He wasn’t very nice. True, but not very nice. 

NOTE: IT SHOULD BE OBVIOUS BY NOW. I DO NOT LIKE SCOTT BOWEN. He is at it again. This is who he is.

Remember when CCISD Trustee thought it was funny to play cough on a woman who was wearing a mask during a board meeting? He was swiftly called out for it and sort of apologized at the next board meeting with the typical “If I offended anyone….” crap. Here is a recap:

Bowen showed his dickness when a parent was distributing a document to each of the Trustees. She wore a mask because I believe she was being careful about COVID. As she passed by Bowen he played coughed on her then turned to Trustee Cottrell who joined him for a good laugh. It was all quite funny poking fun at a parent concerned about bringing a deadly virus back to her kids at home. Bowen just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be a dick about everything. He did a great job.

In a recent forum Bowen had to be a dick again by referencing a former board member claiming (incorrectly) that the board member neglected the community. The previous board member, who was not part of the forum, had served 4 terms. She was re-elected to an at large position 4 times and served honorably. She had no opportunity to defend her record. It was a nothing but a cheap shot.

Bowen barely won that district after spending a record amount of money backed by the Republican Party. Bowen brought his politics into the board meetings. He has encouraged the extreme far right to attend meeting and make outrageous claims including the racist dog whistle, CRT. He has caused considerable disruption to the the board and to our education system in CCISD. He hasn’t neglected the community.

He has abused the community.

Here is a comparison of the two candidates, Jessica Cejka (on the left) and Misty Dawson (on the right), running for CCISD School District 1. This information is from the CCISD website.

Education

• Jessica Cejka. Bachelors degree in mathematics from Texas A&M. Masters in education (Instructional Technology) from UHCL. Masters in education (Educational Administration) from UHCL. 
• Misty Dawson. Graduated from CCISD High School.

Applicable Experience

• Jessica Cejka. Secondary math teacher grades 7-12. Community college adjunct professor. Education Manager at NASA. Managed student and teacher STEM programs. Real estate agent.
• Misty Dawson. Former Controller of a company. Pool company business owner.

School Activities

• Jessica Cejka. VP of Fundraising on PTA board. Girl Scout leader, Cookie mom. Volunteer on the Speakers Committee of the Houston Livestock and Rodeo. Volunteer on high school rocketry program. Supporter of the Birthday Joy Program and Clear Creek Education Foundation.
• Misty Dawson.  Carnival Fundraiser Co-Chair, Sandra Mossman Elementary PTA 

Contact information

Jessica Cejka. 

www.jessica4ccisd.net

Info@jessica4ccisd.net

832-541-6616

Misty Dawson.

https://www.facebook.com/electMistyDawsonCCISD/

http://mistydawson.com

832-517-0451

Misty.deen@aeonbluepool.net

Just saw a pic on Facebook from Misty Dawson who is running for the CCISD school board. She is working hard to follow the Republican Party playbook of misleading and scare tactics.

A couple of things:

• The Appraisal District [the Appraisal District is a separate office than the Tax Assessor] accesses taxes based upon home values. It’s not like they willy nilly raise the assessment. Home sales are through the roof for reasons unknown. Tax rates have not changed. She might want to contact the Galveston County Tax Assessor for accurate information. (The Assessor is a republican)
• CCISD has NOT considered eliminating the homestead exemption. As part of their budget process this is always on the table, as it should be, but has never been considered especially in the most recent years. When the State has cash strapped the school districts sometimes drastic cuts or considerations must be take but not this time. So this is nothing more than a scare tactic addressed towards the ill informed.
• She claims she will fight for keeping the homestead exemption, something that isn’t being considered, again catering to the ill informed. 
• And BTW….CCISD’s M&O is at the lowest rate allowed by law and the State actually penalizes school districts for not taxing enough. Go figure.

There is something seriously wrong with this.

In a race that requires a couple of thousand dollars, a handful of signs, and attending meet and greets with education professionals and the community, Scott Bowen has broken the bank. His own bank.

According to his 30 day campaign finance report Bowen raised over $25,000……sort of. Bowen loaned his campaign a staggering amount of $20,000. Many candidates for CCISD in the past have loaned their campaigns money but $20,000 is outrageous much like State Representative Money Mayes Middleton who self financed his campaign with over $2.5 Million for a race that should have cost $500,000 if it was competitive. (it wasn’t) 

This self financing is the latest tactic being used by wealthy republican candidates. Eric Dick a republican for County Treasurer self financed his campaign for over $250,000. (he lost) As I have reported before:

Much like Kathaleen Wall who invested $6 Million for a Congressional primary (and lost), and David Mayes Middleton who invested $1.5 Million [$2.5M total]  for his State House primary win, Huffines invested $6 Million for his primary win for a State Senate seat. Out of his $7.4 fundraising haul 81% came from his own pocket!

$20,000 for a school board race is obscene. There is more to this. Bowen’s Treasurer left right after the 2019 election. Currently he does not have a Treasurer on file and will have to explain that to the Texas Ethics Commission. There is more concerning the mailer he sent with pictures of kids which he did not have permission to do but that is for later.

His remaining donations of about $5000 includes $1300 from Kevin Odit who ran for CCISD back in 2021 and a $2000 donation from Thomas McNutt from Corsicana Texas. McNutt is another extreme far right candidate who the party rejected in the 2022 primary for State Representative.

The Clear Lake Chamber of Commerce held a forum for the CCISD candidates. The entire forum can be viewed at the I45Now channel here. 

The Good. Jessica Cejka and Krysten Garcia. Out of the five these are two very outstanding candidates. Clearly both are very knowledgeable in education matters. Both showed confidence, poise, and were very comfortable answering questions. Watching them answer the questions you could tell they could easily talk in detail about any subject. Both were very impressive. As former educators they would bring a wealth of knowledge and applicable experience to the board.

The Bad. Carl Nunn. Chief Nunn has spent his career in law enforcement but he has had trouble transitioning to being a candidate for a school board. He was clearly having trouble answering some questions. As an example at about 52:45 he took a considerable amount of time to think about the question then simply punted and could not answer. Would he be better than the current board member? Absolutely. 

The Ugly. Misty Dawson. Ms. Dawson is clearly out of her element. At about 31:15 on the question of property taxes her opponent took the entire minute to answer the question while Ms. Dawson took a whole 5 seconds to simply agree. She is self financing but stated candidates should take money from partisan organizations. She had trouble answering questions. At about 58:15 she had to pass on answering since she did not know what “at risk student” meant. According to the moderator “at risk student” is actually defined by the Texas Education Agency. 

Scott Bowen. He is great at pandering to the audience and cloaking his extreme, right wing, partisan, views when necessary. Bowen is one of the reasons we have parents coming to the School Board meetings causing unnecessary trouble on non-existent issues. He seems to enjoy being the instigator of chaos. He should take these skills and run for a partisan office where they will be appreciated.

The Texas Republican Party at their latest Executive Committee Meeting has endorsed Scott Bowen for another term of “conservative values” of disrupting the school board and inserting extreme party politics into CCISD schools and the school board.

This is significant. An endorsement like this comes with support, money, and free advertisement. It is sad that they are playing political games in our district.

According to the video of the meeting Bowen was endorsed by the Harris County Republican Party in 2019 and the resolution states the TRP will endorse if the county party does so again. It states Bowen was responsible for getting other extreme partisan candidates on other local school boards. That could include Cy-Fair ISD Trustee Scott Henry, who was endorsed by the Harris County Republican Party, made racist comments at his first school board meeting. He has now lost his job with a software company out of California.

They claim Bowen is a rising star in the Republican Party and a conservative rock star on the board. He opposed COVID protections for teachers and kids. He opposed CRT  (critical race theory, which is not, and has never, been taught in k-12 since it is a college graduate course.) CRT is also code word for RDW, racist dog whistle.

There is another republican running in this race and there was slight opposition because of this. Also someone didn’t think it was right for the party to inject themselves in non party races like this. He is right.

The entire video concerning this resolution to endorse can be viewed here https://youtu.be/bSlOh2ohuSk?t=7611.

Background: Christine Parizo was a candidate for the CCISD School Board. She lost by 25 percentage points but she wanted a recount……. and lost again. That wasn’t enough for Parizo. She filed numerous open records requests including obtaining the names and addresses of every voter in the district who voted by mail. She attended the board meetings making unsubstantiated claims about her lost election. She claimed the Hart voting machines were compromised. She filed a complaint with the Texas Attorney General which was closed with no action. To top it off she was escorted out for disrupting a board meeting. She has since removed her campaign website. Hopefully she has ended her assault on the board.

Unfortunately it looks like another Parizo has emerged and has filed to run for the board. Misty Dawson made her announcement on her Facebook page and it looks like she will be following in the footsteps of Ms Parizo and Scott Bowen. She uses all of the political buzzwords including claiming to be a “conservative”, stopping CRT (which has not and will never be taught in school because it is a graduate course), and COVID then claims she wants to take politics out of the school board. Yea. Right. Her post is straight out of her political party playbook.

There are much better candidates running for these positions who have experience in the classroom, experience in education, and will focus on what is good for the district, the parents, the teachers, and the students. Hopefully the voters in May will put an end to the political assault on our school board and take Scott Bowen out and keep Misty Dawson off of the CCISD School Board.