Bay Area Houston

Don’t let them take over your board!

If you haven’t kept up with the chaos in Keller ISD you might want to. Hundreds of parents attended the last board meeting in opposition to the Board considering splitting the district into two, one for the rich white kids and another for the others. That’s a bit of an exaggeration but when you look at the demographics and the available resources in each new district that is what it looks like. The meeting was so bad the Superintendant threatened to resign. The decision was tabled.

This is just the latest in a series of events which started with the takeover of the Board by extremists funded by an out of district PAC, which should sound familiar to CCISD residents. Patriot Mobile PAC donated $150,000 to three extremist candidates, $45,000 each, for an election that should have cost about $5000 each. They ran as a “coalition” of “conservatives” and won with the help of two wealthy donors to a PAC called Patriot Mobile. From a previous post:

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.

Shortly afterward one of the new board members, Sandi Walker, invited a Dutch evangelical film crew to one of the high schools without permission from the school, the board, or the parents. They filmed, they aired their, and Walker resigned. Trustee Young was also involved with hundreds of parents calling for his resignation. Lawsuits may have been filed, and should have been filed.

Keller ISD is smaller than CCISD by about 10,000 students. CCISD doesn’t need to split the district. Unlike CCISD Keller is mired in fiscal mismanagement. I would bet that is one of the reasons they want to split is to push the debt onto one of the new districts.

This kind of crap is what happens when we allow outside, rich, Political Action Committees to influence our school board elections. Trustee Scott Bowen has led the effort by recruiting unqualified candidates and financing them through extremist groups like Defend Texas Liberty, a PAC funded by two evangelical billionaires out of Dallas. Defend Texas Liberty was dissolved after being caught organizing with a known white supremacist. CCISD is considering changing the school board elections so that a “coalition” of candidates could run, be funded by an outside group with huge amounts of money, and change the composition of the board to be like Keller. And Katy. And Cypress. And Spring. Keller is issuing a warning to CCISD.

Heed the warning folks.

It’s Bowen. Again.

Ever since 2008 I began reviewing campaign finance reports specifically, at first, I focused on what elected officials and candidates spent their donors money on and wow did I find some doozies! Former State Representative John Davis, representing the Bay Area, was caught spending his donors money on fancy, expensive, boots and gas for his roofing company. State Senator Jane Nelson, now the Secretary of State, was spending her donors money on a condo, then got caught giving her husband money to buy a condo. But today is a first with Bowen.

Recently League City Council Member Justin Hicks was caught conveniently hiding a loan to his campaign. In his amended report the loan came from his treasurer. His treasurer is his wife. There there is Sheriff Fullen who reported a $100,000 loan which mysteriously vanished on the next report. The Texas Ethics Commission is investigating both of these.

In his latest report Bowen is reporting a donation, from himself, for $20,000 to pay off a loan that he made to himself. WTF? When he made the loan to himself he was required to actually deposit the money into a separate account. So now he donates another $20,000 to himself, deposits that donation into his account then pays himself for the loan. None of that makes cents.

What Bowen is trying to do is turn his first loan into a donation therefore he does not have to report an outstanding loan balance in his future reports. That’s not the way this should be accomplished but for the Republic Party rules and laws are for suckers. Bowen starts his campaign with over $9200, mostly his own money.

He is up for reelection in May.

Different name. Same game.

CCISD Trustee had the ear of the PAC Defend Texas Liberty. They were funded by two billionaires in Dallas, Timothy Dunn and Farris Wilks and featured in an investigative report by CNN. That PAC eventually folded after their leadership was caught meeting with a known white supremacist Nick Fuentes. Bowen’s association with this group and others was so disturbing I spoke at a board meeting detailing his involvement. You can read the details here.

But Defend Texas Liberty is back. Again. This time as Texans United for a Conservative Majority PAC. Same people. Different name. Over the last year TUCM (Tuck-em) raised $9,606,725 with $7,065,000 coming from Dunn, and $1,290,000 from Wilks.

These individuals tried, unsuccessfully, to influence the last CCISD election financing Peter Lauzon’s campaign. He lost. They also donated $5000 to another candidate. She returned the money. Bowen himself received $2000 from them.

You might want to read the information on Scott Bowen’s relationship with these guys and other organizations. Here are the entire list of donors and donations: