Anyone for tennis?
The Tennis Party vs. The Tea Party
Adrian Heath | July 28, 2010
One year ago in June just 40 citizens of Montgomery County rose up and held elected officials accountable, they made their voice heard and influenced the actions of commissioner’s court. Last week another set of 50 citizens were able to influence the 800-pound gorilla of Montgomery County local governments known as Conroe ISD and won approval for their cause.
It is truly amazing what activists can achieve these days when they set their mind to it.
It’s not what you think.
The first case reported by Howard Roden involved 40 animal lovers who pleaded for funding of $330,000 for additional MCAS staff so the shelter can achieve the “next level” of services like dog walking, play time for the dogs and implement a much desired – No Kill policy. This was approved over a request for additional Deputies at the MCSO.
The second case was desperate parents and students deprived of lighting at tennis courts in the CISD system. On this Beth Kuhles wrote: “Bobby Burns, director of facilities and operations for CISD, estimated that it would cost about $1.2 million to light all 40 of the high school courts in the district and to reconfigure the courts at College Park, which force students to spend half the match looking into the sun.”. Obviously, we selfish citizens should be made to pay. Pay for the lights, yes. No mention of reparations to current or former students who have suffered under our draconian No Lights policy.
However, the need for our repentance could not have been made clearer than by this quote from CISD board member and Interfaith president Ann Snyder – “We have young people standing in front of us that say they feel this should be a priority,”.
Who can argue with the assessment of young people? Maybe all the board should resign and we can just appoint these young people who know what’s best.
If the tea party movement is to be anything other than a passing fad it must make its presence felt. In Montgomery County it must leave of from cozying up to entrenched big government politicians and majoring in high-energy entertainment events and refocus on local government meetings and operations. Instead of a commissioner’s court overrun by the Dog & Cat Party and the CISD board meeting festooned with the Tennis Party it is high time for the Tea party leadership to come out of the local woodwork.
There is great hope. Just yesterday, Suzanne Guggenheim from Texas Tea Party PAC issued one of their famous fast action alerts- but this one was a call to action on local matters, matters in which we can make a difference. It read in part-
The Board of Trustees for the Lone Star College System is meeting this
Tuesday July 27, 2010 to discuss raising your property taxes spanning
from Harris County to Montgomery County and beyond. You can play a
pivotal role is stopping this tax increase at a planning meeting of
the Board at 11:30am in the Board Room area of the Woodlands campus of
Lone Star College System, which is the system’s headquarters.
I commend Suzanne Guggenheim from Texas Tea Party PAC. At last, instead of urging me to boycott Home depot or drive to Arizona, someone is asking me to make a difference where it counts, at home.
Currently, Local government is churning through their budget plans. Plans are being made for massive spending by the county plus the probability of a tax increase; Conroe ISD is planning a tax increase (note we just learned Chris Irish will not run a gain), as is the College district.
One elected official has suggested the Tea Party / Parties should be at CISD on Aug 3rd in force or at other local government deliberations now while it most counts. Hey it’s your money.
I am scheduled to speak at NHTPP on Aug 3rd but will gladly accommodate such a decision.
Hello Mr. or Ms. Heath,
Your statement that the taxpayers should be forced to pay for the necessary lighting at the CISD tennis courts is very shortsighted. Had you attended all of the board meetings you would have been aware of the necessity for lighting. As to what about all the other years of the students being forced to play without draconian lighting; the parents have been asking at their local schools for years with no results so we were forced to approach the board as taxpayers and parents. We represent 250+ taxpaying families.
The issue is very simple. In order to complete tennis matches and comply with UIL rules which affects all sports within CISD a couple of things must happen.
(1) The tennis matches must be moved to off campus facilites which means safety issues as you have students driving other students in the heat of matches. Once at the offsite facility you’ll find no security or CISD trainers (first aid) available. Let there be just one accident and I think you’ll find a law suit that will cost the taxpayers well in excess of 1 million dollars. We are fortunate that as of this date no accidents have happened.
(2) Take the students out of school more often to complete the matches. The ultimate goal of CISD is to educate our students so that should be a no brainer.
Finally, the 1.2 million dollar figure you quoted was an estimate only with actual bids not having been requested until the last meeting. I believe the final cost will be significantly lower than that number.
Tracy Cassady