Politics bleeding into school bond vote

Clear Creek ISD fight shows efforts to influence local elections on rise

There’s little debate that Clear Creek ISD needs a new elementary school.

Campuses around League City are stretched thin, with entire grade levels stashed in portable classrooms. It’s also clear that Clear View High School, built in 1939 and updated over the years, needs a new building.

But other items on the district’s $487 million bond proposal, which will be on the ballot May 6, have caused conservative groups to raise their eyebrows. Political action committees are battling over whether the bond should stay as is or if the district should slash costs and put it up for a November vote.

The showdown between opposing PACs, Vote Yes! for CCISD and Citizens for CCISD, is the latest example of how politics have bled into local education issues, from lobbying for voucher programs to trying to influence local school boards.

Now they have school bonds in their sights.

“It wasn’t really that long ago, whether it was school trustee elections

or school bond elections, they were very much community issues and really almost separated completely from out-of-community influences,” said Guy Sconzo, executive director of the Fast Growth School Coalition and former superintendent of Humble ISD. “That has started to change. More and more external political forces are frankly sticking their noses in local community elections to further much larger political agendas.”

Tea party took the lead

The use of political action committees and other groups that collect and dump thousands, if not millions, into advertising campaigns has exploded since the 2012 Citizens United Supreme Court decision that allowed corporations, unions, advocacy groups and others to donate unlimited amounts of money to such committees.

Voter-approved bonds allow school districts to take on debt to buy technology, purchase land and construct buildings that they could otherwise not afford. Bond money cannot be spend on instructional services or teacher salaries. Clear Creek ISD’s residents would see property taxes increase roughly $65 a year on a home worth $223,635, which is the median price in the district.

The tea party has taken the lead in opposing some Houstonarea bonds since at least 2010, including opposing a $1.2 billion bond ultimately passed by Cypress-Fairbanks ISD voters in May 2014. One of the biggest PAC-led bond defeats came in Katy ISD in fall 2013, when voters rejected a $100 million bond that included $69 million for a second football stadium. Opposing PACs led heated campaigns that included fliers, Facebook posts and road signs. One Katy, the PAC supporting that bond, raised nearly $120,000 from residents, corporate donors, builders and developers. A revised version of the bond was passed in 2014.

‘Not a knee-jerk reaction’

While local opposition in healthy, it’s outside forces that worry Sconzo.

“My concern is with those instances where the local PAC is influenced and even funded in some instances by entities outside local community and sometimes far outside local community,” he said. “That’s where the line gets crossed in my opinion.”

Finance reports aren’t available yet for the Clear Creek PACs.

Scott Rainey, chairman of the PAC supporting the Clear Creek bond, characterized opponents there as anti-tax hawks unwilling to pay for school improvements.

“I get a sense their impetus is no taxes no matter what. There’s no why; it’s just no,” Rainey said. “These things are still needed, that need doesn’t go away if you vote against the bond. The children will suffer. And I don’t know what it would do to property values, but a strong school system in paramount to property values in any community.”

Dale Huls, chairman of the Citizens for CCISD PAC, insisted he would support a lessexpensive bond. He questions the $7.9 million earmarked for new school buses and the $8 million budgeted for school security cameras in Clear Creek’s current proposal.

“I don’t know if these are needs; a lot of them look like wants,” Huls said. “This is not a knee-jerk reaction to another bond from the school. We wanted to question what doesn’t make sense, because it seems to me we’re way overpaying for

things.”

He complained specifically about the growing cost of rebuilding Clear Creek High School, where the district has already spent nearly $70 million since 2004.

Another $13.7 million is proposed to renovate its auditorium.

“We’re not the worst offenders, but how are we at a place that it costs almost $100 million to build a school?” Huls asked. “That seems excessive to us; engineers in our group say this doesn’t feel right.”

Wish list addresses growth

Elaina Polsen, a spokeswoman for Clear Creek ISD, said district officials have met with folks opposing the bond, including Huls, to detail the bond plans and are willing to address any additional concerns. The bond projects were identified by a citizens advisory committee over five months and much public input, and signed off on by the school board.

The original wish list of $1.2 billion was scaled back to $487 million. Polsen said most of the projects address growth in the district.

“Growth still remains a large issue for the school district; this year we grew by 700 students alone,” Polsen said. “Several elementaries are over capacity.”