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The recent publication of the $908 CISD Board meal has certainly generated a lot of public and coffee shop discussions.

At the recent regular school board meeting, Dr. Elaine Wilmore spoke her views on this issue, after announcing that she did not plan to seek re-election and was not at the meal in San Antonio. She said "These folks earned it. They had to be there. They're required by law. They earned it. Even if I wasn't there."

Not so, says the Texas Education Code (21.037). It states that board members are not to receive any compensation. Compensation - money, favors, perks, is a violation of state law. The board could not have legally earned anything.

The school board position is an unpaid, often thankless civic duty type job. The people who accept this responsibility deserve our gratitude, but no favors or perks.

Taxpayers are upset about the $908 meal for Damron, six board members and spouses (13 people), and they should be. They helped me pay for that meal and most of them, like me, have never had a meal like that. They are our tax dollars and we have a right to expect them to be spent wisely, just as Mr. Damron has an obligation to spend them wisely.

At the last regular school board meeting, I signed up to address the Board on the last agenda item - Superintendent Appraisal and Contract. Board policy forces public comment before any discussion by the board on the agenda item. As I began to address this item, Assistant Superintendent Joe Ripple interrupted and addressed Board President Donna Boles, saying "This involves personnel and must be addressed in closed session."

Attorney General Opinion H-1047 (1977) holds that the Texas Open Meetings Act permits but does not require a closed session. But I agreed to wait and address the closed session. As I entered the private room, President Boles said I would have three minutes to address the board, who would listen but would make no comment. I gave them my arguments for not renewing Damron's contract and closed by requesting they not renew his contract. As I arose to leave, Mr. Damron stopped me. He took me to task for my articles and for Harold Gentry's articles. Dr. Elaine Wilmore chimed in with him, and 15 minutes later Donna Boles stopped the exchange and I left the meeting.

Before I give my summary of that meeting, I will lay some background. Government agencies often use the closed meeting provision of the Texas Open Meetings Act (TOMA) to hide from the public certain portions of their meetings. The CISD board often goes into closed session.

TOMA Section 2A requires a certified agenda or tape recording of closed sessions. Subsection 2A(h) makes it unlawful to make public the certified tape or agenda without a court order. AG Opinion JM-1071 (1989) clarifies subsection 2A(h) by saying it "does not prohibit persons who are present at the executive session from afterwards talking about the subject matter of the session."

Therefore I am giving a summary of the meeting.

Mr. Damron was very upset that I included his wife Jo's salary in my article. Mrs. Wilmore insisted that I write an apology and publish it. Mr. Damron said that saying Mrs. Damron had only two years of service made her look bad because it did not mention her total years with the state, and that the publication of her salary was not the truth.

I pointed out that all the information published came from payroll data sheets supplied to Harold Gentry by Assistant Superintendent T. Mike Bailey. Her two years with CISD is listed, but there is no mention of her other years within the state. I told Mr. Damron that what made her salary look bad was the fact that she is only a pay grade 7 with only a Bachelor's degree, while the other two teacher's salaries compared had Masters degrees and 30 and 31 years of service, and were a pay grade 8. He stated that she works longer. She is listed as working 20 more days than most teachers. However, most teachers that have extra duties get special allowances or stipends. She is listed as having none - just a base salary that is higher than other teachers and $17,000 higher than the average of all teachers. Lastly, there is the appearance of nepotism. It just does not feel right that the superintendent's wife should receive the highest base salary of all teachers.

Mr. Damron complained to me that Mr. Gentry's article on the $908 meal made them look bad because it did not mention a $300 reimbursement. Mr. Gentry is addressing that in a separate article, so I will simply say that no supporting documentation was provided by CISD for this $300, so we could not consider it. If Mr. Damron did reimburse $300, that's still a very expensive meal and well above the $10 per dinner allowed by CISD guidelines.

Mr. Damron further complained to me that the articles Harold Gentry and I write are not true and are written to "make CISD look bad." Mr. Gentry and I go through stacks of CISD records, all open to the public, to obtain the facts for our articles. If any facts are untrue, it is because CISD supplied them to us that way. As for looking bad, I cannot help that Mr. Damron's excessive spending of taxpayer money looks bad. The fault is with Mr. Damron for the bad decision and with the Board for allowing him such latitude. There is hope that the Board will clamp down on these excessive expenditures.

Mr. Damron said I should bring my articles to CISD first before publishing them so they can tell me if they are right.. He mentioned that the Times Review calls him before publishing articles about the school, and he can tell them if the information is right or not.

Harold Gentry and I rely on data supplied to us from CISD through the Open Records Act. The data they supply is by law supposed to be accurate. If it is not, then it is CISD's fault. Yes, I write about the items I find most offensive. If these facts make Mr. Damron and CISD look bad, then they probably should look bad.

We welcome any citizen to call and ask to inspect the CISD records we have obtained. They will back up everything that we have published.

The CISD pays Communications director Lisa Magers $50,954 per year of taxpayer money to write news releases and do other public relations work to show CISD in a good light. Therefore, CISD certainly has the resources to explain themselves.

The truth is that the scrutiny of CISD by Mr. Gentry and me probably would not have happened if the Board and Mr. Damron had not violated the sacredness of the democratic process by refusing to honor the will of the majority of voters in the first bond election May 7, 2005 and meeting just a few days later to call the same election over again. Mr. Gentry and I, along with many others, said "Wait a minute. Something is wrong here." We started investigating. We will continue to investigate.

Alden Nellis