August 13, 2009

What Alden Nellis Really Thinks
(as in NOT interpreted by Stu Madison)

This is in regard to the article by Pete Kendall interviewing Stu Madison that was printed in the August 12 Cleburne Times-Review, and reader comments made on their website.

Special thanks to those who wrote to defend me and/or my stance on issues at Cleburne ISD.

Thanks also to those who stated their disagreement with me.

Thanks to the Cleburne Times-Review for providing this public forum.

Jeers to those not brave enough to sign their name to their opinion.

In this response to the article by Times-Review reporter Pete Kendall I am assuming his quotes of Stu Madison are accurate.

I have asked CISD to implement Single Member voting districts so that all neighborhoods will be represented on the school board. The City has had SMDs for some time. In all court cases that I have seen, the court has NEVER upheld an at-large school board election such as Cleburne has.

Of the seven school board members, six live closely together in the Southwest quadrant of town. The other one manages a business in that part of town. Wendell Dempsey lives in the Southwest part but owns and runs a business in the Northeast side of town.

Mr. Madison is a lawyer, Assistant County Attorney, and president of the Cleburne ISD Board of Trustees. An often-used lawyer trick is to attack a witness on a personal level to try to discredit that person’s testimony. I believe that is what he is attempting here. However, in my opinion, he comes out looking small, insecure and trifling.

Mr. Madison called me hypocritical because I supported Mr. Dempsey in the recent Board election when there was a Hispanic candidate. Mr. Madison made a point that Mr. Dempsey is from the Southwest quadrant of town. He does not mention that the Hispanic candidate was also from the Southwest quadrant of town.

There were three “white” men and one Hispanic on the ballot. ALL were from the Southwest part of town. Voters had no choice but to elect someone from the Southwest quadrant. The real question in that election was who was best qualified. The Hispanic candidate is a fine, upstanding citizen and I have nothing against him. However, Mr. Dempsey is a long-time successful businessman with one of the few businesses in East Cleburne,  is raising a grandson who attends Gerard Elementary, is 70 years old and has the experience and wisdom needed on the Board. He also has the empathy needed for the job. He simply was the best man for the job. To their credit, other voters saw it that way too, and he was elected.

I will emphasize that the question of SMDs is not all about Hispanic versus Black versus White. It’s about equal representation for all neighborhoods.

My wife put it very well with a simple question. “What’s wrong with all neighborhoods in the district being represented?”

In other words, does the school board think people from other neighborhoods aren’t smart enough to function on the board? Do they think less affluent people aren’t good enough to serve?
Do they think these folks need a well-heeled guardian to look after their interests because they can’t do it themselves?  Do they think that people who live in the richest part of town are more intelligent, honest, or devoted to their children’s education?

If each board member and voter would individually answer that question, I believe it would cause some soul-searching.

It’s about neighborhoods, not race. More importantly, it’s about kids from all neighborhoods having equal representation and equal opportunity. I will guess there are nearly the same number of Whites and Hispanics in East Cleburne.

Mr. Madison and Mr. Allen try to make it seem that I was opposed to new schools in East Cleburne. They are either trying to bend the facts or they have bad memories. I did oppose building three new elementary schools and placement of all three in East Cleburne. (You will recall that the Board’s position before the 2004 bond election was that two schools would go on the East side and one on the West.)

My counter-proposal made at a public hearing and supported by a group of taxpayers, was to cut the amount of the bond issue in half and build one new campus on the East side, renovate the two wonderful 1916 buildings Santa Fe and Irving, and do all the other improvements they were requesting for the other campuses.

The costs for my proposal would have been $18 million instead of $36 million, and it would have given us the same student capacity we now have. The Board rejected this proposal.

Mr. Madison said he construed my presentation as a threat of a lawsuit. I mentioned this as a possibility, not a threat that I would personally sue the district. Mr. Madison can stick his head in the sand if he wishes, but that will not make the possibility of a lawsuit go away. As a lawyer, he knows or should know that CISD will lose in such a suit. So why not get started implementing SMDs now before we are under the gun of a federal court and their deadline? SMDs are inevitable.

Mr. Madison criticized me for wanting to do things the way I see the rules. By doing things the way the Board and CISD saw the rules, we had to refund $362,000.00 to the TEA and spend and continue to spend way more than that on corrective actions. Any wonder why I do not trust the way they see the rules?

Mr. Madison said my concern is not really with equal representation of all neighborhoods but to get Mr. Mead, Mr. Allen and Mr. Martyniuk off the Board. Is Mr. Madison now saying he is clairvoyant? Can he know what others are thinking and what motivates them? If so, perhaps he should put “clairvoyant” on his resume.

I do think Board members should be limited to two terms – six years. I talked with a former board member who won a third term. He told me that was a mistake and agreed that two terms is enough.

And finally, I was responsible for getting a Hispanic lady to run for the school board last time. Unfortunately she had to drop out before the ballots were printed because she did not have prior permission from her employer, a government agency.