Sunday, August 4, 2013

Analysis and Commentary of Friday, August 2, 2013

Dissecting the post of Friday, August 2, 2013:  

Today's analysis and commentary will be on Myers post(1) justifying why he voted No on the round-about intersection to be built at Bossy Boots and Bray Central Drive. (2)  We'll focus on Myers reference to Board Policy and the Texas Education Code.


Myers Statement:  "... What I do have an issue with is the following:

  • BAA (Legal) RESTRICTIONS ON BOARD POWERS AND DUTIES
  •  The Board may not:
  • Enter into an agreement authorizing the use of District employees, property, or resources for the provision of materials or labor for the design, construction, or renovation of improvements to real property not owned or leased by the District. Education Code 11.168 [See CE]
...
With that said, and getting back to what I was saying, if the ISD doesn't own the land we can't spend money on it.....its written in the State Law. So, that means even if we wanted to make a nice gesture to the City we can't.

The point I was trying to make is that in the prior board meeting I was under the impression that the reason for building the round-a-bout was due to our expanded property line and the fact that we impact the traffic patterns...regardless of my personal belief that we shouldn't even be considering the Service Center at this point in time or not. But, what I got was that the payment to the city was a "good deed gesture" and not actually part of the ISD property, which makes it illegal for us to consider......ahhhhh."


Analysis:  


The reference Myers makes is to AISD School Board Policy BAA (Legal).  His quote is near the bottom of page 4.(3)  If we look at why it says [See CE]?  This is a reference to AISD School Board Policy CE (Legal).(4)  


CE (Legal) says at the bottom of page 1:

"This section does not prohibit the Board from entering into an agreement for the design, construction, or renovation of improvements to real property not owned or leased by the District if the improvements benefit real property owned or leased by the District. Benefits to real property owned or leased by the District include the design, construction, or renovation of highways, roads, streets, sidewalks, crosswalks, utilities, and drainage improvements that serve or benefit the real property owned or leased by the District."

Education Code 11.168

If we go one additional step and look at Texas Education Code 11.168 (5) we find similar language indicating the school district and the board are legally allowed to do what was approved.

Final Analysis:  

Myers is wrong.  The district is allowed to enter into an such an agreement.  Since he claims this is why he voted no, we can only surmise he only looked for a reason to vote no.  If he had completed his homework and reviewed school board policy CE (Legal) he would have learned the action was legal.

Source Documents:
  1. Myers Blog on why he voted against the Round about http://allentxisd.blogspot.com/2013/08/board-vote-on-roundabout-why-i-voted-no.html
  2. Allen American/Star Local News article about the roundabout.http://www.planostar.com/articles/2013/07/31/allen_american/news/413.txt
  3. Allen ISD Board Policy BAA (Legal), page 4        http://pol.tasb.org/Policy/Download/305?filename=BAA(LEGAL).pdf
  4. Allen ISD Board Policy CE (Legal)                         http://pol.tasb.org/Policy/Download/305?filename=CE(LEGAL).pdf
  5. Texas Education Code 11.168  http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/ED/htm/ED.11.htm#11.168

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