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Todd Bensman & Robert Riggs
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07/28/05 Dallas appears
to be Ground Zero for Public Corruption.
The bad guys aren't all at City Hall. For a
couple of years, Allen
Gwinn (Dallas.org) has been on a crusade to expose Ron Price
for the crook he is and to get him off the DISD School Board where Price makes
decisions that impact our children and waste our tax dollars.
When I saw the DMN
story,
Vendors donated
$25,000 to Price,
on line Tuesday night, I immediately called Allen. Gwinn has been on
full court press ever since. Jessica Leeder and Pete Slover did a
great investigative job. I am amazed they were allowed to do the
story at DMN.
Toenail must be on vacation, or the story would have never seen the light
of day.
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Vendors donated
$25,000 to Price;
Trustee says contracts not aided; 1 of the 3 let tech chief use boat
Wednesday, July 27, 2005 By JESSICA
LEEDER and PETE SLOVER / The Dallas Morning News |
All of Dallas school trustee Ron
Price's $25,000 in political donations last year came from
three closely associated computer contractors, including the one who
gave the district's top technology boss years' worth of free fishing trips
and use of a yacht.
Mr. Price, who
has played down the school official's sea trips, reported in a
campaign filing that Frankie Wong, president and chief executive of
Houston-based Micro System Enterprises, gave him $10,000 in October.
On the same day, Mr. Price got
$10,000 from Larry Lehman of Giddings and $5,000 from Frank Trifilio of
Houston, according to the filing.
Asked why he believed Mr. Wong and
his business partners would make the donations, which are large by local
school board standards, Mr. Price said Tuesday: "He's
a great guy. I'm a good guy.
... State corporation records show the three donors, in various
combinations, run a web of interrelated computer companies.
Micro System is the head company in a
consortium that is designated to receive more than 96 percent of federal
technology grants DISD has applied for ? $369 million in all.
... Mr. Price has been outspoken in playing down
revelations in The Dallas Morning News that Ruben Bohuchot, the district's
associate superintendent over technology services, had regular use of a
59-foot yacht owned by Micro System.
... Until May, Mr. Price was chairman of the
trustees' business briefing panel, which considers technology and other
contracts before they are reviewed and voted upon by the entire school
board.
... "All you do is chair the meetings," Mr. Price
said, adding that Mr. Wong's contributions had "zero" effect on the
multimillion-dollar contracts Micro System has been awarded by the district.
... Mr. Price said when the campaign money came to
him last fall, he had scant knowledge of the men who provided the bankroll.
... Mr. Price said he has since been introduced to
Mr. Wong ? at a fundraiser thrown for him by a Houston school trustee.
... However, nine months after getting the money,
Mr. Price said he still knows nothing about Mr. Trifilio or Mr. Lehman, nor
of their business links to Mr. Wong.
... The three donations put Mr. Price easily at
the top of the list for trustee campaign contributions in 2004. Hollis
Brashear pulled in the second-largest total, just over $18,000. No other
trustee reported donations from Mr. Wong or his associates last year,
according to documents on file at DISD. ...
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This is not surprising to those
of us who have been watching this crook. Why is he still in office?
Assuming there was no vote fraud involved (ha! ha! ha!), how could the people in his district have picked
Price over Rossi Walker, Jr.? What kind of
example is this convicted wife beater for young men in DISD schools?
Bigger question? How has Ron Price supported himself all these years on
the School Board? He better not be getting too comfortable with his
ill-gotten gains because Agent Gwinn is hot on his heels.
That said, I'm going to defend the two DFD commanders and the other City Hall
guy who were the subject of Todd Bensman and Robert Rigg's recent report on
KTVT-11. See
Todd Bensman & Robert Riggs.
I didn't read anywhere in the article that the final contract with
Tritech Software Systems
was more expensive than the vendors not selected or
that the product was less than other vendors were offering.
You know why I'm defending these city employees for accepting expensive
dinners? I still remember Ron Kirk cruizing on Paul Allen's yacht in
the Mediterranean and staying at Allen's Riviera Chateau. You know why
that was significant? After the yachting and chateauing, Ron Kirk
engineered a $1 million+ tax abatement for Paul Allen to move his computer
business from the Infomart to another Dallas location.
Only Councilwomen Donna Blumer and Laura Miller raised a stink about the tax
abatement. DallasArena.com was a little critical of the pay to play deal, but there
was little or no press attention.
It's almost easy to understand Ron Price's assumption that no one would care if
he took $25,000 from a DISD vendor. But, Price knows that Agent Gwinn and
others are watching him like a hawk, which makes him a stupid crook.
I've been very suspicious about Price's comments on the WHISD/DISD merger.
I haven't said much about the Wilmer-Hutchins/DISD merger because it's like a
little Titantic crashing into a big Titantic so they can smash into the iceberg
and sink together. Those WHISD school board members who caused the fall of
that school district should be jailed; they have caused such harm to so
many students.
Speaking of students, on one newscast a DISD spokesperson said that even with
the 2700 WHISD students, the DISD student population would be less than in 2003.
Excuse me? Why are our school taxes still so high if we have over 3000
students less than we had in 2003? Does someone have an answer as to why
it costs more to educate fewer students?
I look at the school in my neighborhood with almost a dozen ugly portables on
the school grounds, with the teachers trying to educate over 500 more children
than the school can accommodate. When we learned most schools in
the southern sector are under populated, it is hard to not blame our North
Dallas over-populated schools on all the over-populated apartment complexes in
our area. |
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7/28 Alexander
Enriquez:
DISD just changed their website to
include more understandable attendance
information. This link's map is very interesting:
Building Usage in Elementaries.
It clearly shows the inequitable distribution of the
cities classrooms.
As for why property taxes haven't
gone down-- it's because the city refuses to tax
commercial and multifamily properties at fair market
value!
Guess it would be "bad for business" or
some other such nonsense.
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Knowing the negative impact on Northwest Dallas that apartment complexes
have had on our community, it is ironic that any Southern Sector council member
would want more apartments for their area.
Think about Ron Price and his lack of ethics on the city council! It's
very likely to happen because Shakedown Leo Chaney is obviously grooming Price
to replace him when he is termed out. Pretty frightening!
There's one more little question to leave you with -- what about WHISD employee
Lew Blackburn serving on the DISD School Board? Since that's his only
employment, is Dr. Blackburn going to quit his job to keep his "non-paying"
position on the School Board? There was always an inherent conflict of
interest in Blackburn serving on the DISD School Board while being employed by
another school district. Now, there is a blatant problem.
Most of these public officials in the headlines the last several weeks have been
African-American. There is nothing racist in reporting the truth. To
ignore the truth and allow these powerful elected officials to continue to take
advantage of their constituents, mostly minority, would be racist.
Ron Price should be removed from the School Board over these outrageous
political contributions, particularly when he wasn't even up for reelection this
year. But then, a convicted wife beater should not be on the School Board
on the first place.
By the way, Allen Gwinn has changed the format of
Dallas.org, turning it into
a blog. If you are interested in being a contributing editor, go to it and
register.
Go get Price, Allen.
sb
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