School's out

But FWISD still needs help.

Learn more here.

School's out......

PRESS CONFERENCE

DATE: Thursday, June 12, 2014
TIME: 1:30 p.m.
WHERE: Neave & Scott, PC, 1819 S. Buckner Blvd., Dallas, Texas 75217

WALTER DANSBY SAGA CONTINUES. DAYS BEFORE FWISD SUPERINTENDENT RESIGNS, JUDGE SIGNS MULTI-MILLION JUDGMENT AGAINST FORT WORTH INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT. SEPARATE LAWSUIT AGAINST DANSBY STILL PENDING.

(Dallas, Texas – June 11, 2014) On March 26, 2014, the trial team of Victoria Neave and Mark Scott obtained a multi-million dollar jury verdict against Fort Worth Independent School District (“FWISD”) on behalf of Mr. Joseph Palazzolo, a former Assistant Principal at FWISD, for FWISD’s blatant retaliation and violations of the Texas Whistleblower Act. Shortly after Mr. Palazzolo reported attendance fraud, discrimination against minority students, and inappropriate sexual relations at FWISD, he was demoted, transferred, and then fired.

During the intense and dramatic week-long trial, a 12-member jury in Wise County, Texas heard emotional and compelling testimony from numerous witnesses and teachers at FWISD who testified regarding the culture of retaliation at FWISD, their fear of testifying, attendance fraud, and unethical and fraudulent practices. Three FWISD Board Members were cross-examined by attorneys Victoria Neave and Mark Scott. The jury found that FWISD had, indeed, retaliated against Mr. Palazzolo and returned a verdict in favor of Mr. Palazzolo in the amount of $2,146,352.09.

On May 29, 2014, the Court signed a Final Judgment confirming the jury’s verdict and awarded additional attorneys’ fees, pre-judgment interest, post-judgment interest, and court costs to Mr. Palazzolo increasing the final judgment against FWISD to more than $2.7 million. The Judge also awarded additional attorneys’ fees to Mr. Palazzolo in the event FWISD appeals. Just days after the Final Judgment was signed, Superintendent Walter Dansby resigned.

SEPARATE LAWSUIT STILL PENDING AGAINST WALTER DANSBY

In March 2014, Neave & Scott, PC filed a separate lawsuit on behalf of Mr. Palazzolo against Walter Dansby for violations of the Texas Open Meetings Act. Dansby ordered microphones to be placed in a closed session of the FWISD Board Meeting which recorded horrific defamatory statements and publicly broadcast them for the whole world to hear via the World Wide Web. FWISD’s own employees confirm in sworn affidavits that Dansby’s order that microphones be placed in the boardroom of the closed special meeting was “unusual,” “odd” and that “[t]here have never been microphones in the Board conference room for closed, executive sessions, except at the June 17, 2013 Board meeting.” This separate lawsuit is still pending against Dansby.

Best of Fort Worth

The Fort Worth Weekly has released their Best of Edition for 2011.  Pick one up, check it out.

In addition to finding all the best spots in town, you can read about groups and people we've told you about - NCTCA, Clyde Picht, Ann Sutherland and Layla Caraway, just to name a few.

WHO was the politician most likely to sell grandma to the highest bidder?  YOU know WHO.

Oh, and Readers Choice for Locally Made Film - Up a Creek.  Congratulations to Bob Lukeman and TRIP and to all those out there making a difference.   Like the Weekly.

Lone Star salutes you all.

Bullies Beware

The Fort Worth Weekly is coming for you.

Read the latest on the FWISD fiasco.  WHO's next?

Education Boondoogles

Check out the two articles in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram -

Fort Worth schools fail federal and state standards in largest percentage among big districts

The Fort Worth school district had the largest percentage of schools failing to meet state and federal academic standards among the largest districts in Texas, according to recently released data.

More than half, 56.4 percent, of the schools fell under the federal adequate yearly progress measures, and 16.5 percent were rated academically unacceptable by the state. While districts across the state had dips in accountability ratings, Fort Worth had the highest percentage of failing schools among the 10 largest districts.
 
AND

TCC Administrators propose 5-year tuition increase

Tarrant County College students could pay more tuition under a preliminary plan to raise $27.4 million in five years to help pay for three new facilities and academic programs.

"We are going to see if it sticks," Trustee Bill Greenhill said.

Be sure and read the comments, from THE taxpayers.

Does anyone see the irony?

One has to ask, if they hadn't shoved the TCC boondoggle down the taxpayers throat, would there be a need to raise tuition?  If OUR schools are failing in standards, will OUR kids be able to attend TCC?

Top City?

When Fort Worth was named a top city, we wondered, top of what? 

Failing schools? Embarrassing ISD? Corrupt Politicians?  Committing taxpayers to debt?  Eminent domain cases? Worst air quality?  For running out of water?  Or contaminating it?

We weren't the only ones wondering, check out the short and sweet letter to the editor in Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

All choked up

So Fort Worth is an award-winning city? Guess the judges sat in their offices at their computers and didn't come down here to breathe the highly polluted air we enjoy. I would have thought that would be a main criterion for a top city.

-- Christina Davis, Fort Worth

Fort Worth Bullies

Fort Worth Weekly does a good job reporting on the bullies in the Fort Worth School District.  It doesn't stop there either, Fort Worth is full of bullies from the classroom, to the ISD, from City Hall to Capitol Hill.

Is there a law against that?

Read the article here.  Don't miss the comments, those in the know tell you many things if you listen.

Kudos to the Weekly for racking up awards in Houston and New Orleans!  Keep up the good work!

Divided they fail

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram's recent article concerning the Fort Worth School Board was so divided it was laughable.  Leave it to the Fort Worth Weekly to turn the lights on. What happens when you turn on the lights?  They scurry, quick.  Notice WHO didn't respond for the article.  The very same ones that "failed to show up" for a recent meeting.  Failed to show up?  For something they have been elected to do? Concerning our kids?  And these are the ones the S-T claims are above board?  The same ones that sent emails attacking the others by namecalling?  Elections can't come soon enough. 

No wonder the recent speaker at City Hall pointed out the difference of the "news" papers to Mayor Price.

Betsy Price ran this week’s city council meetings in the same manner she handles herself — she was pleasant, efficient, and confident. She remained calm after a resident took his turn to speak, lectured the council on how to vote, and told them not to believe anything in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram while urging them to take Fort Worth Weekly stories to the bank. Price smiled and joked with the guy about using her big gavel to keep the council in line. Former Mayor Mike Moncrief would have smiled in that situation too — but only after saying, “Release the dogs” and watching a pack of Dobermans maul the dissenter.

Back to the school board, be sure and read the article, otherwise, YOU don't know what you're missing.

After Johnson’s resignation, Vasquez, Sims, Sutherland, and Rangel asked board president Ray Dickerson to call a special meeting to name an interim superintendent; Dansby’s name had already been raised as the likeliest candidate. He had strong support from the local educational employees union and from a coalition of activists and ministers representing the city’s minority communities.

Needham, Norm Robbins, Christene Moss, and Jackson — all failed to show up. With no quorum, the meeting was cancelled even though the auditorium was full of Dansby supporters. A week later, on June 7, Dickerson called another special meeting, and Dansby was appointed.

Since May 2010, the daily has written 30 editorials implying dirty dealings and collusion by Sutherland, Rangel, and Vasquez, in particular in the awarding of a lucrative tax collection contract to the Austin-based law firm of Linebarger, Goggan, Blair & Sampson rather than to the local joint venture of Perdue, Brackett, Flores, Utt and Burns. Perdue had the contract for 17 years but lost it after the election of Sutherland and Jackson, both of whom voted with Rangel and Vasquez to hire Linebarger. Sims and Needham voted for Linebarger as well but faced no criticism from the daily paper.

Breaking News

And a ray of hope.  From the Fort Worth Weekly.

Melody Johnson resigning from the Fort Worth School Board.

Morons...

Just another example.  If they buy the media, the elections, control the information released/posted, and close or run the libraries, what are the odds YOUR kids will be smart enough to play the game?

Read about Fort Worth non-public libraries on CommonDreams.org.

All things public are under attack. The Fort Worth rebranding is an indication of how effective this attack has been. The city explained that it was dropping the word “public” because of its “potentially negative connotation”. The Founding Fathers would be disconsolate.

Privatization can undermine the public library’s mission: protecting the public’s access to information. The public library is a non-profit organization controlled by representatives of the users of the library. The mission of private companies is to maximize profits. They are controlled by representatives of their investors.

Would it be improper for me to mention the Fort Worth rebranding initiative was mostly paid for by a large oil drilling company?

We noticed the same thing in the FW Weekly shot of the Haltom City Library last week.  And looking just a little further, we weren't shocked to see who the largest donor was.

If YOU don't do something now, YOUR kids are going to be debt ridden dumb sheep...

Civility in Fort Worth?

Now that's a new one.

The FW Weekly has the scoop on the new group forming to hold the FWISD trustees accountable.   Put Our Kids First. Unlike the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Weekly tells it as it is.

And there is that name again.  Judy Needham.  Read what some of her emails to her fellow board members say.  Are these the people YOU want looking out for YOUR kids? 

Adding to the controversy is the fact that trustee Judy Needham sits on the Lena Pope board of directors along with her close friend Marty Leonard, daughter and niece of the late Leonard Brothers retailers.


Both point out that no group formed to call for civility when Needham began sending ugly emails to Sutherland last year, with copies to all board members and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

In one she called Sutherland a “crazy old fool of a woman,” and the “worst” elected trustee in Texas, because Sutherland took it upon herself to stop Chesapeake drilling company from using a loophole in the law that would have allowed it to drill within 200 feet of a school in spite of the fact that the district has a 1,200 foot setback from all schools. (Needham’s hands are hardly clean on the Chesapeake drilling issues. She and trustee Tobi Jackson were recently caught sending identical letters to the state legislature opposing a bill by Fort Worth representative Lon Burnam that would have made it a state law that no gas drilling could occur within 1,200 feet of a school or any school properties. Both rescinded the letters after they were caught and exposed on Facebook, the Star-Telegram and this paper.)

We have a question about one of the comments.  WHO knows the truth? 

 In the guise of this “civility grassroots effort” is Ed Lasater and former mayor Ken Barr who was not named in this article. Ken Barr is both a Chesapeake consultant and treasurer to Jim Lane who is running for Mayor. Barr is behind the scenes with Ed Lasater. Sal Espino is supporting Jim Lane. Do you see the picture? Vote for change in the Mayoral and City wide elections. Politicians cater to special interests. Gas drilling is big as demonstrated in this article by Tobie Jackson and Judy Needham .

To Kill a Boondoogle

Click for enlarged view...

Excellent flier.  In 2009, four Fort Worth Mayors let YOU know they "can't" be wrong.  Funny, the voters said otherwise. 

The top line of the "Friends of Betsy Price" is a perfect example of what we blogged earlier.

Kay Granger, the lead of the Trinity River Vision boondoggle, Charlie Geren, the House Bill 2636 pusher, and Judy Needham the FWISD trustee that backpeddled on her gas drilling letter. (The same trustee that was in the news concerning gas drilling about a month ago.) 

So, what do YOU think?  And again, WHO will make up Betsy's $100,000 a year pay cut to be Mayor?

WHO should control WHO YOUR Mayor is?

Elected officials?  Or YOU?

Fort Worth ISD Interests

Yesterday we told you we hoped the kids in Keller grew up to be a trustee on the FWISD board.  Today, the Fort Worth Weekly tells you WHY we need them. 

Read it all here.

WHO's watching out for YOUR kids?

A small storm has broken out in the Fort Worth school district over nearly identical letters sent by two school board trustees to the Texas House Energy Resources Committee regarding a bill that would put gas wells farther away from local school kids. Oh, and both trustees took ’em back, after word spread of what the letters said.

... from Fort Worth trustees Tobi Jackson and Judy Needham.

Both letters, in their next paragraphs, noted that “The FWISD has already executed many leases that would be negatively impacted by HB1556. In several cases this proposal would make the production of leased minerals physically impossible to produce, thus stranding not only our own minerals but also our neighbors’, resulting in lost tax revenue that is desperately needed right now.”

The similar wording of the letters and the timing of the backpedaling are, um, interesting coincidences to ponder. But the real question is, what do the letters reveal about how much school trustees are really thinking about the safety of students when they make gas well decisions?

Kudos to Keller

The kids in Keller, that is.

Yesterday 500 of them spoke out about canning their teachers. Several held signs that said, "Save our teachers, save our future".  Some walked four miles to be heard.  That's more than some adults will ever do.  Bravo, Keller kids, bravo.

Maybe the kids in Keller will grow up to become the next Governor, or Fort Worth school board trustee.  One can only hope.

Read about the Keller kids, in the Keller Citizen and what the FWISD Trustees are mixed up in this time in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. 

The day before the House Energy Resources Committee held a hearing on the bill, a Facebook posting by local attorney Jason Smith, who testified in favor of the bill, said an energy company lobbyist was "bragging" that he had letters in his pocket from some Fort Worth school trustees who opposed the bill.

The e-mails show that Jackson and Needham provided written testimony March 15 that opposed Burnam's bill, which is endorsed by the Texas Association of School Boards. Jackson and Needham rescinded their testimony hours after the Facebook posting by Smith.

Fort Worth Schools and drilling

Read about the air quality around Fort Worth schools and their good neighbors, the gas industry, in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

What are your kids breathing?

Thank the Fort Worth League of Neighborhoods for trying to protect your kids.  Maybe the City Council is listening...don't hold your breath.