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I wanted to remind everyone of something that is near to my heart right now - the May elections. The fact is that these local elections affect our lives on a daily basis much more than the national ones do, yet it is the national ones that always get all of the attention. If you haven't started familiarizing yourself with the various elections happening in just under a month, I would encourage you to do so and know who you are going to vote for and PLEASE get out and vote.

If you check the local papers, these smaller races are starting to get press coverage so it is a good time to become informed. I know that I have been interviewed by the Hill Country News in the past and have several articles in there that explain my positions. Beyond that, I was just interviewed earlier today for an article in the Austin American Statesman (should be in there this weekend). I am sure that similar articles are being written about many local races in many local papers. And don't forget to check the league of women voters for responses by candidates.

Austin area links:
http://lwvaustin.org/
http://www.hillcountrynews.com/
http://www.statesman.com/

If you do not think local elections make a difference... just think back 8 years ago to the Miami-Dade and Palm Beach County FL election commissioners (who hold elected offices). Specifically: Palm Beach's commissioner who devised a new standard for counting ballots (hanging chad, dimpled chad etc) all of which was beyond her authority and beyond the legal standards allowed.

At least local elections corrected part of the issue in 2004:
Theresa LePore is a former Supervisor of Elections for Palm Beach County, Florida. She is most notable as the person who designed the infamous "butterfly ballot", used in the 2000 presidential election. This would lead the press to nickname her "Madame Butterfly." Following the controversial results of the 2000 election, she lost her re-election bid in September 2004 and left office in January 2005.


Just remember VOTE in local elections... sometimes the national elections are affected by those you elect locally.

Early voting in these elections has started! Please get out and vote!

Kalrog wrote:Early voting in these elections has started! Please get out and vote!

Done =) Good luck to you in your race.

tallmike wrote:Done =) Good luck to you in your race.

Thanks! I know I have at least 1 vote on the books now.

So who else voted? Voter turnout in my race was absolutely pathetic. I just don't get it...

Oh, and I lost too. But I'm not going anywhere.

I hope you don't feel too bad. Almost no candidate is elected in the first race.

- Jim

seamusTX wrote:I hope you don't feel too bad. Almost no candidate is elected in the first race.

I actually feel fairly good about my showing. It was only a 230 vote difference and the incumbent almost always wins - that makes my loss a very close race and I was pleased with how it turned out.

One thing that I don't want to do is just sit around and do nothing though - I want to make a difference even without being on the board. So with that goal, I have decided that one of the things I can do is to improve communication both directions. I have started a few things over at my campaign website including a forum to work towards those goals with the hope that I can get good information out to the parents and students of LISD, but I need this to be a 2 way proposition. I'll give all of the information that I can, but it will work a whole lot better if I can get feedback and have others posting on the forum with what they know is going on in the district. This could expand beyond LISD, but that is not my goal right now. So if you don't mind - would you head over to my site and provide constructive feedback? Let me know if something needs to be changed and please register and post something. It feels like I am talking to myself even though I know there are some people reading. Traffic has gone way down since the election (expected), but I want to get it heading the other direction shortly.

Thanks for the help.

I think you're on the right track.

ISD boards make a tremendous difference, good or bad, for their communities. They are responsible for huge expenditures and many jobs, and they are generally ignored until the football coach has a bad season.

My town has a site like yours, but it's much more inflammatory: http://www.gisdwatch.com/

- Jim

seamusTX wrote:My town has a site like yours, but it's much more inflammatory: http://www.gisdwatch.com/

That is one thing that I absolutely do NOT want. We have some semi inflammatory sites, but I don't want to go there. I'm trying to keep this in the positive side - which has been easy to do so far since I am the only one posting. The hard part comes when other people start posting, but that is also the only way to expand and really get the message out. Me posting blog entries will be read by 10s of people, but if I have 10s or 100s of people posting on the forum then 10x that number will be reading. I want to be a better source of information than the ISD's own website (not all that hard - there are some opportunities there). And I also want to be a way for teachers to report things that need to be changed - but that is the next phase. I need to be seen as a good place for information first.

Hello to everyone.I'm new to this forum .I heard goods things about it..

Howdy and welcome to the forum! I gotta ask though - why did you pick this thread for your first post? Not that I mind extra exposure, but...

Very great~!
Keep up the great work~!

Suspicious first four posts, but then perhaps we really do have our first member from China (the email address is Yahoo China), just in time for the Beijing Olympics. Let's try this; if our new member is a 'bot it won't get a meaningful response:

晚上好. 打扰一下, 请问，你叫什么名字? 我叫 Skiprr, aka deng hwa ren. 很高兴认识你.

拜拜!

Yeah, but now I think you just cursed me out