By Juan Montoya
Something funny happened on the way to a Brownsville Independent School District's Facilities Committee meeting.
Facilities Committee chair Phil Cowen decided he didn't want to hold the meeting scheduled for today and which included the item to discuss "bond issue and raising taxes now."
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
As we said before, this is the same trustee that as a candidate boasted of how he had build numerous district facilities in his prior stint as a board chairman hand had done it "without raising property taxes."
In the next item he wanted vendor Paragon, who has garnered millions in contracts with the BISD, to give him a quote on building four soccer fields and avoid the bidding process because they are Buy Board vendors.
That is just the tip of the Cowen "BISD Proud" iceberg.
The next items were not really agenda items. Rather, they were more like directives to the administration on 3.,4.) whether to bid out for Porter or stick with the current design and whether to stick with Requests For Proposals and when and how the board should review the responses 5.) Whether to use half of the Tax Reorganization Election monies to build a Fine Arts Pavilion and if the BISD should entice the city to help build it 6.) To expand the vendor list to include Houston and northern Texas contractors to get more bids and better deals 7.) Discuss adding tennis, golf, swimming, and rowing (?) into elementaries, middle schools and high schools (whenever appropriate).
If all these items seem to be discussions by one person rather than agenda items for the consideration of committee members, you are right. It seems that Cowen is the sort who talks aloud as he types so it unfolds more like a tedious argument than an agenda.
Let's see what the Cowen idea factory spews out next time.
Something funny happened on the way to a Brownsville Independent School District's Facilities Committee meeting.
Facilities Committee chair Phil Cowen decided he didn't want to hold the meeting scheduled for today and which included the item to discuss "bond issue and raising taxes now."
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
As we said before, this is the same trustee that as a candidate boasted of how he had build numerous district facilities in his prior stint as a board chairman hand had done it "without raising property taxes."
In the next item he wanted vendor Paragon, who has garnered millions in contracts with the BISD, to give him a quote on building four soccer fields and avoid the bidding process because they are Buy Board vendors.
That is just the tip of the Cowen "BISD Proud" iceberg.
The next items were not really agenda items. Rather, they were more like directives to the administration on 3.,4.) whether to bid out for Porter or stick with the current design and whether to stick with Requests For Proposals and when and how the board should review the responses 5.) Whether to use half of the Tax Reorganization Election monies to build a Fine Arts Pavilion and if the BISD should entice the city to help build it 6.) To expand the vendor list to include Houston and northern Texas contractors to get more bids and better deals 7.) Discuss adding tennis, golf, swimming, and rowing (?) into elementaries, middle schools and high schools (whenever appropriate).
If all these items seem to be discussions by one person rather than agenda items for the consideration of committee members, you are right. It seems that Cowen is the sort who talks aloud as he types so it unfolds more like a tedious argument than an agenda.
Let's see what the Cowen idea factory spews out next time.
