Katy ISD school board candidates Ross Raymond and Stacy Edwards-Tomdio have responded to the final reader-submitted question in InstantNewsKaty’s online candidate forum.
Raymond is challenging incumbent Robert Shaw for the Position 6 seat. Edwards-Tomdio is running against Neal Howard for Position 7.
Howard declined to take part in the forum.
Shaw initially agreed to participate, but then withdrew because, he said, not all candidates were participating.
The question, as submitted by InstantNewsKaty readers, was:
“Two candidates in this year’s race have refused to take part in this online forum. One, Mr. Shaw, has only participated in one forum in the entire race. Do you believe school board members should be more answerable to the public and make themselves available to answer questions? If elected, would you make yourselves available to discuss school district issues at town hall meetings, service clubs and the like?”
These are the candidate’s unedited responses in the order they were received:
Ross Raymond –
Mr. Shaw and Mr. Howard, are working under the theory that, ‘The less you know about them the more you will like them.’ I leave it to you to draw your own conclusions.
The voters can speak to the level of openness they want on the Board THIS Saturday at the polls.
I suggested town hall meetings three years ago and was told by two Board members it was not a good idea as the event might run longer than the Board wanted to listen. I said, ‘So what?’ I would encourage their use.
Would I speak to service groups, ladies luncheons, etc.?
Sure! I believe anyone with the authority to tax me, determines which books my child reads, when we can plan our family vacation, how much I pay for football tickets, etc., should make time to come before the voters and explain themselves and present an overview of the direction the district is taking and why. At every opportunity ALL Board members should encourage citizen input as a matter of good public policy.
Let me be clear about this final thought and I hope everyone reading will carefully consider this as they log off.
The most relevant person to a publicly elected official is the one who VOTES!
Good intentions are nice, but on Saturday they only count VOTES!
Please make yourself RELEVANT this Saturday and VOTE!
Stacy Edwards-Tomdio –
A Zebra will never change its stripes and if candidates won’t talk to you when campaigning they won’t talk to you as a Trustee. I wish Mr. Howard had seen fit to participate in this forum allowing us to understand the kind of Board member he would be. He chose not to do so and as a result none of us know and that troubles me.
Board members are volunteers and have both careers and families and try as they will; cannot be everywhere. But within reason, I would expect to see Board members going about their daily business in our community. At football games I think they should sit in the seats with the rest of us. Maybe if they did they would listen to what the voters are saying about tight personal budgets, their worries about their child getting into a good college, school security, and more?
Town hall meetings would be a wonderful way to encourage communication as I like anything which puts information into the hands of others. I see great potential for the Town Hall concept especially given our level of technology and the ability to reach out to people not in direct attendance.
I favor anything which improves our overall communication. The standing joke for years has been, ‘What we have here is a failure to communicate.’ I do not want that line to describe the relationship our Board has with the community it was elected to serve.
Neal Howard –
Declined to take part in the forum.
Robert Shaw –
Declined to take part in the forum.
This is the final question for this year’s InstantNewsKaty online school board candidate forum.
Tomorrow, the two candidates who took part in the forum will be given the opportunity to summarize their candidacy for voters.
