The Wheel's Voters Guide (May, 2026)

Early voting for the 2026 local elections in Texas begins April 20. Election Day is Saturday, May 2. Richardson voters will find their ballots to be long — 50 City Charter amendments and 5 City bonds. Richardson ISD voters will have a choice of trustees for at-large Richardson ISD Place 6, and for RISD voters in single-member District 3, another choice for trustee. Use Vote411.org to see your personalized ballot and nonpartisan information about each ballot item. Here exclusively, read on to learn how to vote.

Euan, Me & LSD

Euan, Me & ISD

Euan Blackman, candidate for Richardson ISD trustee, opposed the district's $750 million school bond election in 2021. Joining him in opposition was Lynn Strawn Davenport (LSD), herself a candidate for trustee in 2017. She lost. Despite their efforts, the district's voters passed the school bonds. In a 2022 article ("Forever InDEBTed"), LSD wrote, "My friend Euan Blackman and I have made the rounds speaking out against the big business of school bonds." In return, Blackman hosted LSD on his own podcast ("Euan, Me & ISD"), which went pretty much like you'd expect — a mutual admiration society meeting.

In Remembrance of Sydney J. Harris

Resemblance to real persons is strictly coincidental.

"I am a man of firm principles; you tend to be stubborn; he is pigheaded."

The lesson behind such I/you/he constructs is that we tend to choose words that flatter our side and diminish the other side. They remind us that our own perspective is not neutral. The same behavior, depending on our point of view, can be called thrift, penny-pinching, or greed. Or confidence, arrogance, or bullying.

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Robert Fulghum's 1986 best-seller distills life's biggest truths into simple, everyday behaviors that people are taught in kindergarten. These behaviors create the conditions that lay the groundwork for academic success (and success in life in general).

• Share and be kind
• Play fair
• Clean up your own mess
• Say you’re sorry
• Wash your hands (and take care of yourself)
• Live a balanced life
• Be aware of wonder
• Hold hands and stick together
• Keep learning
• Remember the basics still apply

Eric Eager's Cri de Coeur

The meeting of the board of trustees of Richardson ISD on April 2, 2026, focused on the district's upcoming 2026-2027 budget, specifically the plan for almost $26 million in budget cuts. Watch the board meeting video for details. Here I want to highlight one trustee's passionate appeal to Austin for more public school funding. Eric Eager is running for re-election. With this speech from his chair on the dais, he made a powerful argument why he should be re-elected. He may be a David fighting against the Goliaths in Austin, but he left no doubt that he's not yielding. He's rallying support for public education.

The Wheel's November 2025 Voters Guide

Early voting is open. Election Day is Tuesday, November 4. If you live in Richardson, your ballot will have 17 Texas constitutional amendments on it, and if you also live in the Richardson ISD, it will have three RISD bond propositions for you to vote for.

In general, Texas constitutional amendments serve one of two purposes. Either they are giveaways to the rich (ask yourself if Scrooge McDuck would be for them or not), or they are panders to the GOP base. They are placed on the ballot by the legislature, which is in the firm control of business interests and/or the far right of the GOP. (Just last week, the Texas GOP voted to censure five of its own members in the Texas House for being insufficiently conservative. These included north Texas representatives Angie Chen Button, Jeff Leach, Morgan Meyer, and Jared Patterson!) Still, there are some amendments I find to be reasonable. To find out which, read on. Also, at the end, I'll have something to say about those RISD propositions.

Standing with Public Schools

On November 7, the Richardson ISD Board of Trustees adopted a set of legislative priorities for the upcoming 2025-2026 legislative term.

The Problem with RISD's School Closures

"Don't tax you.
Don't tax me.
Tax that fellow behind the tree."

— Louisiana Senator Russell B. Long

In local school politics, that political adage might be:

Don't close your school.
Don't close my own.
Close that school way across town.

With votes Thursday evening, March 21, 2024, the Richardson ISD officially moved to close four elementary schools all over town. In December, I called school closures the "third rail of local school politics. Touch it and you die." I knew that no matter how long RISD dragged out the community discussions, the community would never reach agreement on which schools to close. So just two months later in February, when I first heard of Project RightSize, I said, "Bold. Quick. Decisive. Well done." Now, a month later it's official. And I was wrong (again).

FAQ Reveals Inconsistent Treatment in Project RightSize

RISD FAQ, edited

The Richardson ISD is working on a plan to reduce expenses by closing four schools. The district website has a page with FAQs. There is one question whose answer I find difficult to accept. The question is about teachers, but my difficulty with it can be seen by replacing "staff member" with "student." When RISD says, "RISD will not remove a staff member at one campus to replace them with another," they are demonstrating the "people-first" approach they are taking, at least as regards staff members. Good for them. But why not demonstrate the same "people-first" approach for students? Why not say, "RISD will not remove a student at one campus to replace them with another"? The argument for this is even stronger for students, as RISD exists for the children, even more than for the staff.

Choice and Rationing Needed After School Closures

Don't Fence Us Out!

In the Google Street View above, the fence around Dartmouth Elementary is in the foreground, and houses that are newly zoned to be outside the Dartmouth attendance zone are in the background. Right across the street from the school. This can't be the best solution Richardson ISD can come up with for needed school consolidation. I'm here with a better idea.

Musical Chairs with RISD School Closures

The Richardson ISD announced that due to a severe budget shortfall, it is necessary to consolidate (i.e., close) five elementary schools. One of them is Springridge Elementary. Its students are to be reassigned mostly to Dartmouth Elementary. The big problem with that plan is that there isn't enough room at Dartmouth for all the students vacating Springridge.

The RISD's solution involves, first, reassigning 42 students who live in the Forestridge Elementary attendance area, but for various historical reasons were assigned to Springridge, back to Forestridge. And second, like dominos, changing an attendance boundary to reassign 113 Dartmouth students to Yale Elementary to create enough room to transfer the remaining 221 Springridge students to Dartmouth.

I thought I had a better solution.

Magnet Schools and RISD's Budget Hole

The Richardson ISD Board of Trustees has a regular meeting Thursday, February 22, 2024. One of the (many) items on the agenda is this:

TOPIC Recommended Budget Reductions: Project Rightsize

In December, the Community Budget Steering Committee presented a series of recommendations to effectively “right-size” the budget...

The Administration Team will provide an update on the budget planning and recommendations for the Board’s consideration and feedback.

Source: Richardson ISD.

RISD and CoR Election Filings

The Richardson ISD will hold an election for Board of Trustees on May 4, 2024. Two seats are up for election: Single-member Place 1, currently held by Megan Timme, and At Large Place 7, currently held by Chris Poteet.

Chris Poteet is the only candidate who has filed to run, according to the RISD's elections filings page. Megan Timme's plans are unknown by me. No challenger has yet filed for either seat yet. Deadline to file is February 16, 2024.

Plugging RISD's Budget Hole

At the Dec.14 regular meeting, [Richardson ISD] trustees received operating budget recommendations from the Community Budget Steering Committee, which has been meeting for six months to arrive at measures the district can consider to address a significant operating shortfall in the 2024-25 budget.

Source: Richardson ISD.

First, let me compliment RISD for creating a Community Budget Steering Committee. Inclusion of the community is important for a problem like this. Keep it up. Keep spreading the word to make future community committees ever more inclusive.

Angie Chen Button and Vouchers

This week, the Texas House voted in favor of an amendment stripping school vouchers from a school funding bill. You can read elsewhere how significant this vote is (in the short run, very; in the long run, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ), but here I want to report on how my Texas representative, Angie Chen Button (R-Richardson) voted.

Why School Vouchers are Bad for Texas

The school voucher bill being deliberated by the Texas House of Representatives has been argued over elsewhere, everywhere. The bottom line for me is that it takes tax dollars currently being spent on public schools and diverts them to private schools. That hurts public education.

An Underfunded Mandate for Texas Schools

Texans who follow the history of public schools in Texas are familiar with the story. The legislature passes mandates theoretically to improve schools but fail to provide sufficient money to pay the costs of implementing the new requirements. The latest example is Texas House Bill 3 (HB3). Except this time, it doesn't even pretend to improve education. It requires Texas school districts to have an armed officer on every campus, as if the secret to better reading scores is more guns. No, that's too absurd for even the Texas legislature. For them, it's the secret to ending gun violence in schools that is more guns. More guns seems to be their answer to every problem. In any case, for Richardson ISD, it's an underfunded mandate requiring the hiring of an additional 34 security personnel (plus two supervisors) and equipping them with handgun, duty belt, ballistic vest, and RISD Logo shirt.

Woke Bureaucrats Invade Kentucky Schools

The photo above shows "woke bureaucrats" parachuting into public schools in Kentucky to "hijack our children's future" and teach CRT. Or at least that's what one imaginative candidate for the GOP nomination for governor, Kelly Craft, Donald Trump's own former U.N. ambassador, claims is happening. Watch her television ad yourself. Then watch Tuesday's election results from Kentucky to see if voters are persuaded.

My Thoughts on the Recent Election

The Wheel followed seven contests in the local elections this year. All were settled on election night with no runoffs. Of the seven, voters' choices matched my recommendations in four of the races. I take no satisfaction in that's a majority. I think it's more an indication that voters and I are on slightly different wavelengths. Oh well. On to my first impressions of the results.

CoR and RISD Election Results

Final unofficial election results for the contests The Wheel was following this year for City of Richardson and Richardson ISD.

I'll have thoughts about this in the blog tomorrow.