Liftoff of Rocket Gateway Opening

The Heights Recreation Center in Richardson celebrated its Grand Opening with a ribbon cutting ceremony Tuesday night. Thank you, Richardson taxpayers, for approving the 2010 bond package. Because of your willingness to reinvest in our city, Richardson will remain a great city to live, work and play.

The most visually striking feature of the new Heights Recreation Center is the old, beloved playground rocket ship now repurposed into the sculpture, "Rocket Gateway." I have to admit it far exceeds my original low expectations. I was wrong. I actually like it. I especially like how its crescent shape evokes an Islamic influence, celebrating the religious diversity in Richardson. ;-)

Preparation for School Board

Question: How have you prepared yourself to serve on the Board of Trustees?

Rachel Chumney: For the past ten and a half years I've been a mom and I think that this has been the best preparation for this.

Source: RichardsonISDVideo (starting 2:28).

A runoff election for Place 4 on the Richardson ISD Board of Trustees will happen on June 15 (early voting June 3-11 at Richardson Civic Center). The runoff is between incumbent Lanet Greenhaw and Rachel Chumney. I endorsed Lanet Greenhaw in the joint election on May 11. I endorse her again in the runoff. The question above is one reason why.

Rachel Chumney is not the only mom in the race. She is, however, the only mom with little other experience and no RISD-wide experience. If you think that school board trustee is maybe not the place to start for someone who has never served as a PTA officer, member of an RISD council or committee for budget review, bond program development, calendar selection, textbook adoption, etc., then you might want to look beyond Rachel Chumney for a better candidate.

Look, Rachel Chumney is a nice enough person. She's just not qualified for school board. Don't rely just on the quote I found telling. Listen to Chumney's whole answer (starting 2:28). Then, compare with Lanet Greenhaw's answer (starting 1:24). No contest. Vote for Greenhaw.

• The Dallas Morning News VOTER GUIDE
  
• League of Women Voters of Richardson VOTERS GUIDE
  

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See also:

• That Other Election: RISD Place 4
  
• Experience with Racial or Religious Minorities
  
• Technology in our Schools
  
• Attendance at School Board Meetings
  
• 6th Grade: Elementary School or Middle School?
  
• Advocacy for Public Schools
  
• Managing RISD's $250 Million Budget
  

Memorial Day in the Steger Garden (2013)

From Flowers

Lincoln's Gettysburg Address
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Source: Abraham Lincoln.

Les Misérables (2012)

IMDB

Les Misérables (2012): Classic literature, French history, opera. Blood, sweat and tears. You either love it or you hate it. I loved it. B+

That Other Election: RISD Place 4

While most people's attention was distracted by the mayoral election in Richardson, there was another election taking place: for Place 4 on the Richardson ISD Board of Trustees. On April 16, the League of Women Voters of Richardson and the Richardson ISD Council of PTAs co-sponsored a forum for Lanet Greenhaw (incumbent), Rachel Chumney and Bonnie Abadee.

I was one of about 75 people in the audience of that forum. My judgment at the time? You can read the whole thing or just this summary: "If this were a prize fight, it would have been called by the third round."

Well, of course, it wasn't a prize fight. The election was held weeks after the forum, with a different audience. In the election itself, 11,659 people voted, about 11,584 more than attended that forum to, you know, actually listen to the candidates address the issues face to face. All those additional voters gave Rachel Chumney a plurality of the vote, not enough to win, but enough to force a runoff on June 15 with incumbent Lanet Greenhaw.

After the jump, did I miss something? Or did the voters who skipped the forum miss something?