An Open Letter to Our Members:
Dear WeAreFrisco.org Members,
WeAreFrisco.org was founded to redistrict all Frisco residents in the Lewisville ISD into Frisco ISD. We realized that this would not be an easy or fast change, and that it would take neighborhood commitments and political avenues to achieve success. We remain committed to this cause, and have made great strides toward reaching this goal.
Last year, we promoted LISD candidates as well as Frisco City Council candidates. All of the city candidates were successful and one in particular, Pat Fallon, has proved to be an awesome resource for our efforts. Pat continues to work city issues and lobby for our cause with the various city offices.
I have heard some say that we “failed” in last year’s school board election. That is absolutely NOT the case. We came up only about 200 votes short of taking a seat. More importantly, we formed a voting coalition of over 650 people which is an amazing accomplishment for an organization as young and inexperienced as ours.
I have also heard some ask are we looking for representation on the LISD board, trying to avoid being redistricted to Colony High, or working to get into Frisco ISD. The answer is all of the above. We believe that all of these efforts will make life better for our kids. While Frisco ISD is a longer term goal, the move to Colony High and the total lack of representation for this area are problems today.
The voting block theory….
Politicians understand numbers and that is what we must produce. We are asking all of you to vote. We did well last year, but we can do better. 650 votes has gotten a lot of attention, but 1000 or 2000 will win elections.
Why is the school board important? They decide where schools are built, what funding goes to those schools, which kids go to which school, and have a say in if we get to leave the district or not.
Why local and state elections? Everyone reports to someone. It’s that simple. The TEA is tasked with overseeing the schools in Texas and they report to the state. There is no question that we need these Senators and House members on our side as well.
We started out on a mission to produce a required number of petitions to qualify under 13.051 of the education code to redistrict. The interpretation of this law is up to the school boards, the commissioner, and ultimately the state government. If we submit our petitions prematurely and are unsuccessful, we will not be able to resubmit for 3 years according to our legal advisors. Therefore, we need to get it right the first time. Speed is important, but success far outweighs it in importance.
What are we doing to make it happen?
We have not been idle since May. Our most urgent initiative is to establish a polling place local to our residents.
To support that goal, we have established Heritage Lakes Clubhouse as the target voting location. The Heritage Lakes Board has approved its use as such and we have hosted an audit by the Denton County Elections Administrator, which we passed.
We are now working with the city as well as Denton County to move the voting location to Heritage Lakes. The LISD board will decide where their elections are held.
The LISD board will meet on Monday December 14th to discuss setting up this location. They will probably be reluctant to do so. We are pulling in all the political support we can from our elected representatives across the spectrum. This is why the voter block is so extremely important.
We now need your help to show up at the meeting in support of this initiative. This single change could affect election results going forward as our numbers will increase dramatically without all the confusion and hassle of voting in 2 or 3 places.
Many other initiatives are in process ranging from establishing a 401(c) corporation (to take donations) to starting a newsletter so stay tuned.
As we said at the outset, we aren’t going away. If we continue our efforts and build our numbers we will achieve our goals. We will continue this effort as long as we can turn out the numbers required to be successful, but we can only do that with your help!
Best Regards,
WeAreFrisco Leadership Team
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