Odd-numbered years mean three types of elections in Houston – city, HISD, and HCC. We’ve looked at the finance reports for city candidates, now let’s have a look at the reports for HISD trustees, which I’ve separated into those up for election this year and those not up till 2021.
Rhonda Skillern-Jones, District II
Sergio Lira, District III
Jolanda Jones, District IV
Diana Davila, District VII
Elizabeth Santos, District I
Sue Deigaard, District V
Holly Flynn Vilaseca, District VI
Anne Sung, District VII
Wanda Adams, District IX
Name Raised Spent Loan On Hand
==================================================
Skillern-Jones 0 2,104 0 291
Lira 2,165 229 0 6,007
Jones 0 0 0 12,259
Davila 0 0 19,178 0
Santos 0 452 0 4,354
Deigaard 0 848 0 6,634
Vilaseca 0 688 0 3,818
Sung 0 308 0 5,290
Adams 0 2,088 0 238
Pretty boring, I’m afraid. Diana Davila left her “cash on hand” field blank, so I don’t know for a fact that she has zero on hand; she may have some amount of that $19K loan available. I don’t know why Rhonda Skillern-Jones has so little on hand. That may be an indicator that she could choose to step down rather than run for a third term. I’m just speculating here, but given the constant state of turmoil on the Board and the current threat of TEA takeover, it’s not ridiculous to postulate this. I do know that Wanda Adams had put her name in for consideration for the nomination for Justice of the Peace in Precinct 7, Place 1 (to fill the vacancy left after the March primary by the resignation of Hilary Green), though she did not get it. I want to stress again, this is just me thinking out loud, I have no direct evidence of what Skillern-Jones may be contemplating.
Having said all that, as far as we know at this point these four Trustees are running for re-election, and no potential opponents had filed finance reports for this deadline. You find Trustee finance reports on their individual Trustee pages (here’s the Board index page). Later in the cycle when there are formal opponents, there’s usually a separate page with the reports for the Trustees who are running and their opponents, as well as any candidates for open seats if such exist. As we’ve discussed many times before, who even knows if we’ll have Trustee elections this November. Until we know otherwise, I’ll report on their finance reports.
I agree with you it is too early to say anything. This HISD election cycle features the East side of the district. RSJ, JJ, SL and DD. I feel comfortable that SL will run again. As you pointed, there are very rough waters ahead given TEA and some passengers might be sea sick already. What will be intriguing is the emergence of an anti TEA hawk, a candidate who runs on a “sue TEA” platform especially if Morath announces his intention to dissolve the HISD board in August.
With any luck, Diana Davila will decide not to run, and crawl back into her hole. Jolanda Jones not running would be a plus as well, and she can take her deck of race cards with her. Neither of them give a crap about the students, but ran for the positions as a means of self aggrandizement.
Even if a Board of Managers is appointed by the TEA, there will continue to be elections. After a period of time with strictly a BOM, individual Trustees will gradually regain their power until all are phased back in. But elections continue regardless.