Incumbents Hold Their Ground in HPISD Election
HPISD’s hotly contested election to replace one retiring board member and two incumbents closed yesterday and brought in over 4,100 votes, according to HPISD.
Incumbents Kelly Walker and Paul Rowsey, along with their PAC ally Edward Herring, each received over two thirds of the votes for their respective places, safely defeating their new slate rivals Bonnie Lammers, Gerry Hudnall, and Anthony Scalia, respectively.
These were the final numbers, provided by HPISD in a press release:
Place 3
Bonnie J. Lammers – 1,269 (30.5%)
Kelly Walker – 2,894 (69.5%)
Place 4
Gerry Hudnall – 1,333 (32.1%)
Paul Rowsey – 2,816 (67.9%)
Place 5
Edward Herring – 2,885 (69%)
Anthony Scalia – 1,293 (31%)
Trustees Walker, Rowsey, and Herring will be sworn in to office during the next board meeting on May 17.
Wow. I had no idea how this would turn out, and the 35-40 point margin of victory is astonishing. I don’t think an election has been lost in this community by such a huge percentage since the Great Chart Westcott Debacle of 2014. I can only imagine the shock, humiliation, and mortifying sense of rejection the losing side must be feeling.
All the wasted energy, all the yard signs, all the insane and misleading Facebook conversations, all the broken friendships with neighbors, all the hysteria, and all that money that was essentially set on fire for all the good it did — it was all for nothing. And now it’s come to an end in a mega-landslide. The voters have spoken for the second time in a row. It is over.
So why did the insurgents lose? Not because they were completely wrong and the incumbent majority board members were completely right. Rather, it happened because the voters in our community are generally well-informed and equipped with critical thinking skills. In other words, we know when we’re being spun. We know exaggeration and hysteria when we see it. We roll our eyes at it. It’s the same reason we chose Pete Sessions over Katrina Pierson in the last GOP primary — not because Sessions is anything great (he is not), but because we collectively sensed that something was…off…about his opponent. And given her alliance with Trump and her crazypants TV appearances on his behalf, it’s clear we were right. And it’s the same reason we booted Chart Westcott into political oblivion. Despite all the mailers trumpeting his endorsements from the great and the good of the Park Cities and North Dallas, we knew he (or his dad) was trying to buy him a seat in the Legislature simply because he had nothing better to do with himself. We knew we were being conned.
I think insurgent campaigns are great, and our city/town council and school board seats should be contested every time. But anyone who wants to overturn the status quo in the future should study the recent elections and draw on their lessons.
Don’t forget to recycle your yard signs.
Given the fact that the door to vote was hard to find, just makes one wonder. Took me fifteen minutes walking the school trying to find where to vote, i.e. the door. Lights out in the school, doors locked, no signs…just how the establishment works to win. Should I go on? i.e the Texas Ethics Commission 2012 ruling….https://www.ethics.state.tx.us/sworncomp/2012/3120489.pdf
The only lesson anyone needs to learn from this …”NealK” is for you to go take a leap, and a nap. You are obviously long winded.
Congrats to those candidate that gave it their best for our community.
Yes, there was a secret Establishment door that only those elite Establishment types on the Establishment email list were told about. After we voted, we gathered at the Hunters Glen estate of a notable Establishmentarian and ate popcorn while we watched on our Establishment closed circuit TV feed (installed with the secretly-given permission of the school board) as you wandered the darkened hallways of the middle school shaking your old man cane and muttering about us, the Establishment, because we’re the Establishment and this is what we do. “Nice work, chaps!” we said to each other as we clinked our champagne glasses.
Okay, actually none of that happened. I am about as non-Establishment as you can get in the Park Cities. I live in the neighborhood to the immediate east of the school, the one with all those condos and duplexes inhabited mostly by SMU students, shut-ins, cat hoarders, single parents, foreigners, cranks and assorted weirdos like myself who have nothing better to do than type long-winded comments into a discussion forum no one sees. McCulloch is unquestionably a big school, but judging from the results several thousand people had no trouble finding the entrance to the voting area on Key Street. I usually vote at the middle school so I knew exactly where to go. But even if Saturday had been my first time to visit the school I would have been clued in by all the parked cars (normally out of place on a Saturday), campaign signs, “voter parking only” signs, and candidates shaking hands in the parking lot as voters walked by.
If “voter suppression” is the hot new reason your side lost, then by all means good luck with that. File your ethics complaint as see where it goes.
Ahhhh yes………, just like the telephone number listed on the Highland Park Community League’s website during the HP 2010 Council Member election that was answered by HP Town Hall (and during early voting).
http://www.parkcitiespeople.com/tag/town-secretary/
So funny, no ethics complaint needed “NealK” because people are wising up to the local government and it operates. Time will do the job itself. Just sit back and enjoy the desperate show. Happy Summer!