Exactly one month ago, The Dallas Morning News ran a piece about how the DISD finally decided how to divvy up the School District Formerly Known as Wilmer-Hutchins. Contained within Kent Fischer's story was a juicy nugget that had absolutely nothing to do with W-H, though. Rather, it dealt with the "unexpected swapping of two voting precincts in West Dallas." Trustees noticed that Molina High School, which had been in District 6, was suddenly within the boundaries of District 7. District 6 is represented by Trustee Carla Ranger; District 7, by Trustee Jerome Garza. Ranger wanted to know what the hell had happened. DISD lawyers said, in short, "Uh, dunno." Even though they probably did.
Fischer reported: "After unsuccessfully lobbying trustees to switch the precinct back, Mrs. Ranger asked Mr. Garza if he had anything to do with it. After drawing a deep breath, Mr. Garza conceded that he wanted to represent the schools in that district, which include Molina, Quintanilla Middle School and Botello Elementary School." That took, like, an hour.
Well, Dallas Progress-ive Mike Davis was all over it. Now, Dallas.org's Allen Gwinn's got the goods over at his site: a video (blurry, though -- you have been warned) of the meeting during which the events unfolded, down to the last pitiful excuse offered by Garza, who could have saved us all a bunch of time by just saying, "Yes." There's also some commentary from Gwinn, Pop-Up Video-style. If nothing else, it does make the thing go faster. --Robert Wilonsky
