Committee of 40

The Commitee of 40 was hand-selected by Lovejoy superintendent, Carol Ray, and (2002-2003) school board members:
Rich Hickman (President), John Walsh, Sue Hoffman, Scott Drablos, Gary Rodenbaugh, John Helm, Bettye Petree.

The Committee of 40 were suppose to recommend to the Lovejoy School Board whether Lovejoy should expand to secondary.
Some attendees felt it was a representative group, but observers felt the committee was stacked with rubber-stamping school expansion supporters.

A TASB representative ran the meeting.
Seat placement for Committee members was prearranged with name plates.

Only two committee members who were very vocal against Lovejoy building secondary schools were appointed. They were not initially appointed, but contacted board members and insisted on being placed on the committee. Members were grouped by counting by 8 and the two known supporters of consolidating districts were put in separate groups.

Group activity was carefully controlled. There was no opportunity to discuss issues, especially finances.
The Delphi technique was effectively utilized to control the final vote of this committee.

Twenty five percent (10) of the committee signed a flyer in support of Lovejoy building secondary schools.

Three of these committee members are related, (brother, sister and mother-in-law). This family sold the 70 acres to Lovejoy for the high school site and also own 150 acres across the street. The land across the street from the new Lovejoy High School site had it's usage changed on the Lucas Comprehensive Plan to "mixed use" (commercial, high-density, apartments) while Lovejoy ISD school board member John Helm, also served as Chairman of Planning and Zoning for Lucas, Texas . The new high school site was located in Lucas ETJ. (John Helm also allegedly voted for Lovejoy to buy this property and to build secondary schools on this property. Unlike Lovejoy ISD, Lucas city meetings are tape recorded and are fairly detailed minutes. http://www.lucastexas.us/Minutes/paz/paz-rg-20021209-minutes.pdf

 

Fifteen percent of the committee (6) were employed by the Lovejoy school district and very vocal in their support of building secondary schools.

One is the election judge hired by Lovejoy ISD. She was the election judge for consolidation election and bond election and sent out a blue postcard asking Lovejoy residents to vote against consolidating with Allen ISD (for Lovejoy building secondary schools). She ran the consolidation election in violation of Texas Election code. The Lovejoy School Board did not intend to let the Lovejoy ISD residents vote on whether to expand into secondary. Citizens worked to gather the 3600 signatures required to have a county judge call for the election. Once Lovejoy School Board members were aware that the signatures had been gathered, they opted to call for the election themselves.