Here are the headlines Peggy Heinkel-Wolfe read on-air this week:
Social networks, as revealed by campaign contributions
The first campaign finance reports for the May 4 election are out. In the at-large city council races, real estate interests and council members themselves are showing their support.
Place 5 council member Brandon McGee is running for re-election. He raised big-dollar donations last fall, including $5,000 from Old Prosper Partners, a private real estate investment firm. In recent weeks, he received smaller donations from fellow council members Brian Beck and Paul Meltzer. McGee still has about $23,000 in his war chest for the campaign’s final days.
But outgoing council member Chris Watts threw his support behind McGee’s opponent, Erica Garland, with a $2,000 contribution. Local developer Kent Key and the Texas real estate PAC donated $2,500 each to her campaign.
Place 6 hopeful Jill Jester also received $2,500 from a real estate PAC as part of the $12,500 she’s raised in mostly large contributions so far. Her opponent, Lilyan Prado Carrillo raised about the same amount, but in dozens of three-figure donations, including support from council members Beck and Meltzer.
In the school board races, some contributions reveal ties to the school voucher fight.
Debi Scaggs and Terry Senne are challenging the incumbents, Sheryl English and Barbara Burns.
Scaggs is holding about $2,000 of the $3,000 she’s raised so far, including a $500 contribution from Mitch Little, the Lewisville attorney who defended Attorney General Ken Paxton against impeachment last summer.
Senne reported being slightly in the hole. She raised another $2,000 since her failed run for school board last year, when Dallas billionaire Montgomery Bennett contributed $2,500 late in her campaign.
Bennett recently bought The Dallas Express, a former Black newspaper, and runs it as a conservative digital news outlet. After Paxton settled a civil complaint of illegal electioneering in Denton ISD, Jace Yarbrough, an attorney for Paxton’s wife, Angela, made a criminal complaint through a right-wing litigation group, the Liberty Justice Institute. The Dallas Express and the institute reported two criminal indictments in the case, one day before the indictments were more widely reported in other local news outlets.
The indictments charge two Denton elementary school principals with illegal electioneering, citing their emails that told school employees they would have 30 minutes leave time to vote in the primaries, and also encouraging them to vote for candidates who support public schools.
The two principals happen to be a husband and wife, Jesus and Lindsay Lujan. School records still list them as head of their schools.
The charges carry a maximum penalty of one year in jail and a $4,000 fine. Court records show that they will be arraigned in different county criminal courts on May 13.
More information on the cases at justice.dentoncounty.com.
More information on campaign filings for the city candidates at cityofdenton.com.
More information on the campaign filings for the school board candidates at dentonisd.org.
Dueling letters on what SCOTUS decisions mean to a local case
The attorney for two former electric department employees filed his own letter with the Texas Supreme Court about how recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions could affect their long-running wrongful termination case.
In a previous letter, the city’s attorney argued that two recent high court decisions showed a Dallas jury’s verdict against the city should be overturned. But the employees’ attorney said the jury got it right and the state’s high court should let the judgment stand in the whistleblower case.
A decision from the state’s highest court is expected soon. More information at txcourts.gov.
E-waste drive at Guyer High School Saturday
Bring your dead batteries from portable computers, phones, toothbrushes, and more to Guyer High School between 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. The students are partnering with the Pilot Knob Rotary Club to host the e-waste drive. Lithium ion batteries contain valuable materials that can be reused.
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Local News and Weekend Edition scripts are published on Substack. Subscribe for free at peggyheinkelwolfe.substack.com and follow live microblogging of Local News on Mastodon @phwolfe940@denton.social. Peggy is an award-winning, veteran journalist and a Denton County resident since 1993.