Lumberton ISD and Hardin County Sheriff Department take Positive Steps Forward

by, David Bellow

As you know, I want government to be open and honest. When something is wrong or being hidden, I feel an obligation to get the word out about what is going on with the desire that things be made right.

It would not be right of me if I did not report when the wrong things are made right.


Lumberton ISD:

LISD has taken many positive steps forward in recent months. I previously reported that the Lumberton School Board was not being told about federal money that was received and spent by the LISD Administration. How can the School Board do their elected job of overseeing the school district if they are not even told about all the money received and being spent? I also reported that Lumberton ISD had a lawsuit against them for not having meeting minutes that were descriptive enough for the reader to know what went on during the meeting, and for going into executive session without explaining what they were going into executive session for. Lastly, I reported that there was a play performed at the high school that used vulgar language and that even mentioned putting an ad online for a kid to get laid. Not to mention the author of the play has a publicly known agenda of promoting a homosexual lifestyle through most of his school plays.

I am very pleased to say that these issues seem to have been corrected. I know a few of the Lumberton ISD Board Members and some of the people in the Administration. They are good people and so I knew that once these issues were brought to their attention that they would eventually be taken care of.

First of all, if you go to the Lumberton ISD website and read the meeting agenda and minutes, you will find that they are much more descriptive than they have ever been, and they contain most of the documents that the School Board Members see and approve at the meetings. If you did not go to the meeting you can now easily be able to find out what happened at the meetings by going to the LISD website.

Second, the LISD Administration now provides a summary of Federal Expenditures to the Board at each monthly meeting, to be approved as part of the monthly statement of expenditures. The Federal money is no longer hidden and now the Board and everyone can see that money.

Third, that inappropriate play will not likely be shown again anytime soon. The School District took alot of heat over the play. The students who were in the play of course all came out and defended the play at the School Board Meeting, but that is to be expected. They worked hard on it and so they wanted to defend it. But ultimately it should never have been approved in the forst place by the School Principal without first removing some of the inappropriate content. I believe this will be addressed with future plays. In fact, the Theater Arts teacher, Mrs. Ravencraft, who put on the play resigned last month and so she is no longer at the School District.

I am very pleased that the good people of LISD have addressed these issues and are moving forward in a positive way. I never said or even thought that Lumberton had a bad school system. We have a great school system here. In order for it to stay a great school system we have to always be sure to address issues or potential issues as soon as some up instead of being afraid to say something negative about the school district. The negative issues have been brought up and they seem to have been corrected. This is great news and I am happy to tell everyone this good news.

Hardin County Sheriff Department:

Earlier this week I reported that the Hardin County Sheriff Department was sued because they were not following the Texas Open Records Request laws and were withholding documents relating to the death of Nicole Janca. It was alleged that the Sheriff Department was not releasing the documents to cover for a Sheriff Deputy who is being sued by the Janca Family in the death of Nicole Janca. The lawsuit against the Sheriff Deputy was to ask a Judge to force them to hand over the documents.

I am pleased to say that 2 days ago, the day before the lawsuit went to trial, the Sheriff Department gave the Janca family over 130 documents that they were withholding. Yesterday the lawsuit was dismissed because the documents were finally handed over.

The intent of my article about the Sheriff Department was so that things would be corrected for the family of this dead girl. I am very pleased that Sheriff Ed Cain has taken a very positive step towards making things right for the Janca family. It took filing a lawsuit and some bad press to get it done, but it got done and that is a good thing. I was never "out to get the Sheriff" and I am not trying to get someone to run against him. In fact, it was a difficult decision for me to even write the article about the Sheriff Department because the Sheriff Department has many great deputies. But even though I did not want to be negative about the Sheriff Department, I knew that people needed to know what was going on so that the wrongs would be corrected for the Janca Family.

Things are on the right track for the Janca Family. Clint West has been charged for murder in the death of their daughter and the Sheriff Department has taken a positive step forward to correcting mistakes and I hope they continue to work with the Janca Family to resolve these issues.