Update on Flower Mound Cares and Lewisville ISD (Corrected)

Recently, we've reported on the efforts by the Flower Mound group "Flower Mound Cares" to circulate a petition calling for a 180 day permit moratorium on new gas wells in the city.

One story we posted related to the group's planned use of Lewisville ISD elementary school parking lots in the first weekend of signature gathering, and how the district had seemingly been prepared to tolerate their presence, then sent another email seemingly revoking the permission.

Since the accusation by some readers / commenters was that somehow Flower Mound Mayor Jody Smith had gotten to LISD ans asked them to stop the group, we sent an open records request to Lewisville ISD, and received 69 pages of emails this past Friday.

To get directly to the point, although we do know that Board President Carol Kyer did have a conversation with Smith, there were no emails from anyone associated with the Town of Flower Mound, related to Flower Mound Cares or the petition group.

Rather, the emails seem to suggest that LISD was content to tolerate the petitioners using the property on weekends, but that they were unable, by district policy to grant any sort of permission. As Kyer described it, the district does not have personnel to enforce this rule, which is mostly related to liability.

It appears the district did send a more direct message to Ginger Simonson of F.M. Cares only after hearing from an angry Flower Mound Resident who opposes the group.

Marsha Gavitt, former director of the political action committee "Flower Mound Voters United" emailed Superintendent Dr. Jerry Roy and all 7 board members on Tuesday, February 16th with a list of questions and accusations about the group.

Full text of the emails is here.

Gavitt refers to the group as a "politically-motivated organization" and claims that the group "planned to recall several town officials because two large HOA's disapproved of a council vote". Gavitt also alleges in the email that "this group and its affilliations have engaged in activities that have jeopardized the welfare of hundreds of other LISD families (including non-HOA's) directly impacted by gas drilling"..

In a followup email, after Dr. Roy explained that the group had no permission to use the campuses, Gavitt asked whether LISD should "notify the Flower Mound Police to prevent the unauthorized use and protect LISD from any potential liability issues".

We attempted to contact Gavitt on Friday, and she has not responded. Flower Mound Cares member Ginger Simonson was puzzled by the allegations, and reiterated that the group was only about stopping the centralized waste collection. She also reiterated that Flower Mound Cares is not a PAC, and said she didn't know Marsha Gavitt or have any idea why she would have objected.

So there you have it: The former director of a political action committee whose website seems to show concern about gas drilling accuses a non-partisan, non-political group of being "politically motivated", then seeks to have the Flower Mound police keep the group from exercising their first amendment rights to assembly, speech, and the redress of grievances.

Correction 3/8/2009: Although Gavitt's name was on the group's website, Gavitt is no longer a director of Voters United, as former Mayor DeLuca says below.