Over on Unfair Park, Jim Schutze reports that he has heard the home-rule effort is having trouble gathering its needed 25,000 signatures and that the group will soon announce that it is shutting down its operation — only he expects that will be a lie, that they’ll only pretend to shut down the operation so that they can continue to gather signatures in secret. I am reporting that Schutze is right. That’s exactly what will happen. The reason I know this is because D Magazine has obtained a script that the secret signature-gatherers will use to gather signatures in secret. Here’s a transcription:
Support Our Public Schools Worker: “Hey, can you keep a secret?”
Human Person: “Yes.”
Worker: “You promise?’
Person: “Absolutely.”
Worker: “I am gathering signatures for a petition to force the DISD board to appoint a commission that would redraft the district’s charter, which charter would then be put to a public vote in November.”
Person: “I’m really against that. I’ve read that some Enron billionaire in Houston is fronting the cash for this entire operation. He wants to take over the school district with Mayor Rawlings so that they can hand out lucrative contracts to all their fat-cat rich white friends.”
Worker: “Not going to sign the petition then, are you?”
Person: “Nope.”
Worker: “Good day, sir. Remember that you promised to keep this secret. No calling Jim Schutze to tell him that we are gathering signatures in secret.”
Person: “Oh, man. You got me! Dang it. Well, I did promise.”
Schutze might be right about SOPS announcing a hiatus. But his conspiracy theory about the petition doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Not unless the SOPS workers have those memory erasers from Men in Black.
