I don’t know how much it really costs to administer a city council or a school board election in Collinsville, but I’m pretty sure if votes must be counted before we know who wins, it’s going to be expensive.
A few years back I heard a city administration staffer complain that funding an election with just one challenger for an alderman’s seat had set the city back nearly $15,000 (to be clear, I don’t remember now what the exact dollar figure mentioned was, but it was whopping).
For this May’s Collinsville council election two alderman places and the job of mayor are open, and as of the filing deadline of Feb. 14 one candidate has registered for an alderman position and one has filed for mayor. Therefore, according to policy, a quorum of the current council-- if present-- will fill the next mayor and one alderman seat as filed, plus two aldermen appointed that are yet to be named.
On the other hand, Collinsville ISD board has four candidate positions with two incumbents who have officially re-filed, so an election will determine the outcome.
For the city, this 2025 election will definitely not be expensive.
Do these filing responses signify anything about the town? I don’t know, but if one had to choose a body more crucial to the community, CISD may arguably be the one.
CISD doesn’t have the job of filling potholes or working on growth of business and business taxes; they address population growth as best they can with education of the young, and from all accounts they are doing quite a creditable job.
It’s reassuring that the CISD board, who have been working at this for awhile, have officially raised their hands to continue.
As far as Collinsville city government and their relations with residents, you don’t read much about that in the newspaper – as opposed to what’s reported about other Grayson County towns, which makes for entertaining reading for sure.
The only way to really know what’s going on in Collinsville is to read about it in the news, hear about it from other people or attend city meetings and see for yourself.
An area sports team volunteer said that, “Collinsville people are always so nice.”
That description was somewhat in opposition to his experience with audiences from neighboring towns; I’ll change his term for some of them to “feisty.”
I must wonder if being “so nice” is always a good thing, or if our Collinsville citizens at large are reliably alive and kicking.
Marilyn Stokes was a public school teacher in Fort Worth for fifteen years and subsequently worked at KERA public television for four years. She retired after fifteen years at Ford Motor Company, Southwest Region where she was zone manager for small dealers in the southern half of Texas.