When the Identified Financials are Available…
FBISD Board of Trustees
FBISD just started a new community engagement process to seek input about a new memorial space to honor the Sugar Land 9
I guess FBISD is just hoping we’ll all forget what happened the last four years.
The community has already been engaged. Twice. Both times, the community spoke loud and clear. Complete DNA testing and excavation of surrounding land before building a memorial. As a sign of the district’s true intentions, FBISD disrespected these requests and dissolved both task forces.
The community does not want a whitewashed memorial using the wrong cemetery name. The community wants DNA testing and excavation.
Sign CLLP’s petition today. The community has spoken. We don’t want a whitewashed memorial. We want DNA testing completed.. Pause the contract until the DNA testing is completed!
Petition by
To:
FBISD Board of Trustees
From:
[Your Name]
Dear FBISD Board of Trustees,
Why are you paying 170,000 to ask the community a question they’ve already answered for free?
In 2019, Fort Bend ISD created the Sugar Land 95 Advisory Committee. Members clearly asked the district to prioritize DNA testing of the 95 remains. They requested that the district pay or solicit donations for 170,000 to complete DNA testing. You said the district didn’t have 170,00 to spend on Sugar Land 95 efforts. Two years later, after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees fighting the community, you voted to approvate $170,000 contract be spent on yet another community engagement process. This time, you want to know what the community thinks an Outdoor Learning and Reflection Memorial should look like. DNA testing has still not been completed. It is unacceptable to create task forces to solicit opinion, ignore that opinion,and then recreate a task force 3 years later, using funds the community clearly asked be put toward DNA testing.
If FBISD really wanted to know what the community thought about memorialization, perhaps they should look at their inbox, to emails written over two years ago:
Free Community Input #1: Outside of minor changes to landscaping at the site I do not believe the city was really interested in any changes recommended by the task force. ~October 16, 2018
Free Community Input #2 [I]t has been made clear that the purpose of said committee is to memorialize the remains. And nothing more…What we need to discuss is DNA analysis and descendent location.
~November 30, 2018
Free Community Input #3: When the identified financials are available, what process will mandate which service to perform first? DNA? Memorialization?
~ August 18, 2019
Even in 2019, the community was worried that FBISD would choose to whitewash history over completing DNA testing and excavating the remaining land. Instead of paying $170,000 for a third round of community engagement, listen to the advice you got for free.
At your next board meeting, prioritize DNA testing and excavation over memorialization. Say you’ll complete all DNA testing and excavation before building a memorial that is by definition premature.