Grapevine Gazette Vol. 1, No. 7
GCISD Candidate Raise Lots of Money • What About Patriot Mobile Action PAC? • Judge Rules Against Short-Term Rentals • Traffic Flows Again at 121-635 Split
Man, it’s been a while. The problem with publishing a newsletter on the second and fourth Sundays of each month is that some months have five Sundays. That’s why you haven’t heard from me in three weeks.
Shoutout to everybody whose bold-face name appears in this edition. There’s a whole lot of you.
GCISD Candidate Raise Lots of Money
Last Sunday’s edition of the Coppell Chronicle included a summary of the campaign finance reports filed by candidates for the Coppell ISD Board of Trustees. Only one of the four candidates reported more than $100 worth of contributions, and she raised less than $3,000.
Y’all are playing a whole different game in Grapevine-Colleyville ISD.
April 3 was 30 days out from the May 3 election, so that’s when the candidates owed us our first peek at their campaign finances. Incumbent Trustee Tammy Nakamura reported more than $47,000 worth of donations, and challenger Matt Foust raised nearly $23,000.
Nakamura’s cover sheet says she brought in $46,676.60, but I punched all of her listed contributions into an Excel spreadsheet and came up with a slightly higher total: $47,176.60 (and I checked my work twice). In any case, it’s a lot of money.
Nakamura’s report details 139 donations from 135 individuals. Her biggest fans were Tom Cobb of Colleyville, who donated $5,000, and Julianna Garrison of Colleyville, who pitched in $4,799.70. They were followed by fellow Colleyville residents Terri Deneui ($2,000) and Jerome Obinado ($1,800).
Colleyville Mayor Pro Tem Brandi Elder was one of six supporters who donated $1,000. Nakamura is a former member of the Colleyville City Council, and her donors included other council alums such as Chris Putnam ($959.70), George Dodson ($500), Richard Newton ($500), and Kathy Wheat ($100). She also received $500 and $250, respectively, from current council members Tim Raine and Mark Alphonso.
Nakamura reported donations from two of her peers on the Board of Trustees: A.J. Pontillo ponied up $300, and Board President Shannon Braun gave $250. Other elected officials supporting her campaign include Tarrant County Commissioner Matt Krause ($500), Keller Mayor Armin Mizani ($383.70), and Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare ($191.70).
A few other notes about Nakamura’s report:
When Nakamura ran for her first term on the school board in 2022, her 30-days-out report included just shy of $27,000 worth of donations. Perhaps a more apt comparison would be Braun’s report from her reelection campaign last year; that one detailed $39,403 worth of contributions.
Nakamura had spent only about $2,200 by the end of the latest reporting period, leaving her with more than $44,000 in her account.
For reasons that weren’t obvious to this reporter, 39 of Nakamura’s 139 donations — including a few of the ones highlighted above — ended with 70 cents. By contrast, all of Foust’s were rounded to the nearest dollar.
Foust reported $22,675 worth of contributions from 125 individuals. The most generous donor was Marcus Banner of Colleyville, who forked over $3,000. Other top contributors were Jim Rhea of Bedford ($1,500), Sara Marshall of Colleyville ($1,150), and Stephen O’Neal of Fort Worth ($1,000). Foust also received $750 from Mindy McClure, who served two terms on the Board of Trustees until losing to Braun in a 2021 runoff.
Foust’s report says he had spent nearly $10,950 by the end of the reporting period.
Early voting begins on April 22. The candidates will owe us another report on April 25.
What About Patriot Mobile Action PAC?
Patriot Mobile was mentioned only once in Tammy Nakamura’s 30-days-out report. She received a $300 contribution from Sean Tanner of Keller, who is a vice president of the company.
Patriot Mobile was also mentioned during the March 31 meeting of the Grapevine-Colleyville ISD Board of Trustees. Katie Foust — the wife of Nakamura’s challenger, Matt Foust — signed up to speak during the meeting’s “Public Comment” portion so she could decry the use of a photo of her children in a “salacious video” that helped spread “outrageous lies” about her husband. She said this online advertising was funded by the Patriot Mobile Action Political Action Committee.