Happy birthday....I took my friend and card-playing buddy Margot Taylor to Fernando’s this week for her (mumble) birthday. As far as I know, except for country clubs, Fernando’s is the only white tablecloth restaurant in Fort Bend County.

The food is divine. We had the veal chops and they were the best I’ve ever had.

The restaurant in a stand alone location in the former Ruth’s Chris building right next to Unocal.

One of the main reasons I love Fernando’s is because it is so consistent. You always know that you are going to get excellent food in a calm and serene atmosphere. There is a full bar, and often, a girl singer, just in case you want to dance. (We didn’t.)

I just love it.

Everybody that knows.....is giggling about the fact that silly Liz Mitton has asked the District Attorney (again) to investigate Fort bend ISD about violating the Texas Open Meeting Act.

Mitton, the self-appointed “chair” of an organization called “Save our Schools” (from what, no one knows), recently sent a letter to DA John Healey about a recent board meeting called by the two losing candidates immediately before the recent election. None of the other board members attended, and the meeting had to be canceled due to lack of a quorum. The four absent members sent a press release to the media explaining their actions.

What makes Mitton’s action so funny is that when her friend Lisa Rickert was president of the FBISD board, the open meetings act was ignored too many times to enumerate (and other board members are willing to testify to this).

Although two wrongs don’t make a right, the election of two new board members to replace the derisive incumbents gives Fort Bend ISD the opportunity to make up for the time lost in two previous years due to the acrimonious leadership. Mitton’s hurling a cow chip at the board is proof positive that she and her fellow travellers like Rickert are unwilling to let the district get back on an even footing, but are instead interested not in the education of children, but on keeping up the turmoil that marked

Rickert’s tenure.

Note to Liz. Give it up, girl. Look at the score. The voters didn’t buy your bull before and they didn’t buy Lisa’s. Let this board and new superintendent put their stamp on the school. If there are still real things to complain about in a year, then get back to us.

Additional FYI on Liz....I received a self-written press release from Liz Mitton last week which said she had been appointed to the state textbook committee. She must have really been in a hurry to get it out because she obviously didn’t spell check it. There were two misspelled words in the release--”relase” and “texbook.” A subsequent release omitted the misspellings.

I guess I shouldn’t be poking fun as her about this as I certainly have never turned out a perfect edition of the newspaper, and few perfectly spelled columns. But then, I’m not on the textbook committee.

Ring, ring, pot calling kettle......Stan Magee threw a hissy fit last night after the board of trustees failed to elect him as an officer. He claimed the nominations were orchestrated beforehand which would be a violation of the Texas Open Meetings Act.

I don’t guess Stan remembers two years ago when former board member Lisa Rickert was elected president by Ken Bryant and the other two new board members--hisownself and Laurie Caldwell. Not only was that well-orchestrated, but Richert banished Baitland to the foot of the table mid-meeting in what has been termed the rudest action by a Fort Bend elected official since the Jaybird-Woodpecker War in 1889, and that involved guns!

Some have even referred to that night as the night of the long knives, although I much prefer to remember it as the “night of the long tongues.”

And Magee’s tongue was working last night when he stayed over to continue his complaint about the unfairness of it all.

Hot and cold running PR.....I couldn’t understand why I keep getting press releases (about five) from Sugar Land Councilman Russell Jones concerning events in Sugar Land. It’s not like the city of Sugar Land has a dearth of public relations types ready at a moment’s notice to toot the city’s horn.

Now why would I be concerned about this? Well, I didn’t want to run Jones’ self-serving press releases. I could edit out his own personal information, but my fear was that he had told the city staff that he would take care of notifying the media about certain events, and his press releases, lacking in certain information that a PR professional would have included, weren’t complete.

I asked several city people about Jones’ press releases when almost immediately Jones called me. I can’t imagine who told him I was asking questions.

Anyway, he fussed at me about not calling him first and I told him I was looking for his telephone number to call him right then. I pointed out that his press release did not contain his telephone number. I also asked him where the event took place since he had also left that information out of his release.

When I asked him why he felt the need to send out press releases, one of his answers was that Senator John Cornyn sends out press releases.