By Cheryl Skinner

As Fort Bend Independent School District moves closer to approving the proposed Global Science Center, a state of the art interactive facility, opponents are gearing up for a battle to squelch the plan. Saying all of the public records on the planning and financing of the center have not been released, opponents are scheduled to meet with the Fort Bend County District Attorney next week to explore their legal options.

Nancy Hentschel, a Sugar Land resident and staunch opponent of the science center project, says she and other opponents will be meeting with Fort Bend County District Attorney John Healey on Dec. 11.
Hentschel requested a multitude of information from FBISD earlier this year. FBISD, in turn, requested an Attorney General’s opinion on the release of the information sought and the AG determined the district must release most of the information requested.

After the opinion, FBISD claimed they released all the information to Hentschel and what was not released simply did not exist.

Hentschel says she has evidence to the contrary and will be taking the information to Healey in the hopes of forcing the district to comply. “We also want to explore filing criminal charges and see what legal remedies we may have,” Hentschel said Monday.

The move by opponents comes after FBISD held a workshop last week and debated the status of the various academies proposed for various campuses in light of the serious budget deficit that they are currently facing. The district also has said they will move forward with the planned implementation of the Global Science Center project. Hentschel says this decision has sparked a new-found determination to fight the plan and demand accountability from the administration.

“We will not give up and we are pushing forward. I don’t know what we can expect from Healey because he does have close political ties to some at FBISD, but we do plan to continue this,” she said.

In the past Hentschel expressed concerns that the recently opened Houston Museum of Natural Science satellite facility in Sugar Land would be “hijacked” by the district’s proposed Global Science and Technology Center. She said the museum, “which won’t cost the taxpayers a penny” won’t open or survive, if it does open, should the district move forth with the Global Center.

District Superintendent Tim Jenney has said repeatedly that the museum is geared to entertainment while the proposed Global Science Center will be strictly for educational purposes and the two, he contends, will work together to provide exceptional services to the community and the students of the district.

In May of this year, former Sugar Land Mayor David Wallace, who heads a committee that studied the feasibility of the proposed center, said the project cost $26 million to build and about $800,000 a year to maintain and operate.

Wallace said Monday he remains “very optimistic” about the center. He said the committee has a number of grant requests pending from various groups and organizations that he feels will come to fruition. “It is going very well and I do believe we can reach our goals,” Wallace added.

The goal of the committee and the district is to get private funding to partially pay for the up front construction costs and then get and keep funding from the private sector to cover half of the operating budget each year.

While Wallace expressed a positive feeling on the proposed center, he did not disclose how much, if any, actual funds had been acquired. He said he might present the status of the project to the FBISD board “sometime in January.”

The proposed facility is planned to be built adjacent to the district’s central administration building, 16431 Lexington Blvd. in Sugar Land. The facility will include an I-max type theater and interactive labs.
Supporters of the center believe the advanced technology will be of great benefit to students and teachers alike.

Hentschel and other opponents maintain the project, which they have dubbed the “Global Taj Mahal” is nothing more than a duplication of services offered by the new science museum, and a waste of taxpayers money during a time when the district should be concentrating on spending less not more.

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