ISD Says Grapevine Mayor's Donation Offer Never Existed
GCISD claims mayor never contacted them about donation.
Grapevine Mayor William Tate is facing a full-blown credibility crisis as his highly publicized promise to secure corporate donations to save local schools from closure has collapsed under scrutiny.
For months, Tate positioned himself as the financial savior of Bransford and Dove Elementary Schools within Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District (GCISD), first floating the idea of raising taxes to keep the campuses open. When that gained no traction, he pivoted to a new plan: a $2 million corporate donation package he claimed he could raise.
But according to GCISD, the donation never existed.
Tate told CBS Texas that GCISD “passed” on his offer to raise $2 million. But when pressed, he changed the story, now saying the amount was actually $1.2 million, claiming it represented the estimated annual savings from closing Dove Elementary.
The problem?
The district says they were never contacted about any donation—$2 million, $1.2 million, or otherwise.
“No one has contacted the district about a $2 million donation. The other questions should be directed to Mayor Tate if he has reported otherwise.”
Even if Tate had secured a $1.2 million donation, it would have been a one-time contribution, supposedly not even enough to keep the schools open even for a single year of operating costs—let alone the decade of deficits GCISD faces from declining enrollment.
When the need for school closures became unavoidable, GCISD invited both Grapevine and Colleyville city managers to join the Executive Master Planning Committee to help evaluate options and identify cost-saving measures.
Grapevine city managers refused.
Instead of assisting, Mayor Tate escalated into public attacks on district leadership. Sources inside GCISD say Tate became erratic, aggressive, and increasingly hostile as the closure process moved forward.
Highlights of Tate’s meltdown include:
Claiming that closing a small residential school would cause catastrophic traffic problems the city “could not handle.”
Sending an error-filled, threatening email to the School Board President, declaring he would “destroy” her and admitting his previous intimidation attempts had “failed.”
Issuing a letter, signed by every council member, that is now under investigation for potential violations of the Texas Open Meetings Act.
His aggression contributed to an increasingly toxic environment—culminating in the resignation of the GCISD superintendent.
Current Revolt reported in October on an error-riddled, passive-aggressive, email that Tate sent from his Verizon email account to the GCISD school board president:
Current Revolt spoke with multiple Grapevine community members who described a long history of Tate’s temper issues, including incidents where he allegedly yelled at or berated residents during council meetings. But those accounts alone didn’t explain the mayor’s extreme reaction over school closures.
As we investigated further, one detail emerged that may provide the missing context:
Mayor Tate’s daughter is a teacher at Dove Elementary—one of the schools proposed for consolidation.
What has been publicly framed as concern for infrastructure and city planning could possibly be a personal crusade disguised as municipal leadership.
GCISD’s school board, after years of declining enrollment and millions in lost state funding, took difficult but responsible steps to stabilize the district’s finances.
They solved the budget problem without Tate’s nonexistent donation and without the city’s cooperation.
Now residents are left facing a different crisis entirely:
Grapevine doesn’t have a budget shortfall.
Grapevine has a leadership shortfall.
Thank you Current Revolt for reporting on this disturbing matter when it seems no other local news source is willing to investigate what is actually the real story.
Nice to know the losers who countrol the City of Grapevine. One has to wonder how much these good ole boys and girls are hiding from the public taxpayers.