So Before You Vote: Adam McGough’s Utility Bills at His HP Condo Were Apparently Completely Appropriate

About Adam McGough’s utility bills at his Highland Park condominium: we may have been misled into misleading readers that his energy consumption at his Crestpark condo was so low that he could not possibly have ever lived there.

Here is what we said:

Well, let’s put it this way – they either have the world’s most energy efficient, off-the-grid-solar-panel-using-cold-shower-having family, or um, they maybe didn’t live there the whole time.

There, I said it.

Here are the months of usage we have. Maybe they used more at some point. But for real, this is a dream electric bill for four people. For instance, their April 2014 bill was 658 kilowatts. October 2014′s bill was 480.  To put this in perspective, the average electric hot water heater pulls somewhere between 380 and 500 kilowatts per month, and your average fridge uses about 150 kw.

I was alerted to the fact today that one  of his opponents may have been circulating the electric bill information that we posted earlier in the week. It apparently turned up on The Advocate in comments, though our information came to us materially from a trusted source. Getting in touch with someone at Oncor who even knows how to spell “blog” has been a difficult feat this afternoon, but I have asked them to see if they can tell us how the McGough’s account information was released and who it was released to. In this age of anonymous email addresses, we may have better luck fishing in the Trinity.

I called Adam McGough, who directed me to his campaign manager, Clayton Henry. We spoke and this is what he said to me: you’ve been used.

“The use of kilowatt usage is accurate and perfectly normal for a 1000 square foot unit in that building,” he said.

He confirmed that the account on the bills was indeed that of the McGoughs.

“I feel you should retract your article and issue Adam an apology,” he said.

So here it is: we are sorry folks. Mea Culpa.

Was this a campaign smear tactic from his opponents? Possibly. Henry told me that the Advocate took down a lot of anti-McGough comments that came from the same IP address. On our blog, we had more pro-McGough comments than anti, and no duplicate IP addys. This is an election, and a vital one. (Still, Bethany was pretty darn sharp to recall that  that comment from the Vanity Fair article.) McGough is viewed as being pro Mike Rawlins, and he has been endorsed by the Dallas Morning News despite the residency question:

McGough does have a strike against him — a question about residency. He acknowledges his wife lived in a Park Cities condo so their two boys could attend Highland Park schools. His children now attend school in Lake Highlands. McGough’s service to the city, and that he made the choice regarding Highland Park schools in the interest of his children, earn him the chance to move beyond this mistake.

Hmmm. A mistake. OK, we can all make them. But we do want to get it right: Henry said that HPISD investigated the McGough’s residency investigation and is taking no further action. That WAS his electric bill account, and it appears to be normal use for the 1063 square foot unit when they lived there.  Maybe we should all own condos!

And I want to be clear the McGough’s have every right in the world to do what they have to do to get their children the best education possible. And the McGoughs actually owned the condo (which they still own) before their kids went to school, Henry told me. They bought it in 2010.