The four White board members voted in favor, while the five non-White board members voted against it. Lana Shadwick, an assistant attorney of the Harris County government, campaigned for the HISD board to allow neighborhood enrollment at River Oaks. Two board members, Esther Campos and Robert Jefferson, said that an entity, through intermediaries at the request of Shadwick, offered $50,000 in board election campaign contributions if they would change their votes, and threatened to rally a group of parents to campaign for their opponents if they did not change their votes. Jose Salazar, the intermediary who contacted Campos, said that no such offer had ever been made. McAdams stated that the controversy caused public attention to focus on the HISD board and its racial makeup. In an editorial, the "Houston Chronicle" staff argued that "Until there is another vote, HISD should continue its work to improve all of HISD's neighborhood schools to lessen concerns that a child must qualify for some kind of magnet program and be bussed across town to be assured a quality education," and that the voting was done out of decentralization and not racial reasons, and so the perception that it was racial "helps to give the issue a racial tinge it does not deserve, which only serves to aggravate an already tense situation." Laurie Bricker, a white HISD board member, introduced a new plan that allowed parents of Vanguard students to include their non-Vanguard children in the neighborhood classes along with River Oaks neighborhood students. Bricker had the neighborhood program as a phase-in to appease Vanguard parents but some minority HISD trustees did not like that aspect of her program. On March 21, 1996, the board voted in favor of Bricker's program 5–2, with 2 abstaining. Many neighborhood parents accepted the plan. Some Vanguard parents had objected. McAdams said that this vote ended the River Oaks controversy. In the 1996–1997 school year, River Oaks Elementary introduced the neighborhood program, with for grades kindergarten through 2 admitted immediately. Grades 3 through 5 were grandfathered into the system. Prior to the rezoning, parts of the River Oaks neighborhood were zoned to Wilson Elementary School in Neartown, while other parts were zoned to Will Rogers Elementary School (which closed after the 2005–2006 school year), and other parts were zoned to Poe Elementary School in Boulevard Oaks. River Oaks Elementary celebrated its 75th anniversary in the 2003–2004 school year. Jeff Bezos, a River Oaks alumnus, spoke at a luncheon during this event.