Big Jolly Politics

politics in Harris County and Texas

Interview with Joe Danna for Sherriff

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Joe Danna was kind enough to agree to be interviewed regarding his race for Sherriff.  Running against an incumbent Democrat in this election cycle is a difficult proposition, and he is to be commended for taking the time, effort, and expense of this uphill battle.  This interview focused on what his vision for the Sherriff’s office looks like, and how will he differ from the current incumbent.

He indicated that his priorities are taking politics out of the office, filling budgeted but unfilled positions within the office, and making sure the bad officers are identified and removed from the office.  He believes these steps will lead to better community relations and better service to the public.  To understand how all of this impacts law enforcement and the Sherriff’s office it’s best to start with an overview of the overall political climate.

It’s been discussed ad nauseam, but we live in a time where we have a soft on crime District Attorney, and criminal court judges are criminal friendly.  Criminals don’t fear committing crime, and he pointed out how this has the effect of having criminals from outside the county coming into Harris County to commit crime since the criminal justice system has become so criminal friendly.  It’s a deliberate calculation – crime is a safer proposition in Harris County than in the surrounding counties so they come here to commit crime.  Not only does this create a greater danger to the citizens of the county, but it also demoralizes law enforcement especially in the overall context of the Democratic party’s hostility towards law enforcement in general.  This, in turn, has lead to negative public safety and public service impacts.  He noted that the average response time for a hit and run, which if injuries are involved is at least a state jail felony, is four hours.

To address these concerns he has a plan to take politics out of the office and to fundamentally change the organizational structure to improve functioning of the office.  The organizational structure would change to where five individuals in the office would answer to him directly; they would have five individuals answer to them, and so on.  This decentralizes the power at the top of the organizational chart, and improves communication by eliminating bottlenecks with communication.  This also leaves a clearer picture of where responsibilities lie and how to address issues that arise.  From a decision making standpoint he wants to make decisions from a good of the Sherriff’s office prism with the belief that a happy functioning department will be better able to serve the public.

He was concerned about the various efforts to centralize power and staffing of the Sherriff’s office.  Adrian Garcia has proposed a plan that would have eliminated the Constable contract program and assumed it under the Sherriff’s office.  He believes this is a bad idea.  Although the idea was withdrawn by Commissioner Garcia the intent was clear – centralize the program under the Sherriff’s office.  This plan is especially concerning since the office is understaffed.  He noted that right now 101 budgeted and approved positions are vacant.  The failure to fill these positions seems like an under the table way to defund the office, and with Commissioner Garcia’s attempt to divert the Constable contract program to the Sherriff’s office this seems like a coordinated effort to decrease law enforcement effectiveness and weaken law enforcement’s capabilities to address crime.

The last area we covered is how his office could better enhance public safety if he is elected. In addition to filling the 101 positions noted above, he felt it was important to build better to build community relationships. He said this starts by making sure HCSO treats everyone equally regardless of race, gender, ideology, or the number of contacts they have had with law enforcement.  Each contact is a new contact and everyone in the county is on equal footing when they reach out to the Sherriff’s office for assistance.  Building community relationships is important because he noted that people tend to not get involved unless they are a victim, and cited Mothers Against Drunk Driving and Texas Equasearch as examples.  Building community relationships takes time, especially in this current political climate, and in the meantime he felt that immediate actions he could take are reallocating resources to areas of need – human trafficking only has three people assigned to the division – and to accept calls and investigate crimes that Houston Police Department is unable to investigate since the Sherriff’s office has jurisdiction county wide.  He also noted a willingness to actively identify and remove bad officers whether it’s 0.001% or 10% of the force.

The overall impression he left was that he would change the focus of the office.  Rather than politically oriented he would be office and public safety oriented.  Reallocation of resources to meet the current needs of public safety and filling the 101 available and funded positions alone would help to increase public safety.  The willingness to remove bad officers, and desire to treat each call and every individual on a clean slate every call should give comfort to the entire community.  The willingness to investigate crimes the Houston Police Department is unable to allocate resources to investigate will help to make sure everyone can receive assistance if they reach out for help.  All of this is especially important in our current political climate where criminals feel that it is safer to come to Harris County to engage in criminal behavior than to conduct crime in their own areas.

He is endorsed by: Mike Knox, The “C” Club of Houston, Texas Homeschool Coalition, J.L. Trahan (BIZPAC.US Executive Chariman), Representative Briscoe Cain, Michael Berry

Interview with Tom Ramsey

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Commissioner’s Court Precinct Three is an open seat for the first time in 32 years because Commissioner Radack is retiring.  Tom Ramsey was kind enough to spend approximately an hour and a half discussing his vision for Precinct Three.  He indicated his priorities are infrastructure, safe neighborhoods, and taxes.  While these are clearly important to him, the biggest take away from the interview was something that wasn’t an overt focus of his campaign pitch, but something that kept coming up over and over again in the interview – the proposition that the government should not pick winners and losers, and that social justice requires treating all people equally regardless of whether they are in River Oaks or packed into low income apartments.

From a track record and endorsement standpoint, while Mayor of Spring Valley, he reduced the tax rate by 21%, invested $38 million on infrastructure and flood control and led the city to being named the safest in Harris County according to FBI statistics. He has many endorsements, some of the most prominent coming from Houston Area Realtors, Houston Contractors Association, Baptist Ministers Association (largest and oldest Black Ministers Organization), Houston Police Officers Union, Harris County Deputies, Houston Building Owners and Managers Association, Houston Realty Business Coalition, American Council of Engineering Companies, Commissioners Radack and Cagle, Constables Herman and Heap, the C Club, and Texas Right to Life.

The interview consisted of the topics he wanted to discuss, followed by discussion about how can he be effective as a minority member on the Commissioner’s Court, flooding and the Ike Dike, criminal justice issues, and the Hospital District. As noted above, the proposition that the government should not pick winners and losers kept arising throughout the interview, and should bring comfort to everyone since it appears he will represent everyone without favoritism, and place the traditionally underserved on an equal playing field with the wealthy and politically connected.

While we didn’t discuss Covid per se, he did note that the current business environment needs to change to become more business friendly.  He discussed his meeting with local businesses, such as Daikin, and noted that businesses are starting to recover.  He said that Daikin is ready to hire for 1,000 positions.  He said he trusts businesses and school districts to know the best way to open up in a manner that will protect their patrons/students.

He also noted the small business community has been devastated, and expressed his opinion that an overall business friendly environment was needed to help the economy recover.  This was one area where the overall package of his concerns came into play. The government should be doing more to address flooding and infrastructure concerns to remove impediments to conducting business.  Low taxes are needed so businesses, especially small businesses, are able to keep more of what they earn. Neighborhoods need to be safe so people feel comfortable going to the businesses, and feel safe going to businesses later in the operating hours.

So how can he be an effective member on Commissioner’s Court as a member of the minority party with a majority who does not seem to be interested in trying to work with the minority?  He believes the biggest thing the Republican members of Commissioner’s Court can do is to highlight issues and how the majority is harming the County.  As examples he highlighted the steps taken to allow the County to raid revenue from the Harris County Toll Road Authority.  This is an overt raid on HCTRA revenue that will be diverted for the democrat commissioner’s pet projects rather than allowing for tolls to drop, or improvements to the toll road system to occur without having to increase tolls. He noted violent crime is up 36% and homicides up 41% in Harris County and Commissioner Adrian Garcia actually proposed a study to do away with the Constable program which provides critical protection for residents.

He also pointed out that exposing issues can lead to action rather than stopping bad actions, pointing out that 181 projects with $4.9 billion in funding available are on hold because four mitigation banks are needed, but only one is ready.  This is something that the Commissioner’s Court could immediately address to pump up economic activity, but they are choosing not to do so.  While a minority member cannot force policy change, he noted that exposing this issue would make action more likely simply because of the optics, and that’s one way to be effective in the minority.

We have had a terrible hurricane season, and activity is still ongoing.  While we were lucky with Laura, and while Beta never got organized it still dumped a foot of rain in portions of precinct three.  Hurricane Ike devastated the area in 2008, and we are still no closer to having a mitigation plan in place than we were 12 years ago.  This is despite the County being well positioned to fund and enact a mitigation plan of some nature.  Again, not picking winners and losers came up, and allowing mayors from cities other than Houston have their say were important.  He believes in the end the several cities need to collaborate and come up with a consensus plan, and then put that plan before the voters.  He also noted the possibility of having an entity other than the County handle the issue since the project will impact multiple counties.

(Road collapse – note: When reported to Councilman Pollard’s office over the weekend it was repaired within 48 hours.)

Our conversation on criminal justice and social justice merged into one topic, and was sprawling.  The conversation could be summed up in the premise that everyone needs to be treated equally.  He believes that the roads in River Oaks should be of the same quality and same state of repair as the roads in the poorer sections of Houston City Council District J and F.

This holds true with flooding issues also.  When flood remediation occurs everyone should be treated equally, and the property value of the impacted areas, both in terms of preexisting damage and in terms of future mitigation, should not be a factor in determining who receives help and who receives future protection. Large sums have been made available, but not yet spent.  He believes that the vast amounts available for this matter needs to be allocated and relief rushed to those in need.

Regarding the hot button issue of policing reform he noted that HPD does not have enough resources, and even if they did policing required all local agencies working together to address known criminal activity.  To this end, he proposes creating a task force that will involve all branches of law enforcement in the County to both share information as well as have interagency cooperation on apprehending known criminals.  He drew a distinction between misdemeanor and felony criminal activity arose with the focus on stopping felony activity first as that’s the major threat to community safety.

Our last topic covered was the hospital district.  He pointed out that the County hospital district spending is six times greater than the spending on flood control.  He emphasized that this did not mean he believed that the hospital district spending should be reduced, but that the amount of expenditure on the hospital district is very high, and that other funding sources should be sought after.  He felt it was important that everyone who has the ability to have insurance obtains insurance.  He also believes that more nonprofit organization involvement is needed since nonprofits already have the systems in place to help others obtain insurance coverage.

Overall he struck me as both genuinely concerned about the welfare of the community regardless of political affiliation and affluence, and seemed sincere in wanting to have the County serve as a vehicle to help coordinate efforts to foster closer law enforcement action to help apprehend the known felony criminals.  He also seemed to be knowledgeable and tenacious enough to expose Commissioner Court’s misdeeds to sunlight and that would make him an effective Commissioner despite his status in the minority.

Sheriff Ron Hickman is by far the better choice for Harris County

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ed gonzalez ron hickman
Ed Gonzalez and Sheriff Ron Hickman

There is no question about it: Ron Hickman is the best choice in the race for Harris County Sheriff. His experience, philosophy and achievments make him far more qualified than his Democratic opponent, Ed Gonzalez.

The Houston Chronicle editorial board, in their infinite lack of wisdom, gets this race completely wrong.

In a tough call, voters should go with Gonzalez to clean up Harris County Jail

Being sheriff of Harris County is a bit like being a rancher. No matter what, at the end of the day you’re going to end up smelling like cow pies.

The Harris County jail is a stinking, overcrowded hive of around 10,000 souls, about 75 percent of whom haven’t been convicted of a crime. Even the best manager is going to end up with stink on his sheriff’s uniform. Voters have the difficult job of determining whether negative headlines coming out of the department reflect decades’ worth of structural failures or poor direction from the top office.

…

Most important, Gonzalez has called for a jail administrator to run the facility. It is time to put a professional in charge.

The cow pies – and the stink – are piling up at the sheriff’s office. Voters should give Gonzalez a chance to clean up the mess.

(click here to read the endorsement on HoustonChronicle.com)

Not a tough call

Where to start with that nonsense? First off, it isn’t a tough call. Hickman ran the Precinct 4 Constable’s office for 15 years and designed and implemented many modern day policing methods. Gonzalez rose to the rank of sergeant as a Houston Police Officer and never ran anything, much less one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the nation. That alone should be enough to convince voters to go with Hickman. If it isn’t, voters need to listen to Maria Gutierrez, who failed to receive justice because Gonzalez didn’t investigate her husband’s murder:

McClelland has said Gonzalez, a sergeant when he left HPD, would have been among those punished if he still was with the department.

“It was a mistake that happened in my service back then, and I want to get it corrected and do what’s right,” Gonzalez said Wednesday. “I do feel bad for the situation. Clearly it was a mistake. I think the chief was very firm in indicating that there’s now rules and policies and protocols and procedures to make sure these things never happen again.”

New procedures are little comfort to Maria Gutierrez, 47, who saw her husband’s killer – a man her husband knew and whom she recognized – the night he was murdered eight years ago.
Shortly after 1 a.m. on Oct. 24, 2005, her common-law husband, Elfego Zenon Mena, stepped outside to speak with the man. The two argued, and the man shot Mena in the back of the head as he walked back to the house, she said. Officers found the 48-year-old, a maintenance worker at a golf course, dead in the street in the 5600 block of Ambern.

Gutierrez was stunned when Houston homicide detectives showed up several months ago and explained there had been a lapse in the investigation, and they were reopening the inquiry.

“Well, I thought that since we were Hispanics, and because we are poor also, they aren’t concerned about us,” said Gutierrez, an immigrant from Mexico who speaks little English. “If it had been an American, they would have quickly picked him up and investigated, and they never would have forgotten about it.”

(click here to read the article on HoustonChronicle.com)

Ed Gonzales is Adrian Garcia parte dos

Second, it looks like the members of the Chron editorial board are as fixated with cow pies as they are with diversity. Gonzalez is nothing more than the second coming of Adrian Garcia, who was a blight on the department and is responsible for the deplorable conditions in the jail that is full of cow pies. Garcia thought that having a diverse staff was more important than having a competent staff. He seemed to not realize that you can have both, as Hickman is already demonstrating after 17 months on the job. But Garcia didn’t just ruin the jail, he brought down the morale of the entire department by reducing the number of deputies on the street and bringing in more desk jockeys. Gonzales will do the same if elected.

Hickman has advocated for a jail administrator

The last thing about that endorsement is bizarre.

Most important, Gonzalez has called for a jail administrator to run the facility. It is time to put a professional in charge.

I agree it is important. And I’d suggest that if the Chron ed board had taken the time to ask or to look in their own publication, they would know that Hickman has been proposing that since he was appointed 17 months ago.

From the first day I walked in through the doors of the Sheriff’s Office after my appointment, members of my command staff and I began researching the potential for developing a jail administration approach to the county detention center.

(click here to read the article on Chron.com)

This endorsement is yet another example of why anyone other than a hard core partisan, progressive liberal cannot take the Houston Chronicle editorial board endorsements at face value. The chasm between these two candidates couldn’t be wider.

Ron Hickman is clearly the best choice for Harris County Sheriff.

 

In Harris County Sheriff primary, best choice is Ron Hickman

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Here we go again. Harris County Republicans have to pick a candidate to run for Sheriff in November. Hopefully our nominee will cross the finish line in November and take the office back. Well, I suppose the correct term is to “keep” the office since it is currently occupied by a Republican but since he wasn’t elected to that position, I’ll stick with “take” it back.

On the surface, we have three qualified candidates. If, of course, the surface is all we talk about. All three have been involved in law enforcement for a significant amount of time. That is the surface.

Scratching beneath the surface, one candidate stands out for not only being involved in law enforcement but for his administrative experience in law enforcement. That candidate is current appointed Sheriff Ron Hickman.

After being appointed Sheriff, Hickman had a very short window to clean up Adrian Garcia’s mess and decide if he wanted the job full time. The decisions he made were not those of a man willing to do anything to keep his job. He made tough decisions, made a lot of people angry, but today the Harris County Sheriff’s Office is a far better place than the one he inherited. Sometimes, you have to do the right thing and let the chips fall where they may. Hickman was willing to take that chance and he has to be credited for that.

The other two candidates are simply not qualified to perform the administrative duties required of the Harris County Sheriff.

We do need to talk about one candidate, Carl Pittman. He has garnered a lot of endorsements from the grassroots of the Harris County Republican Party. He has brought in outside influencers such as Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Sheriff Richard Mack, and Ted Nugent. Those guys influence a certain segment of the voters that want to secede, do away with the federal government, return to state sovereignty, however you want to say it. They envision the Sheriff’s job as the last defense against the federal government’s overreach and if you read the comments on various Facebook pages, Carl is embracing that approach.

Maybe that will work. A Harris County Sheriff just might turn back the bad feds. I doubt that but hey, it’s a point of view.

The real problem with Carl is his past. He can explain it away all day long but it is there and it will affect the entire Republican ticket should Carl win the nomination. I won’t repeat the worst of it here but do a search of the website if you are curious and want to know the entire public record that Carl has to live with. I will repeat this from what I wrote in 2012:

Patricia Pittman

“one night he tried to strangle me and I started to scream and then he took another hand and put it over my mouth and said, “you make one word and I’ll kill you…”

Kristi Pittman

“He was just so mad at me and he hit me one time and it kind of…over here in the rib area.”

….

Now, maybe it is true that both women lied. Maybe it is true that the police reports filed in years past are false. I don’t know the truth about that, only those three individuals do.

Listen to those recordings. Do you really think that people are going to ignore those recordings if played over and over in October by the Democratic nominee? Will they simply accept on faith that Carl is just bad at picking women? Will they also ignore the full transcripts of what Carl is alleged to have done to his wives? As I said before, I have no idea who is telling the truth but I do know that this stuff is public and will be used against all Republicans in November if Carl is the nominee. In my opinion, as always.

You’ll decide who you want to vote for and that’s fine with me. We all make choices based on any number of factors. I happen to put a lot of importance on how a single candidate will affect the entire Republican ticket.

And I think that Ron Hickman is the best choice for Harris County Sheriff.

 

Sheriff Ron Hickman doesn’t care much for Adrian Garcia

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In an appearance at the Downtown Houston Pachyderm Club’s weekly meeting, newly appointed Sheriff Ron Hickman made it clear that he doesn’t think that former Sheriff Adrian Garcia ran the department well. Here are a few of his complaints:

  • No academy since 2009
  • No employee discipline
  • No employee training
  • Bloated Internal Affairs
  • $53,000 yearly contract with the Houston Chronicle to provide 800 newspapers daily
  • Garcia used the commissary fund as his personal slush fund
  • Misuse of Purchase Order system allowing requests for $40,000 (under the $50,000 limit), then adding another $40,000 later. He called it “under the radar” spending.

I’m sure there were more but those are the ones I wrote down.

He also mentioned that the Houston Chronicle had given him “flak” regarding his choices for his leadership team being all white males. He said at the time that several positions were still open and he has since appointed two African Americans to high ranking positions but that the Chronicle didn’t bother to write about that.

Hickman stressed that he answers all emails personally and will meet with anyone or any group. He has already met with the NAACP and other civic groups, even those with whom he disagrees. He told us that although he listened to their concerns, he will not be forming a civilian review board because there are already measures in place that do the same thing. He also turned down a request to participate in the Gay Pride Parade but said he wouldn’t care if other members of the department participated on their own time.

He wants to focus on reducing recidivism and developing leaders. He has already begun to engage with his employees, stating that he went into a building to be finger printed for the job application and went around to every employee on every floor and doubted that Garcia had ever even been in the building. He also said that he was going to hold an academy but didn’t provide a timetable for that.

When it came time for questions from the club, he answered several questions with “I don’t know about that”, including the new grand jury bill that should reduce the “pick-a-pal” system and a question about why the department is still arresting low level drug offenders instead of ticketing them. On a question about Garcia’s policy of ignoring ICE holds, he discussed the need to get people out of the jail as quickly as possible so that the jail doesn’t exceed its 9,000 person capacity. Regarding human trafficking, he plans to bring the program from his old Precinct 4 Constable office into the Sheriff’s office.

I asked Hickman about his support for Donald Fincher, who killed one of his Precinct 4 deputies in a DWI case. Hey, not all questions should be softballs. He said that it was only his opinion and that he knew Fincher’s mother and that the guy didn’t get any special consideration because of his letter. I sincerely doubt that but that is his opinion. But he did say something that is clearly not true and I want to make sure the people in the room that heard it know it isn’t true. He stated that he consulted with the victim’s family before writing the letter. Here is what the victim’s wife says:

My name is Paula Claborn Henderson, and I am the widow of Deputy Constable Frank Scott Claborn (EOW 2-19-04). I found out in May 2008 that rather than support my late husband, Constable Hickman’s own deputy, he chose to write a letter to the parole board on his killer’s behalf. Sickening, isn’t it? Not only that, but he is also the campaign treasurer of Patricia Fincher Harless. Scott’s killer was Donald Lee Fincher, Jr. Notice any similarities? When interviewed by Channel 2 News in Houston, the assistant DA said that Constable Hickman supported Scott’s killer getting probation!!!!!! I need help desperately. I made a promise to my son that I would seek justice for his father, and that includes everyone who worked behind the scenes to sabotage the justice system. If you know anything at all about this situation, please feel free to post it on this blog. If you don’t feel comfortable doing that, then please contact the DA’s office directly. Thank you so much for anything you can do to help. I promise you will remain anonymous.

So no, Mr. Hickman did not write that letter with the consent of the victim’s widow. Why he would say that I have no idea. As for Fincher not getting any special consideration, the fact is that he was released early and the fact is that Hickman ended his letter with this:

I ask you to consider how difficult it is to be in this position and give weight to my encouragement for an approval for parole status for this inmate.

If you don’t think a letter written to the parole board on the Constable’s official letterhead asking the board to give weight to his request influenced the board, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

I don’t know if Mr. Hickman is the right man for the job or not. There will be a primary and he will have a challenger or two. Certainly he is the choice of the “insiders” of the Republican Party and that is why he was appointed. He was well received by the club and in fact started out with a standing ovation. He’s been around a long time and knows a lot of people and from what I can tell, most people praise his leadership of the Precinct 4 Constable’s office. And at the end of the day that is what most Republican primary voters care about.

But November is a different story. If, as expected, he is on the ballot next November, he will have to deal with a Democratic opponent in a Presidential election year. And that is not going to be easy, especially if you start out by saying you don’t want the support of a specific group of voters. Remember earlier when I said that he would not be participating in a Gay Pride Parade? That’s fine, most Republican office holders refuse to do that. But I think his problem with the gay community is deeper than that.

During the questions from the club time, Tom Zakes asked him about the Harris County Sheriff’s office website. Tom told him that on the Contact page for the department, there was a “rainbow” flag and wanted to know if any other “bacon, lettuce, tomato” groups had special consideration.

Mr. Hickman was incredulous. He asked “you mean we have a rainbow flag on the website?” Tom assured him that it was there. Hickman just shook his head.

When I got home, I checked the website and sure enough, there was a “rainbow” flag along with a button that you could click on to get information from a “LGBTI Liaison” about coming to your event or if you feel you were discriminated against. I didn’t get a screen capture at the time. I should have because when I checked back an hour later, the “rainbow flag” and contact button were gone. I had to go to the Google cache page to get a screenshot. Here are three screenshots, the first as it was before Zakes asked the question, the second with the information window that pops up when the “LGBTI Liaison” button was clicked and the third is how it appears today (click to enlarge).

Harris County Sheriff Contact Page with LGBTI Liason
Harris County Sheriff Contact Page with LGBTI Liason
Harris County Sheriff Contact page with LGBTI popup information
Harris County Sheriff Contact page with LGBTI popup information
Harris County Sheriff Contact page with LGBTI Liaison information removed
Harris County Sheriff Contact page with LGBTI Liaison information removed

Make of that what you will.

And if you like irony as much as I do, how about this? The very Republicans that appointed him supported Adrian Garcia over his opponent, Louis Guthrie, in the 2012 election and did everything they could to get Garcia re-elected.

Sheriff Ron Hickman with the Downtown Houston Pachyderm Club board.
Sheriff Ron Hickman with the Downtown Houston Pachyderm Club board.

 

Shoreacres City Council meeting 12-9-13

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City of Shoreacres graphic

Last night’s Shoreacres City Council meeting started with a proposal of sorts from Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia for his office to contract with the city for police services.

Sheriff Adrian Garcia
Sheriff Adrian Garcia

3.0 Special Presentation

Sheriff Garcia did not have a formal presentation for the council. Resident Paul Croas had prepared a spreadsheet which was given to the council and a few of the meeting attendees. The spreadsheet showed a potential yearly savings of $54,585 using a formula that deputies’ time between the city (80{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986}) and the county (20{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986}).

During an extensive question/answer session, Sheriff Garcia said that he did not anticipate the city ever being without at least one deputy, even under an 80/20 time share. Other items of interest during the Q&A:

  • The elimination of capital costs (no need to purchase cars,radios, maintenance, etc.)
  • Fixed cost – no overtime charges
  • Yearly review of contract cost, increases determined by Commissioners Court and approved by City
  • The current police station would be used by HCSO and the contract negotiations would include this
  • Current Shoreacres officers could apply but no guarantee that they would be accepted
  • All officers are first responder trained (first aid) but not all units have defibrillators
  • There was some concern that deputies would look to the Sheriff’s office and not to the city administrator for priorities.
  • One resident suggested getting competitive quotes from Constables
  • In his experience, Garcia said that the deputies that work these contracts become part of the communities they work in
  • Potential of having more resources if another hurricane hits
  • One citizen was concerned that the crime rate might go up
  • Interim Chief Massey was against the idea

Resident Croas did much of the talking for the Sheriff’s department as he was the person that was behind the proposal.

6.0 Citizens Comments

Darlene Gamble Bay – no one from the council is going to the inter city dinners and she wanted someone to represent the city

Gerry Victor – status of water plant #1. Should have been repaired by December, 2012, then March 2013, still not online. He noted that two homes had burned down in the past two years on his street. System failures in fire response.

I pointed out that the city requested two new public works vehicles in the first budget pass, then one in the second, then the request was eliminated and the public works was given a retired Ford Expedition to use with some minor refurbishing. The Expedition has not moved in the three months since then and clearly wasn’t needed in the first place.

Dana Woodruff – congratulated public works on the recent Christmas party

Charlotte Wells – discussed the “Ike dike” and the recent centennial gate to protect from future storms. She suggested that the council be proactive and learn about it. She also mentioned rumors that our city administrator was approached by FEMA about a buyout of homes on Miramar and wondered if the council had any information about it.

Gerry Victor – he was familiar with the FEMA buyout, he had given it to the previous mayor and nothing came of it.

7.0 Administrative Reports

Stall was not present.

Interim Chief Massey urged the council to stop the interview process for police chief if they were seriously considering contracting police services out. He seemed perturbed about the whole process, specifically that he wasn’t advised earlier about it.

Public Works Sutton said that recycling will be moved to Monday until after the holidays.

Commentary

The meeting was lightly attended, which was a disappointment with an issue of this magnitude on the agenda. I’ve watched this council every other week for the past 7 months and will tell you that I don’t think this proposal is going anywhere. The council did not seem to be very receptive to the idea, nor did the few citizens in attendance. The proposal itself seemed rushed and there wasn’t much detail presented. There are some merits to it, not only in cost savings but in investigations, manpower, resources, etc., but losing the sense of “community police”, if it were to be lost, will be hard to overcome.