Waco - McLennan County Commissioners cut the annual budget for electronic monitoring of offenders released on bail to $0 for the fiscal year after previously charging taxpayers $30,000 per year to fund a program that was never implemented. At the rate of $15 per day, those who are released awaiting trial often are allowed to pay the cost themselves.
The Court has recently diverted $385,000 in contingency funding to pay the New Jersey-based corporation, which operates the jail financed and built with revenue bonds underwritten by McLennan County taxpayers.
Why keep low level offenders in the jail at our expense? The reason my taxes are so high - 3X what they were in 1993 - is because we have these backassward boobs in charge. They think being "tough on crime" is going to fix this community? I think not. That's old stuff and the world and the lawmakers in Austin make jokes about Waco and they don't know why? This is not the armpit of the state, it is the butthole.
ReplyDeleteGo look up some stats on this community. The highest teen pregnancy rate in the state and in the top ten in our nation. The Waco STD rate is twice the state rate. Think about it...this is mostly a ghetto and not a good place to be.
And the DA we elected says his mentor is John Bradley, the DA in Williamson County under investigation for withholding evidence and sending an innocent man with no criminal record to prison for years? More scary stuff...and our jail population rises and we ponder that?
Just today I got a phone call from a pollster for a local political race and she verified my location and said "Wacko, Texas". I used to correct that error but this time I said, "That's right. You got that exactly right".
"Find a need and fill it." - Henry Kaiser, Kaiser Industries
ReplyDeleteAnother 385,000 thousand is coming again,Plemons wants to get elected before all hell breaks out with his budget.
ReplyDeletePlemons will be responsible for the county spending an extra $2 million this year. He has yet to take any responsibility in his poor budgeting skills. He has yet to admit the he should have taken care of this months ago. He refuses to answer budget questions. He refuses to appear in Commissioners Court to answer questions on it. It will talk about how good a thing the electronic monitoring could be, even though it has been in the budget he claims to know so well, until this year. Commissioners finally removed it after 3 years of him not using it. Why has he not been using it? The Harwell Center managed by CEC has been nothing but the money pit the state jail commission said it would be. That's the same state jail commission that Lynch and Plemons ignored to force the building of it to court. That's the same CEC that has been caught bribing public offiicals to get their jails built. Considering the Sheriff is the only one who can approve it, I wonder who's palm was greased to to give the go ahead to build a detention center on county land, that we don't own and we pay to house our prisoners there? Not only do we pay, but we're paying more then out of county agencies are paying. How the hell does that happen???
DeleteOk, let me get this all straight. We are paying to put our prisoners in a jail we paid to have built on a bond that isn't supposed to cost the taxpayers anything that the company who is paying us to manage the place can walk away and leave us holding the bag for everything? And this is legal? And now one of the archtects of this plan who has over spent or will be over spending his budget to the tune of $2.5 million is campaign to take over on the platform of his management skills?
ReplyDeleteWhat person in their right mind would dare endorse a man like this. In 6 months, he cratered his budget. He's gone beyond his authority to make a big PR splash. He doesn't show up to take ownership of his mistakes, a lesson learned well from his mentor and co-archtect of this disasterous and very costly private jail plan. And now he wants us to vote for him? My dog could do as good a job as this guy has done. At least my dog would keep lying to the public.
So now an unused, unwanted program is a great idea to Plemons? If the idea was so great, then why did it sit funded on a shelf for 3 years while CEC got fat taking handouts from the men behind their private jail, Lynch and Plemons? This program had a budget of $30,000 a year. Instead we have spent over $3,000,000 in those years, and still have to spend another $2,500,000 before the end of this year.
ReplyDeleteVoters, stand up now, and get the monkeys out of office. Our taxes will be going up this year, and it is directly because of the mismanagement of Plemons. Imagine that you spent every dime you had or had credit to get. Now imagine that you spent another 10% of that amount. That's what Plemons has done. He says he expertly administrates a budget of $26 million, and that his opponent can't. Well, since Plemons budget blunders are now going to cost the taxpayers an extra $2,500,000, I have to say that Plemons can't manage a $26 million budget.
His opponent has never mismanaged his budget in over 4 decades of running business in addition to his over 3 decade long law enforcement career. Plemons has had less then a year managing a business budget and already made a $2.5 million goof. Imagine the damage he could do in 4 years, that's about $10,000,000 at his present rate. I say present rate since the year isn't out yet, and he still has time to dig his hole deeper, given it only took him 6 months to get that deepe.
The same administration that covered up the FATAL accident involving the capt that violated policy at the sheriffs office,, also covered up several accidental discharge of firearms involving deputies mishandling their weapons, misplacing a large amount of explosives that were being stored on private property...only later to be recovered by deputies working to save the dept emabaresment because they were stolen by local thugs. No record of what was taken or recovered because,,YOU GUESSED IT,,,,no record of it ever being there,,,heck its just explosives....but there is record of the suspects being charged with it.They cant pass a lie test that says they got it all back,,,becasue they never knew what was really there!!! How about a former LT, who is no longer employed, going to NEW ORLEANS and being paid by the feds and the County AT THE SAME TIME (double dipping) during hurricane Katrina,,,,it goes on and on...please
ReplyDeleteDeputies mishandling their weapons? I've heard of one of the captain who shot himself while sitting in his car. I heard it was put down as a misfire. I believe the Sheriff's Office uses Glocks. Glocks only misfire if your finger is on the trigger with the trigger safety pulled in. I also heard about a now sergeant misfiring his weapon in the saliport of the jail. Again, with a Glock that only misfires with a finger on the trigger. Of course these men were both shining stars of the department so they got promoted instead of demoted. Of course the now captain that shot himself, did keep the credit card companies from putting a lien on Plemons house, so it's no wonder he's a captain now.
ReplyDeleteThe corruptness in the Sheriff's office is consistent over the past 11 years. The guys in the "click" down there do whatever they want on taxpayers time, with taxpayers money.
ReplyDeleteThe captain over patrol, Vanek, can't even put two sentences together correctly. Captain Kolinek, who covered for Plemons did indeed shoot himself in the leg, while sitting in his parked patrol car, "playing" with his gun.
The SWAT team is a joke. They aren't properly trained, and nobody wants to take a chance to call them, or ask for their asssitance on anything. They are a "SWAT" team in name only.
The SO is the laughing stock of law enforcement in this area.
I wonder what money is being wasted on a SWAT team that never does anything but train for calls that will never come. And why do we have a SWAT team in addition to the Waco SWAT? Why are we not saving money being using some sort of joint team? It would seem that money currently being wasted on the SWAT team that never does anything could be put to better use under McNamara's plans to revitalize the Drug Task Force, Cold Case Team and the Fugitive Task Force, and it would actually be used to get criminals off the streets, out of our homes, and out of the comfort of their homes.
DeleteHere's a run down of the top 5 people currently running the Sheriff's Office and their experience:
Sheriff Larry Lynch - former Sheriff Administrator
Chief Deputy Plemons - former DARE Officer
Captain Paul Wash - former First Deputy County Auditor
Captain Ken Vanek - former Patrol Sergeant and deputy
Captain John Kolinek - former Civil Process Sergeant and shot himself in the leg while seated in his car playing with his gun.
Notice the lack of actual law experience among the group? The top 3 have never been on the street. 1 has been on the street and has experience. Then the last managed to shoot himself while seated in his patrol car but did illegally run interference on Plemons' creditors.
It's time to get these "administrators" out of office and put a real lawman back in charge. To the deputies out there, I have to question anyone's reason for wanting to follow a career desk jockey over a career lawman with numerous awards for his service from the different agencies he's taken part in operations with, including your own department.
The SWAT team is most definitely a waste of taxpayers money. Waco, Woodway, Hewitt/Robinson have excellent SWAT teams who are called for assistance in any major situation. Sheriffs office are never called. Plemons and Lynch went to negotiators school, so they like it, and made it a pet project. Also, a good friend and major brown noser of Plemons is head of their SWAT. That is why they have one, even though they aren't taken seriously.
ReplyDeleteDidn't Plemons call in the SWAT team to raid that puppy mill? It seemed like he called in everyone else. I've surprised he didn't alert network news and Homeland Security. Weeks later, still no arrests have been made.
ReplyDelete