May 26, 2015 - Stephen Shires spoke with the commissioners about contracting with the county to be the Assistant District Attorney.
The Shelby County Commissioners approved Stephen Shires as the new assistant to District Attorney Ken Florence at their recent meeting held on Tuesday, May 26, 2015. They also put companies with large truck haulers on the spot in relation to county roads and seeking permits for such travel.
A budget adjustment Request from the District Attorney Florence was on the agenda and present to speak about this request was Shires, who informed the court a portion of this effort is to provide assistance to Florence in improving case disposition percentages in Shelby County, "The way we've set this up, I would not fall under the professional prosecutors act. So, I could maintain my [civil] practice over there and then we could look. I mean the hours working and all that, that's not how you measure the productivity of this position. How many cases do we get moved, how many cases do we get plead, how many cases do we get tried. We keep our disposition rate above 90% which is important."
Shires explained to the commissioners the District Attorney's office and County Attorney's office must keep their disposition rate above 90% otherwise the county is in jeopardy of losing state funding. Jennifer Fountain, Shelby County Clerk, stated the county is at 74% over the past five year term not including juvenile probation. She stated the five year term began in January and she has filed for clarification from the state as to how many of these cases are misdemeanor and felony to get an idea of each department's percentage.
This proposal was made possible with the evacuation of the District Attorney Investigator position formerly held by Bobby Carlsen and Florence volunteering to no longer use a $10,000 car allowance. According to Judge Harbison, if Florence finds himself in need of an investigator he has said he can work with the Sheriff's Department, Center Police Department and when necessary seek help from the Attorney General's office because the state has revenue available to be used for special investigation. With the absence of an investigator at a cost of $51,000 and the $10,000 car allowance no longer in use, this should help afford an assistant at his request of $60,000.
"My preferred arrangement is to essentially be an independent contractor, which means the county would have to provide me no benefits. No health insurance, no car allowance, no phone, no nothing."
Shires stated this arrangement is one which the county has adopted in the past with one example being that of Wesley Hoyt acting as contract assistant to then District Attorney John S. Walker.
"It's tough for one person to do that job, because it's difficult to be proactive. There's lots of things that we need to do working with probation, working with the police to be proactive," said Shires. "I'm going to run for District Attorney next time around. My understanding Mr. Florence is not going to run, so this would also cause an ease of transition to the office. Like I said when I ran before, what's important to me are the drugs, are dealing with the drugs and the police have a ton of drug cases, but on top of that we continue to have a murder or a kidnapping or these sorts of things and it's just difficult, I think it's difficult for any one person whoever it is to do the job. So, I think this is a good solution."
Roscoe McSwain, Commissioner Precinct 1, made the motion to move forward on a contract basis of $5,000 a month with the money coming from the current budget if there's enough money to fund it, if not a small adjustment will be made to fund it, "We'll get a report back on the benefit we get out of the $20,000 in four months when we go over next year's budget." The motion was seconded by Travis Rodgers, Commissioner Precinct 3, and was approved.
The commissioners approved proclaiming May as Elder Abuse Prevention Awareness Month at the meeting held on Tuesday. Pictured are (from left) Jennifer Fountain, Shelby County Clerk; Tracey Belin, Texas Department of Family and Protective Services; Jimmy Lout, Commissioner Precinct 2; Allison Harbison, Shelby County Judge; Travis Rodgers, Commissioner Precinct 3; Roscoe McSwain, Commissioner Precinct1; Mason Hendry, Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.
Judge Harbison stated Commissioner Rodgers has been having difficulty in his precinct in dealing with the roads which are his responsibility and saltwater trucks that drive on them. She stated a process by which companies traveling on these roads are required to get permits through the County Road Use Permit procedure which was put in place sometime in the past. According to Judge Harbison it is Commissioner Rodgers contention the trucks he is having issue with are not permitted.
"It's not that we can charge them a big fee or anything, but we need to know who's on those roads," said Judge Harbison.
Commissioner Rodgers explained how he would like the process to work, "What my idea would be, we can go without charging for writing a permit, but once we get a permit and on that permit they've got an agreement if they damage something that they will either fix it or furnish materials to fix it. This permit also gives you the information who's on this road or who has been on it, who to check with or look at. If there are two or three vendors on it, it can be split up two or three different ways. I've got one road that is still closed due to the weather, if they would stop when it first starts it wouldn't be so bad, but they won't stop they just keep on dragging and tearing."
According to Commissioner McSwain, the legislature addressed this issue within the last two or three years and a county cannot require payment for that permit; however, they can require the permit, "The permit is a benefit to the trucking company because we have a set amount of hours, they call in the permit, we have so many hours to go look at the road assess the damage the road has already received, see what condition the road's in, you note that then they're not responsible for damage that was done on the road, but from then on they are responsible and we'll hold them to it when it happens. If they do not get the permit, I think this is what we'll find in the law if enough studying [is] done, if they do not come get the permit to allow the county to know what road they're using then they're responsible for anything we want to put on them, damage to the road."
Jimmy Lout, Commissioner Precinct 2, asked what companies should be getting the permits and he specifically asked this in relation to Tyson and Pilgrim's Pride.
McSwain said all of the companies are supposed to be getting the permits, "Tyson and Pilgrim's have now got to where if they use this money on the highway with their trucks and they go two miles to a farm then they want to go out the other three miles to the other main highway where they'll tear the whole dang road up. Well it's not my fault and I don't know what they're doing to keep from hitting each other. Well that ain't my problem, they tear up both ends of the dadburn road instead of just tearin' up one end. Pilgrim's right now, I was looking through those farms tickets the other day when they sold, 93,000 to 97,000 lbs loads. Well that ain't legal to start with, now if you're going to hammer the log trucks and everybody else, why are they getting to do it?"
The commissioners continued with discussion about more roads which have been damaged by regular use of large trucks . Judge Harbison stated the main issue right now is the constant rain as usually at this time of year the roads are dry. At this time there is no one to enforce these permits. Judge Harbison said sheriff's deputies and constables could enforce the permits.
Judge Harbison made a motion reinstating Shelby County does have a County Road Use Permit and everyone needs to be informed of that and it will be added to the county website. The motion was seconded by McSwain and was approved.
Agenda items receiving approval include:
Pay monthly expenses.
County Depository contract with Farmers State Bank.
Give 60 day notice for occupant at 108 Austin Street to vacate the premises allowing the county to use the building.
Hire Stephen Shires on a contract basis as assistant
District Attorney at $5,000 a month for four months with a review of progress after those four months.
Reiteration of county road use permit.
Proclamation for Elder Abuse Prevention Awareness Month.
Adjourn 10:27am.
