State incarceration overreach will bankrupt Hays County
Editor,
Hays County’s criminal legal system has long had problems: from our habitually overcrowded jail that’s led to an outsourcing problem to our chronically slow court system. In 2017, Hays County had the 7th slowest district court system in Texas. A July 1, 2021, Texas Commission on Jail Standards report listed Hays third highest in detainee outsourcing. Hays County residents paid $54,000 between June 13-19 alone to send 126 detainees to other counties so that our full jail could stay in compliance with state jail standards. A full jail, slow courts, and extremist “bail reform” measures making their way through Special Session right now promise to only worsen this dire problem.
These bail bills, HB 2 and SB 6, and their accompanying constitutional amendments, HJR 1 and SJR 3 — which all made it through their respective committees this past Saturday — while clearly aiming to target Harris County, will have grave consequences for us, too.
Hays County Commissioners have — to their credit — tried to fix this problem by: reactivating the defunct Hays County Criminal Justice Coordinating Commission (CJCC), successfully passing a resolution to add another district to handle the backlog, and even unanimously voting in favor of bringing a public defender’s office to our county last March. Unfortunately, we have also recently expanded our county jail, which failed to solve the overcrowding issue. Republican Commissioner Lon Shell, to his credit especially, clearly pleaded for us to find solutions instead of relying on a new jail alone in 2018. “The worst thing,” he told Eric Dexheimer of the Houston Chronicle, “is you just build a new facility and fill it up the next day.” A new jail wasn’t enough to fix this problem, and detaining more people pre-trial, as these bills will do, will certainly not solve it either.
There’s plenty to be alarmed about with these bills. Both target charitable bail funds, like the one Mano Amiga operates, further lessening payment options for people who can’t afford their bail who will then have no other option but to either languish in jail awaiting court dates — which due to slow courts and a large COVID backlog could easily take a year or more or pay the often still-unaffordable 10-15% to a bondsman who will turn a profit.
In short, the entirety of this bill undermines all the crucial, painstaking criminal justice reform work the Hays County Commissioners Court, the Hays CJCC, and countless in our community have fought so hard for. If this bill passes, Hays County Jail — and our County’s budget — will be even deeper in the hole.
Karen Muñoz
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Dear Editor,
As a gal who grew up unapologetically feminist, I can say that in my lifetime I’ve played with many balls of various sizes and shapes — soccer balls, footballs, billiard balls, even some soft balls.
Once, during a softball game where I served as an outfielder, I made a play by which my first contact with the ball was via my foot. I quickly high-kicked the ball from the air into my glove and then threw it, making the out at the base. I’m definitely absolutely unequivocally bragging here, however, I can’t seem to remember what size that ball was. I was a soccer player by default, so my memory is simply that, relative to a soccer ball, the softball we played with was small and hard. I only played that sport to make my sweetheart and his family become more accepting of me.
But alas, I was a soccer player. I preferred kicking balls.
I preferred it so much that, in 1994, in the small town of Houston, Texas, I became the first girl to play on my high school football team after having tried out for Kicker and making it onto the JV Football team! (Again, bragging here — we were District Champs!)
Here’s the thing though: I may have had to use the giant athletic laundry room facility as my locker room which *may* have fostered an unforgettable aroma, minted from thousands of ounces of male sweat-soaked cotton and poly blends conglomerated from the hundreds of players at my Super 5A school, BUT I was never (ever ever ever) forced to play with a different sized ball!
I played with the same pigskin. Same laces. Same sized uprights to kick through..
Even the kicking distance — it was measured in the same yardage. They didn’t convert to meters on account of my girl-being-ness.
Well, it turns out that the City of San Marcos is enforcing archaic gender policies upon our adult softball leagues, and they’re refusing to affirm or recognize intersex, trans, gender-nonconforming, and other folks who want to play softball FOR FUN in our community!
Yeah, seriously. They are making “boys” and “girls” play with different sized balls in the same game and creating quite the spectacle in their (willful?) ignorance in providing inclusive programming for all players.
Can’t they all just play with the same sized balls? And honor the players’ identities?
Did you know that the average size for both ovaries as well as testes is roughly 3 centimeters?
Seems like all the players are equipped for playing with the same size balls IMHO.
Kelly Stone
Sex Educator residing in San Marcos
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Editor,
As a response to Nick Castillo’s column on the purpose of The Daily Record, I’d like to encourage the six hard working souls who put it together to keep up the good work. We sometimes smile while referring to the “Almost Daily Record” because of its publication schedule. Finding that the article that is to be continued on page three can be found on page five poses a minor irritation. But the number of typos has decreased substantially, and I for one, do appreciate the effort.
Over the past 14 years I have noticed a many technical improvements in The Record. First of all, I appreciate how the headlines now fit the space allotted to them (most of the time). Writing headlines that accurately describe the article and still fit neatly is no easy task. And the fonts are neat and clean. The use of color and print quality have improved greatly.
I routinely read the Letters to the Editor to get a sense of what folks are thinking and discussing around town, though there seems to be fewer letters being printed these days. And while I’m sometimes irritated by the slant of the articles you borrow from The Texas Tribune, it’s good to get bit of information on what’s going on in Austin and around the state. So, in this era when national newspapers are losing credibility and readership while they push their narrative, I urge you to carry on, deliver the news and keep us informed. San Marcos has grown a lot since I arrived, and so has the Daily Record. Nice work.
John D. Barthel
San Marcos
