Dear Editor,
For future stories, I wonder if you might update the title of the Hays County group tasked with solving the challenges of our costly and problematically fraught criminal system?
Lamentably, officials sat immobile while our jail costs skyrocketed almost 7,000% in the course of five years, so in March 2019 newly elected County Judge Ruben Becerra formed a Criminal Justice Task Force to urge reforms previously ignored by a county criminal-justice committee that very rarely met. Commissioner Lon Shell seemingly bristled at Becerra picking up the slack and relied on a party-line vote to resuscitate his long dormant committee by upgrading it into the so-called Hays County Criminal Justice Coordinating Commission, while securing his position as its chair.
The group initially embarked on several initiatives that echoed Mano Amiga's policy advocacy –– a Padilla hub for immigration advisals, hiring of an Indigent Services coordinator, moving toward counsel at magistration –– which brought Hays County closer to constitutional compliance, but the commission again has fallen asleep.
It's literally been over six months since Shell convened the group. Due to inaction, this week we lost the opportunity to apply by priority deadline for over a million dollars of available state funding to build an exceedingly superior system for indigent defense in Hays County, through a Public Defender's Office. We can still apply by month's end, but we missed the initial window preferred by those who would fund us. Accordingly, I'd ask Daily Record to now simply use the title "Hays County Criminal Justice Coordinating Com" –– a half-year of inactivity makes crystal clear this commission has regrettably abandoned their "mission."
Jordan Buckley
San Marcos
