Sheriff Adrian Garcia
Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia was elected in 2008 with the highest vote total of any candidate on the ballot. He inherited an office that was tainted by the scandals of his long-term predecessor, a jail system that was overcrowded, understaffed, unsafe, unsanitary, and under the spotlight of federal and state inspectors, a hiring freeze brought on by the county’s budget shortfall, and a hostile political environment on Commissioners Court. Despite all that, he’s made progress on nearly every front. The jail is no longer outsourcing inmates, thanks in part to some innovative ideas to reduce the number of people being incarcerated. Sheriff Garcia has dealt with a backlog of discipline issues, the jail has passed inspections while seeing sharp drop in inmate deaths – the list goes on and on. There’s still a lot more work to be done, but Sheriff Garcia, who faces two opponents for the nomination, has done the job he was elected to do and clearly deserves the chance to keep doing it. Here’s what we talked about:
You can find a list of all interviews for this cycle, plus other related information, on my 2012 Harris County Primary Elections page. You can also follow this blog by liking its Facebook page.
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He speaks of supporting his employees but fails to budget their Step and Incentive pay into his budget. The gang unit is non existent. A proper question would be to ask, since he is leading the fight against gangs in Harris County, how many uniformed officers does he have on the street in his gang task force?