The Chron has begun their process of endorsing candidates for the primaries. They kicked things off by recommending Sheriff Ed Gonzalez for another go-round.
Sheriff Ed Gonzalez
Gonzalez, a 54-year-old former city councilman and Houston Police Department homicide detective, is a well-liked and generally well-respected lawman known for his fair-minded approach to fighting crime. He depicts the situation at the jail as both unacceptable and untenable: “Anytime anyone dies in our custody, I take it very seriously, I take it very personally,” Gonzalez told us in a candidate screening with his Democratic challengers. “No one wants that to happen. I’ve learned in this line of work that sometimes despite one’s leadership, unfortunately, there’s going to be some unfortunate outcomes that come with that.”
Leadership, though, is what his opponents say is missing. Some say Gonzalez’s ‘nice guy’ persona isn’t assertive enough to get a handle on the crisis.
Gonzalez argues he’s doing everything within his power and has made some progress: He noted that suicides in the jail have decreased dramatically. He said that some of the in-custody deaths were categorized incorrectly and that some inmates had pre-existing health conditions that worsened while detained. He has indeed taken swift action in certain cases where jail guards were abusive, holding them accountable by suspending or terminating them.
Evidently, county commissioners agree with Gonzalez that more funding would help address some of the problems: after Gonzalez appealed for more resources in August, the county adopted a budget that includes an $80 million increase for the sheriff’s office, including an additional $20 million for the jail that would go toward staffing.
Should voters view those additional monies as a taxpayer-funded bet that Gonzalez can right the ship over the next year by reducing the number of in-custody deaths, bringing the jail in compliance with state standards and boosting morale among detention officers and deputies? We think so. The sheriff’s office has already made one step in the right direction, announcing last week plans to require all detention officers at the jail to wear body cameras by the end of the summer in an effort to increase transparency.
For all our frustration with Gonzalez’s failure to get the jail under control, our reporting and interviews with his opponents didn’t persuade us that any of them could do much better. Their ideas and in some cases experience were lacking.
One could read this as “if there had been a better opponent this would have been a tougher choice for us”, but they had more nice things to say about Sheriff Gonzalez later on. Maybe there was someone who could have made this a real contest, but the Sheriff still has a lot of accomplishments even as the jail continues to be a big problem. The Chron seemed to be impressed by Glenn Cowan on the Republican side, which could make their choice for November more up in the air than I’d like. But that guy has to win his race first.
They had a much easier choice for County Attorney, and they gave a robust endorsement to incumbent Christian Menefee.
Christian Menefee
We believe Menefee is carrying out his duties diligently. With just one term in office, he’s backed up his progressive credentials and then some. Menefee came in on a promise to expand the environmental enforcement and he delivered, growing the office from four to 11 full-time attorneys and bringing the fight to some of the most long-neglected communities.
In a state that produces the most ready-mix concrete and a county with scores of concrete batch plants, Menefee’s commitment to neighborhoods choking on the dust of this multibillion dollar industry has been unwavering. In Fifth Ward, he’s been instrumental in finally getting the federal government involved in the testing and potential cleanup of creosote contamination. In Carverdale, he helped stop the expansion of a landfill. Along I-45, he’s joined the city to push back against plans for a massive highway project that hadn’t sufficiently heard community concerns. And he’s struck important wins for the county, from tightening safety standards for construction companies working with the county to standing up for voting rights and starting a paid summer legal academy for underserved high school students.
“When I was growing up, I didn’t know any lawyers,” he said. “I didn’t even know anybody who went to college.”
Menefee has combined his legal and personal experience to create a competent, effective and equity-minded office.
You can and should listen to my interview with Christian Menefee here. The Republican primary for County Attorney is unopposed, so no endorsement given there.
I applaud Commissioners Court for approving pay raises for all Harris County Jail detention officers. They have an extremely difficult job. When you ask kids what they want to be when they grow up, no one says “Jailer”.
In addition to the pay raise, the HCSO needs to make the job more appealing. One way of doing that is to modify the duty shift. After I retired from the HCSO (2019), they instituted mandatory, 12-hour jail duty shifts. Working 12-hour shifts inside the jail, day-in and day-out, can eventually wear officers out. I believe those long duty shifts could be contributing to problematic staff performance, burnout, and high turnover. Also, 12-hour shifts “hardwires” a lot of expensive overtime into jail operations and reduces supervisor flexibility – e.g. a jail supervisor can’t ask/order an officer to work OT (when other officers call in sick, etc.) if that officer just worked a 12-hour duty shift. To reduce the pressure on jail staff, Sheriff Gonzalez might want to consider going back to normal 8-hour duty shifts and only holding officers over past 8 hours when deemed absolutely necessary. Just a thought.