[caption id="attachment_148396" align="alignleft" width="220"] Rob Cook[/caption]

Rob Cook

Hometown: Richmond Occupation: constable 281-628-2483 [email protected] Top priorities: increase personnel to develop programs

How does your experience qualify you to be the Fort Bend County Constable of Precinct 3?

I am the only candidate who has management experience graduating from the FBI National Academy, the FBI Command College, and FBI Law Enforcement Executive Development stressing upper level management. I have [an] undergraduate degree from Texas Tech University, am one course away from my master’s degree in criminal justice from University of Houston-Downtown, and have 28 years’ experience doing this job. I [am an] instructor at Sam Houston State University’s Law Enforcement Management Institute of Texas (LEMIT) teaching constables how to do their job and have been all over Texas teaching civil process to deputies and constables for about the last 10 years.

If elected, what would your top two priorities be? What action(s) would you take to implement them?

We have several programs we have started, including Tobacco Abatement, Safe Streets, Ident-A-Kid, Contract Deputy and Public Speaker. My top two priorities would be to increase additional personnel to help further those programs which are being worked as time allows by existing deputies.  Keep in mind the existing deputies already have enough on their plate and can only work on the programs as time allows. Their plate involves time-sensitive responsibilities to the courts and cannot necessarily be shelved in order to pay attention to program development.

As Precinct 3 grows in size, what plans would you put in place to keep up with growth?

Counties are never prepared for growth. All my agency can do is to provide assistance with the growth by projecting expansion within my agency.  An example of this is the current building we occupy.  When the architect came to me and asked for me to give him a projection of size of a building based on number of future employees for 10-15 years in the future, we provided that information. As it turned out, as soon as we moved into our new building in 2010, we were full with no increase in staff.