Five republicans are running for constable in Precinct 4 of Harris County. Ron Hickman is the incumbent. Primary election day is May 29.
Ron Hickman—elected to office November, 2000
Q: What do you think the role of the constable's office should be in the community?
A: The constable should be responding to the needs of the community. We have roles that are outlined in the constitution. Beyond that, we need to respond to the pressures of the community for particular kinds of issues. We handle our constitutional responsibilities and whatever else the community asks of us. For example, for years we have been asked to do something about sex trafficking at massage parlors. By listening to the community, you will hear what they are concerned about.
Q: What would your priorities be if elected?
A: To live within our constitution and continue to be a good steward for the public. I'm not the policy maker, but I think it's important to be able to react to the budget while at the same time finding creative ways to continue to grow the department and maintain vigilance about how we provide services. We want to be involved in regular law enforcement activities and to provide services to courts.
Dale Bible, Commissioned Crime Scene Investigator with the Montgomery County sheriff's office
Q: What do you think the role of the constable's office should be in the community?
A: The constable's office has branched out to include many specialized areas of law enforcement during the past 10 years. Some of the growth has put the office at odds with the sheriff's department due to confusion over who is responsible for what task within their mutual jurisdictions. Many of the specialized investigative units within the constable's office now duplicate, confuse and overlap tasks already assigned to the sheriff's department. These specialized units have often complicated, rather than aided their investigations. The deputy constable's assigned to these units are also being pulled from patrolling our neighborhoods and put into very specialized investigative units.
The role of the constable's office must first be to serve the civil process, justice court security and warrant enforcement needs of the community that we serve. Many Houston area homeowners associations and municipal utility districts have chosen to fund additional patrols in their areas. This program has added hundreds of patrol officers to the streets of north Harris County and is a deterrent to criminal activity and the contract program adds these units at little to no cost to the county.
Q: What would your priorities be if elected?
A: I would make sure that every employee understood their roles and what my expectations were. I would work with the sheriff's office instead of competing with them. I would transition the responsibilities of the Precinct 4 Regulatory Enforcement Unit—the sex crimes unit—to the sheriff's department. I do not believe that the constables office is the best placed agency to head such investigations. I would closely review all specialized units to determine if the staff would better serve the community in a patrol function. I would be open minded and keep those units that made sense and reassign those units that either duplicate efforts or do not show enough productivity to justify having one less patrol car in our neighborhoods.
I would bring the in-service training of our deputies to the same level as the sheriff's department. I would also work to regain the trust of the many organizations that pay for additional patrols in their neighborhoods. They are paying for extra patrols and often report not seeing the patrols in their area. They will see the patrols in their area if I am elected. I plan to reassign many desk jobs back into the patrol division.
Robert Lozano, Metro police officer with Department of Homeland Security
Q: What do you think the role of the constable's office should be in the community?
A: The primary focus has to do with civil process. Throughout the years, the constable's office has evolved to include other programs and divisions—patrol, warrant, traffic. We need to get back to the basics of community policing. We pulled 33 officers from our Cy-Fair schools. That's just poor representation and poor management. You can't leave our children and teachers exposed like that. We also need to get back to protecting property. More than 20 percent of the crime is from burglary of motor vehicles.
Q: What would your priorities be if elected?
A: My priority is getting back to the security of the customer—the taxpayer, the homeowner—by restoring officers to service and getting more back on the street. We need to be working on a vertical plane with other agencies: the sheriff's department and Houston police. You should know what your other agencies are doing. We need to sit down and decide who is doing what. As a career police officer, I have the knowledge and know-how to get through the bureaucracy, save taxpayer money and improve response time for the safety of our residents. We spent money to re-stripe police cars, but at the same time we're cutting officers. I have a strategic plan to add more officers without asking for more money form the commissioner's court or asking for a tax hike. We need to have a better, more responsible unit and establish a better base.
Lindsay Siriko, senior officer with Houston Police Department
Q: What do you think the role of the constable's office should be in the community?
A: The constable ' s office should be an advocate for fair police policies for both the victims and the suspects apprehended in crimes. It is important to uphold the rights of the community by imposing proper procedures in enforcing the law and preserving the peace within the framework of the U.S. Constitution. The constable's office, while pursuing crime prevention and law enforcement, should also uphold professionalism of the individuals who are empowered to execute its authority.
Q: What would your priorities be if elected?
A: I will look into individual issues and abide strictly to the regulations of the department in handing down decisions affecting victims and complainants. I will set aside personal interest and not take sides that could be detrimental to the constable's office.
If elected, I will provide senior citizens assistance programs in crime prevention to educate the community in protecting themselves and support activities for the youth so they are not left idle and unsupervised. I will increase and recruit more reserve deputies to help fight crime in neighborhoods. I will encourage community meetings with questions and comments. I will follow U. S. immigration and customs laws and also provide a community advisory committee panel for immigrant screening at the jail.
Rolf Nelson, Homicide Commander with Harris County sheriff's office
Q: What do you think the role of the constable's office should be in the community?
A: The ideal role would be to work with the commissioner to make everyone safer. It seems like the constable in Precinct 4 has been reduced to being reactionary, which has been shown to not really work. Just driving around and waiting for a call to drop is not hitting on all eight cylinders. You look at the community, the people and the things they are doing. You see what doesn't fit. If you have youths that are outside of businesses loitering, it creates discomfort for residents and business owners. If we just keep only responding to calls, I think we're dong ourselves as police and the community a disservice. We're not proactively going after criminals. We're just reacting when the community has already been victimized. We're only doing half of what we're supposed to do.
Q: What would your priorities be if elected?
A: I would look at the agency from the very top down. I believe we could reduce the number of managers and use that salary money to increase the base of the pyramid. I don't think you need that much management for an agency that size. An agency should look like a pyramid with a very broad base that narrows dramatically at the top. As Homicide Commander, I was doing more with less. I would go through the entire agency, unit by unit, fine tune what's working and pull back and reevaluate what needs to be fixed or retooled altogether. We need to remove what we don't need. That's where we go wrong a lot of times in government.
