By PAMELA ROBINSON, Register Staff Writer
The success and results of the Cooke County Warrant Round-up were presented Monday to the Cooke County Commissioners’ Court by Dorthy Lewis, Justice of the Peace Precinct 1, Jason Brinkley, Justice of the Peace Precinct 4 and Terry Gilbert, Precinct 1 Constable.
“I think I can speak for all three of us and for everyone else that was involved in this that yes, it was a tremendous success,” Lewis said.
Lewis prefaced her report by saying the round-up is not just about dollars in our pocket.
“It is that of course, but I’ve always felt in my heart that I’m in this position, and I ran for it because I believe in accountability,” she continued. “And I think the backbone of this very effort was holding people accountable for their actions. You can’t ignore your ticket. It jeopardizes the safety of all of us when we speed, or we have minors out there driving intoxicated, not having insurance. It affects every one of us so I think the word accountability is a big part of this effort.
“A lot of people just ignore their tickets,” Lewis noted, “and it’s not fair for those who are honest and come in and say, ‘hey look, I get it, here’s my money. I’ll try to do better,’ and those, who for years, have continued to ignore their tickets and I think faced with the possibility of being arrested and maybe put in jail is an incentive to come take care of your business and I think that’s quite obvious in the results that we experienced.”
Lewis said she is extremely proud that the local participation in the state’s Great Texas Warrant Round-up was a county-wide effort with judges and other municipalities involved, participating and contributing.
Lewis said from Feb. 8 through March 6, her court alone took in $140,256.85.
She said the jail time served for warrants was $16,861.05.
Lewis said her court also totaled the dollar amount taken in since Feb. 1, just because people were already talking about and becoming aware of the warrant roundup. From Feb. 1 through March 6, her court took in $200,769.27 for court costs, fines and collection fees.
“We cleared of that, 721 violations and that sounds like a lot, gentlemen, and it is, but it’s a drop in the bucket,” Lewis told the members of the court. Over 2,100 notices were mailed out from her court.
“Our budget for this, gentlemen, was $3,557,” she continued. “I think this was a pretty good return on your investment.”
Lewis said that the warrant roundup received a tremendous amount of coverage from the media which helped because everybody knew and people were aware.
“We had a lot more ‘current’ people pay tickets just because of the publicity,” she added. “They didn’t want it to go to warrant. They didn’t want it to be sent that big, bright yellow mailout that we sent.
“I also think that just because of the publicity and the effort and the reports that are going to come out of this, that people will continue to pay the coming week, so it’s not over with,” she continued. “Obviously the round-up is going to continue for a couple more weeks.”
Lewis said her precinct did go over their 51 budgeted hours for overtime, using 76.75 hours overtime.
“I think we were all a little surprised at the response,” she added. “We worked a lot more hours than what we had anticipated just to handle it, because the response was so good.”
Lewis said her staff worked very hard and was very organized throughout the effort.
Brinkley reported that during the period of Feb. 8 through March 6, his court cleared somewhere in the neighborhood of $46,000, and that number might change as law enforcement is still working on the effort and the court is still receiving calls.
Brinkley also reported the dollar amount taken in since Feb. 1 through March 5, a total of of approximately $65,000. His court mailed out 900 notices for the round-up.
Brinkley said that his court cleared 40 warrants from approximately 100 people who were on the list. Some of these were multiple warrants and Brinkley said his court cleared about 20 names from their list.
“We had a real good coordinated effort Saturday morning,” he said. “I just think it’s a real big success.”
Regarding future warrant roundups for the county, Brinkley said, “I think if not this next year then every few years this might be something that it would very well suit the county in the future.”
Lewis said she would like for there to be budget money to do another warrant roundup in the future.
Gilbert, who is coordinating the law enforcement effort, also addressed the court.
“All that being said, it is now up to law enforcement,” he said. “Saturday morning every department almost in the county met with us and I’d like to thank the sherriff’s office, the highway patrol sent three troopers, Lindsay PD was there, Muenster PD was there, Oak Ridge PD was there and Valley View PD was there. We split up our warrant list and we scattered through the county.”
Gilbert told the court that the warrant round-up is not over.
“We’re going to continue,” he said. ”Everybody still has their list, everybody will work on them. It’s not so much about putting people in jail, it’s about asking people to come and take care of their business. The last effort will be to put them in jail. So, we want to give them time. We want to give them the urge to come and take care of their business but they need to know that time’s up. We’re coming.”
