howeenterprise.com
Monday, February 8, 2016
Page #5
Incumbents fare well in straw poll after candidate forum The other local race that affects Howe residents is the one for Grayson Country District Attorney. Vying for incumbent Joe Brown's position, Bobbie Peterson-Cate opened their forum telling the audience that the district attorney's office didn't have any problems to speak of, but had become stagnant with no programs being started. She said that her experience with other DA's office has given her ideas to bring to Grayson County such as a mental health court as in Tarrant County and Dallas County. "On any given day, our jail is populated with people that are diagnosed with not just a A packed house at Buck Snort BBQ depression, but a serious mental in Downtown Van Alstyne last illness. Monday night saw six candidates give their ideas on how to properly Brown responded by saying that serve the people of Grayson his first thought is for the safety of County. victims. Jeff Whitmire
The night began with Grayson "My first thought is not how we County Precinct 1 Commissioner need to release more people from Jeff Whitmire inform the crowd of our jails. My first thought is that his business and financial background which he says is crucial for his position. "The real job is the financial management of the county. This is a $60 million enterprise. Not many people have had to deal with budgeting of $60 million." said Whitmire. "I'll spend a full four weeks simply analyzing the departmental requests." His opponent Scott Renfro of Howe talked of his past experiences with the farming industry and his time on the Howe ISD Board of Trustees. "I was asked to be on the board because of my common sense." said Renfro. "Howe was in a little bit of a financial problem and were looking at programs that were being cut. We started, just basically, all over." Renfro went on to say that since then, Howe ISD has been able to upgrade the sports complex and are about to upgrade the ag facilities.
be released, it is the responsibility of the defense attorney to file the appropriate motions for them to be released. But some of these mental health patients are very dangerous and we have to err on the side of community safety." When it was all said and done, the incumbents walked away with the large majority of the straw poll that was taken at the end of the event that included 48 voters from the listening audience. The results of the voting were:
Joe Brown making people are safe." said Brown. "The reason we don't have a mental health court is because I feel we have a very effective way of dealing with mental health patients. We have a close relationship with MHMR. We have the legal process as it is now. If there is a legal reason for a mental health patient to
Grayson County Commissioner, Pct. 1 Jeff Whitmire (incumbent), 40 Scott Renfro, 8 Grayson County District Attorney Joe Brown (incumbent), 40 Bobbie Peterson-Cate, 8 Grayson Country Commissioner, Pct. 3 Phyllis James (incumbent), 35 Justin McDonnell, 13.
