Incumbents fare well in straw poll after candidate forum

The other local race that aff Howe residents is the one fo Grayson Country District Attorney Vying for incum

Joe Brown's position, Bobb Peterson-Cate opened their telling the audience that the attorney's office didn't have problems to speak of, but h become stagnant with no pr being started She said that experience with other DA's has given her ideas to bring Grayson County such as a m health court as in Tarrant C and Dallas County.

A packed house at Buck Snort BBQ in Downtown Van Alstyne last Monday night saw six candidates give their ideas on how to properly serve the people of Grayson County

The night began with Grayson County Precinct 1 Commissioner Jeff Whitmire inform the crowd of 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.

"On any given day, our jail populated with people that are diagnosed with not just a depression, but a serious mental illness

Brown responded by saying that his first thought is for the safety of victims

"My first thought is not how we need to release more people from our jails. My first thought is that 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 ed, it is the responsibility fense attorney to file the ate motions for them to be But some of these ealth patients are very s and we have to err on of community safety" was all said and done, the nts walked away with the ority of the straw poll taken at the end of the t included 48 voters from ing audience The results ting were:

County Commissioner,

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