County Judge calls second special meeting

Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra called a second special meeting Friday to discuss Precinct 3’s Constable vacancy following Ray Helm’s resignation. 

The second meeting is scheduled for Friday at 1 p.m. to discuss accepting Helm’s resignation, which was set for July 31, and to appoint someone to fill the vacancy for the remainder of Helm’s term through Dec. 31. 

Helm permanently surrendered his peace officer’s license and submitted his resignation after admitting that he falsely reported training to the Texas Commission of Law Enforcement that he knew did not constitute training for TCOLE purposes. A TCOLE investigation says that Helm “fabricated” documents to “memorialize” the training session they say did not occur.

The second meeting comes after there was no quorum present for Monday’s special called Hays County Commissioners Court meeting for the same discussion item. Becerra called the meeting just three days earlier on Friday, July 31.

Becerra and Commissioner Lon Shell waited the standard 30 minutes for Commissioners Debbie Ingalsbe, Mark Jones and Walt Smith to show up at the Hays County Historic Courthouse. 

During the July 28 Commissioners Court Meeting, Shell said he had not seen the constable’s resignation in writing yet, although he had heard verbal intent. He suggested waiting to make an appointment until August when the political parties had filed candidates for the ballot, stating that would identify individuals who are qualified to be a constable. 

“Since the time for the parties to pick candidates is so short, it would be in our best interest to wait to see what that is,” said Shell. “We could consider an appointment, but we would have to understand that appointment may not be an individual that's even on the ballot. I would fully expect that an appointment would be considered on August 11th.”

Becerra, on the other hand, did not want to “tip the scales” of the November election by appointing someone who was on the ballot, wanting to avoid picking “winners and losers'' of the election. “I don’t believe that's a good clean transition,” Becerra said. I believe that we should do everything we can to continue to support the Wimberley Valley on every front and trying to appoint someone after that designation has been made, I believe would be a little slow.”

Commissioner Walt Smith, however, advocated for picking the best candidate for the job regardless of party nomination. He noted that neither parties had nominated any candidates for the election prior to Helm’s resignation. 

“I have some concerns over the service that that office is providing or not providing in Wimberley Valley, so I do have a concern with not knowing everything that is related to the resignation of the current constable, what other individuals may have been involved or not involved,” Smith said. “So moving forward I would have severe reservations at this point about appointing anybody from within that office to that job. I think waiting until the 11th to get some of that information would be helpful.”

The Hays County Commissioners Court has a regular meeting scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 11.