Discover the hidden power of local associations and the art of political networking with Charles DuVall, president of the Williamson County Deputies Association. In this episode, Charles shares his journey from gunsmithing school to the Sheriff's Office and the unique political landscapes he navigated at the Denver Sheriff's Office and the Austin Police Department. He reveals how local politics can influence law enforcement and provides a vivid picture of the rapid growth in Williamson County, Texas, and the push for civil service within his department. If you're interested in association leadership and the impact of local politics on law enforcement, this episode is a must-listen. Don't miss out on this powerful "How to" for Association leadership.
email us at- bluegrit@tmpa.org
Discover the hidden power of local associations and the art of political networking with Charles DuVall, president of the Williamson County Deputies Association. In this episode, Charles shares his journey from gunsmithing school to the Sheriff's Office and the unique political landscapes he navigated at the Denver Sheriff's Office and the Austin Police Department. He reveals how local politics can influence law enforcement and provides a vivid picture of the rapid growth in Williamson County, Texas, and the push for civil service within his department. If you're interested in association leadership and the impact of local politics on law enforcement, this episode is a must-listen. Don't miss out on this powerful "How to" for Association leadership.
email us at- bluegrit@tmpa.org
I took a lot from two years ago when we went to the conference and learned a lot about political networking and stuff like that. We've gotten the largest pay raise in the county's history for the deputies and for the corrections officers. That was the beginning of this year and then just got civil service.
Speaker 2:Hey, bluegrid podcast. We are back Today Clint McNeer and.
Speaker 3:Tyler Owen.
Speaker 2:TO what's going on, man.
Speaker 3:Listen, how was your drive down this morning?
Speaker 2:I flew down this morning.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's right, you did fly down.
Speaker 2:For our listeners. We are flying to, we're not flying. I flew down so that after tomorrow I can jump in the truck with TO and we're going to the border with law enforcement today.
Speaker 3:It's going to be a good time Just hanging the house together just me and him Four bedroom house. It's cheaper. It's actually cheaper for a list of this. So for you TMPA members that are out there, this is how we conduct business at TMPA. It was actually financially more responsible for Clintonite to get a house Three of us Kevin yeah and Kevin sorry to get a house versus paying for a hotel. So we're all going to share a house together. I'm sure there won't be any shenanigans there there in McAllen, texas. So if we don't make it and we're getting beheaded, I love you guys. It's been fun.
Speaker 2:Well, the way hotel prices have gone up. When you're traveling, if you go to training, don't discount looking at like Airbnb or Airbnb, Because the last couple trips we've made it's cheaper for three or four of us to get a little house on Verbo than it is to get four hotel rooms for a couple of nights. So we'll be on the border law enforcement today. Hopefully I live through it and go back to North Texas where it's safe and where my peoples are.
Speaker 3:Well, we've got a special guest on the day. You know, we've got so many local associations that we deal with on a daily basis, quite honestly, but then you've got also some local presidents that, even when I was in East Texas, philadelphia, at, during our communication interactions at conferences, and when I would come to Austin, it was obvious that man, this guy with his association, is just an active, good example of what powerful local associations can do, and really the sky's the limit. I will say this funny, not a funny note when I scheduled this podcast, clint Mcmere called me immediately because I his it's just Charles DeVall, williamson County Sheriff's Association or Deputy's Association president, and when I scheduled the podcast, I'm a longtime Lonesome Dubb watcher and so I scheduled it as Robert DeVall, and so Clint, not knowing the dynamics behind it, he called me immediately, wanting to know how the how the hell I got Robert DeVall on the podcast, and so I had to. You know, let him know that it's not Robert DeVall, it was Charles DeVall, which is Robert's grandson.
Speaker 3:I'm going to go and throw it out there and name it now. Let's just go with that. Yeah, absolutely, welcome to the blue green stage man. Oh, I appreciate it Greatly, greatly, greatly appreciate it Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I was talking to Aaron Slater just about different ideas. He's just a wealth of knowledge and it has so many different cool ideas and one of the things that he recommended and mentioned was why not bring on a local association president and talking about the different successes and different things that you know, local association presidents have had kind of a how to right, and so you guys were recently just got sort of service and we're going to dive off into that and so forth. But man, I immediately thought of you. You were there at the conference, we had this discussion then and we said let's do it. And so here we are a couple months later and appreciate you coming out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. One of the biggest things that I learned right off the bat was literally going to conference. It wasn't last year's, a year before, I mean you all had the Seattle PLA president on, and I gained so much knowledge. I was brand new to the association board, I was the vice president at the time and I learned so much from that guy alone and that kind of dove off and we kind of went to the to the skies of limiter.
Speaker 2:At that point Shout out to Mike Solan and the Seattle Seattle police guild and to his consultant that we now use Sean Kelly In fact he's coming here tomorrow for training for our staff on on camera training how to be effective and leveraging political capital and that class you got. We've continued on it because it was so powerful with with Sean and Mike Solan and Mike man, those guys in Seattle, they're, they're in the fire every day.
Speaker 1:Great to learn from yeah, that's, that's one of the best places that I would think to learn from as a association president, and it's it's crazy what they're having to deal with up there and luckily we want to deal with that in our county and thank you for the shout out for conference.
Speaker 2:If you, if you're a watcher, listener, if you want to know how to get involved in your agency and be effective, come to our conference, because there are literally leaders, yeah, of local associations, from five officer agencies, up to Mike Mada from Dallas and Doug Griffith from Houston, or there, uh, guys from Harris County deputies organization. You can talk to somebody at a five person agency or you can talk to somebody at a 3500 person agency. Yeah, if you want to network and figure out, how are you guys doing this? How do we get politically strong? Come, come, come meet Robert DeValls.
Speaker 1:Best looking grandson? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that was crazy, I mean. And then just the amount of you know networking you can do there and meeting, like you said, all the all the other association presidents and kind of getting ideas from what they do and what they've dealt with in the past and um. And then the classes. The classes are phenomenal. Y'all pick some really good speakers out there, yeah.
Speaker 3:We like to start off the podcast with our guests. Just kind of give it a background of where you came from, uh, so let's talk about you. Let's talk about where the hell you grew up and how you got in law enforcement and, uh, you know what started what. What kicked off your career.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I was born in a Missouri city down by Houston. Uh, we moved to Sacramento for two years and then we moved back. Uh, when I was six and grew up in South Austin, went to Bowie high school, um, stayed in the area for, tell us, probably 25, 26 and then moved to Colorado and went to gunsmithing school. Um, gunsmithing school was our gunsmithing was not paying the bills, so I started reaching out and went on some ride outs with some friends and stuff and fell in love with law enforcement.
Speaker 3:So so you always had a calling for law enforcement, or was it something that kind of was associated because of the gunsmithing trade?
Speaker 1:I mean you, you, once you get into the role, you're like yeah, this is what I was meant to do, um, at the time I had no idea what I wanted to do other than play with guns every day and still get to do that. So that's a plus. But um started throwing applications out there to everything and got on with the Denver Sheriff's department. Uh, worked there for almost three years and the amount of congestion, traffic and everybody that moved up there like housing tripled. Like it was insane. Like there were deputies that bought their houses for $300,000 and they were selling them for $1.2 million in a matter of a year.
Speaker 1:So I'm like, yeah, I can't afford to live here anymore. Um, denver paid well, but, um, it just wasn't the place where I was too busy and my home's here, my family's down here, so moved back and uh got on with APD. Uh worked there right around two or three months. Uh broke my wrist in the academy, had to have surgery. Um, they wouldn't let me stay in the academy, so I left, put myself through an academy, um, and uh got on with Williams County.
Speaker 3:Got you. Let's back up just for a minute for the Sheriff's office in Colorado. It's a little bit different than Texas. Can you kind of get some insight on how their sheriffs are pointed or elected, or is it where Denver County, denver Sheriff's office? Is it as a as the county seat, denver, or kind of what? What did that look like and where were you it?
Speaker 1:was a Denver's a special place because the county is the same size as the city. So and then you have your police department in your sheriff's office. The sheriff's office basically only takes care of county buildings, uh the jail, courthouse, um any other county buildings. They do warrants, they do extraditions, um. So there is some street work involved, uh, but not a lot. It's mainly jailers and stuff like that. Um, but everybody is a commissioned officer up there as opposed to down here, where we have jailer license and we have law enforcement. Okay, everybody was law enforcement certified in Denver, so we all carried guns.
Speaker 3:So in the rural parts of Denver, not really inside the city limits, you're still going to be answered with Denver police.
Speaker 1:Correct. Yeah, the, the, the city limits are the exact same size as the, the county, so there's no jurisdiction boundaries. And back in the day, I guess they they used to both patrol the streets and I guess the sheriff's office arrested a bunch of police officers and they all went sideways and it got political and they were like all right, this is your job, this is your job now. So they kind of split everything up, but that was way before my time, yeah.
Speaker 3:Pretty interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the other cool thing or weird thing, I should say, is not really cool, but um, the sheriff's actually pointed up there not elected. I think there's only one other place, I think it's Las Vegas that, um, they uh appoint their sheriff as well, which is kind of weird.
Speaker 2:But like the county commissioners appointed my guess.
Speaker 1:No, it's actually the mayor mayor's office, the public safety manager under the mayor appoints him. Wow, that is different Interesting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's very interesting.
Speaker 1:It's very political, like you think that actual sheriff's race, political that's different ball game up there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I can see that being beneficial in some parts of Texas and probably in some counties in Texas, definitely four years ago and we're going to dive off into, uh, some political aspects, uh, of that. So you went to APD Academy, uh, and then and then injured your wrist and then and then went put yourself to the Academy. Um, who sponsored you while you were going to the Academy here locally?
Speaker 1:I actually sponsored myself. Okay, so I went. I went self-paid, went through Capcom here in Austin and um as soon as I got out I got on with Williamson County in patrol or the jail or done patrol, cool.
Speaker 3:So for those that don't know, williamson County is the county north of Austin and the county seats is is Georgetown. So you've got a Leander, uh, georgetown Taylor, uh, that, that, that area that is very much blowing up, uh, is all Williamson County just north of Travis County.
Speaker 1:So literally the fastest growing county in the state of Texas. Yeah, it's insane.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is Um. So, man, what is? You've worked for a will code for it, which is Williamson County's will code for short, but uh, how long have you worked there currently?
Speaker 1:Uh, got on in 2016. So seven years.
Speaker 3:So you've seen some growth and you've seen some, some some uh, good days and bad days. Uh, you know right now that you guys again, we'll, we'll, again we'll kind of dive off into what it looked like to get civil service. But, uh, you guys have had a very pro association, sheriff, with Bill Gleason, uh, or a strip. Well, I'm sorry, sheriff Gleason, but kind of go into details of how you got involved with the local association.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Gleason's been a great supporter of the association, which is phenomenal. It makes my job way easier as far as working together and working towards, uh, a goal for the entire agency. Um, but I got in, I guess two years ago now, uh, as vice president, um, and I stayed in there until our president left agency and I went up for president. I got president and I've been a president of the association for a little over a year now.
Speaker 3:Was it something that was just kind of, uh, you're the right guy for the job, or right right, right guy for the timing, or how? How'd that look like Cause that's. I know that whenever you were local, uh, president for Garland, just kind of the right time and it really wasn't something you'd long for, I looked forward to same as with me, uh, and you just it's kind of a just a natural Mac at it. Was that something that you know it happened to you?
Speaker 1:Well, we kind of saw it as stagnant since the last admin. Um, our last sheriff was not very pro or association, um, and it was, the association was very stagnant. And then, when we finally got a sheriff that was pro association, we decided that, hey, this is kind of make this what we want and go where we need to go with this. And so me, two or two other canines, uh, and two other stepped up and ran for the board and we had a whole new board. Like it was a complete change over. There Wasn't a single person left over from, uh, the previous board.
Speaker 3:Yeah, uh, and so that's been what a year and a half. So kind of give us some background or back back feet of what made y'all think about the new thing that y'all just got accomplished and that which is a huge accomplishment for sheriff's office, the civil service, and what was that?
Speaker 1:look, like, yeah, we've actually had quite a few accomplishments. Um, since I'm I'm, I'll say the current board has taken over. Um, we've gotten the largest pay raise in the county's history for the deputies and for the corrections officers. Now was the beginning of this year and then we just got civil service um past. Last week, um with I think we had 470 out of 512 deputies show up and vote or employees Show up and vote.
Speaker 3:We we say this all the time in the podcast and we talk about it regularly and internally but you can't. You can't just show up to the commissioner's court meeting and demand, stomp your feet, bump your chest and then expect something to happen. You have to have that relationships, that political capital. Uh, and what I mean by that is is that you you probably have a representative from your board most likely every single commissioner's meeting. Uh, they were your logo to let the commissioner's court know that you guys are watching, you guys were there. Um, can you kind of touch on how that's paid job back or how, what, what the benefits of that has been? Uh, of establishing that political capital within the local association?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've never said, well, like by no means do we get along with every commissioner.
Speaker 1:Let me go ahead and throw that out there Um, because there are a couple that don't want to give us anything at the end of the day. But, uh, when I first took over at the and I took a lot from uh two years ago when we went to the conference and and learned a lot about political networking and stuff like that, and I took it a step further we came back and we kind of all got together and I'm like all right, let's pull everybody's sponsor list from their donations for their election campaigns and let's start seeing who's pro Ellie. And so we got everybody's uh campaign contributors and we started going through the list and I knew a couple of them, uh, right off the bat. And we reached out to them and like, hey, this is what we're trying to do. And they're like what do you need from us? We're like we just need you to hold your candidate that you supported to the fire. Like, make sure that they don't back out of this.
Speaker 1:Now is when we were doing the uh pay raise, the massive pay raise. And so we reached out to all of them, got everybody on the board, um and how was somebody so so?
Speaker 3:so the local president right now, that's that's watching or listening, or at least an association board member? How would they obtain that kind of it, cause there's some may not even know how to even get those, those documents.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's all public record. You can go through the elections office and uh and request the uh contributor list to any candidate, uh in the county or in your city or whatever. Uh, when they they'll print that out for you and look, and it actually has how much they donated, their top donors, everything.
Speaker 3:Pages and pages. You can go through there looking. So you, you, you saw the issue, identify that and then you went to those donors and said, look, we need to hold your feet to the fire or we need to hold the, the candidate to the, you know, fire. On this, can you help us out?
Speaker 1:And yeah, and right after we asked, we immediately went on one of the local radio stations here, uh, coke FM, and the radio host, bob Cole's a big supporter law enforcement. Uh, his daughter actually works for our agency. Um, and I've known him since I was a little kid. Me and his daughter grew up in the same neighborhood. Uh, and I told him what we were doing. He's like let's get you on the air, let's, you know, let's get some community feedback from this. And you know, we got on the air and we told everybody hey, the other day we pulled us down to y'all calling your commissioners and your judge and letting them know that this is something they all want. And, um, judging by the amount of phone calls that I got, they got quite a few phone calls.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, and it's cool to hear that you guys took tools you learned and then implemented them, made them your own, because y'all've not had an easy path. You guys, prior to sheriff Gleason, you had a sheriff that was a narcissist, uh, not an effective leader. Um, you guys are challenged. You have a county judge who walks to the beat of a different drum and is not, um, always there for you guys, but y'all are still effective. You still have figured out a way to build political capital, how to leverage that political capital, and that's a that's a tight rope that you have to walk. We get a lot of phone calls and guys are like I don't, I don't, I just don't want to be involved in politics.
Speaker 2:We don't choice. No, we don't.
Speaker 2:It's unfortunate you either sit at the table or you're on the menu getting served up and and devoured, and it's better to be sitting at the table than to be on the menu and knowing when to and when. Tyler was a POA president at his local. He had a very unique ability to measure when. When do I have political capital and I am in a position of power to flex a little bit, or I'm not currently in a position to push and I need to work on some relationship building in men bridges and Men find new relationships and that's an art. It's. It's not a, as Kevin Lawrence always says. It's an art, not a science, and you guys have done a great job of that. And you can not play politics and not get anything, or you can professionally pay politics and you guys got a raise. You now have civil service and your sheriff's department's all over Texas right now that would love to have a raise and civil service protection and you guys have taken tools, implemented those tools and been very effective and in you have a supportive sheriff now.
Speaker 2:But the politics they're still are a little salty at times and you guys are doing a damn good job Navigating that yeah, politics is.
Speaker 1:It's insane like I never knew, first off, how much money revolved around politics. But second is like how they go at each other all the time like it Democrats versus Republicans, and with and our commissioners court. There is one Democrat on there and Whenever she makes a motion, it and almost every time dies because the Republicans won't go for it, no matter what it is. It could be to give everybody a pay raise and they're still not gonna do it, just because she's the one who made it. And that's one of the political adversities that you have to get over and know, know who your targets are and how to get them and hold their feet to the fire. Like I said, and it's, it's a lot. It's a lot of work, it's a lot of phone calls, it's a lot of meetings.
Speaker 1:When we were setting out to do the Civil service, I mean we were meeting three, four or five times a week. Currently, one of the team PR apps was in almost every single of our meetings, kind of given his feedback on, you know, the rules that we were writing and stuff like that, and at the end of the day, I mean it all came down to us getting a petition signed and getting the election going, so the commissioners couldn't really stall on it, and they get one committee member on our board. So the two that we've already chosen are very supportive of what we're trying to do. So we have no implications as far as the rules that we have set in place going through and that boils down to having a supportive share of having a supportive DA and them giving them, are them giving us the tools that we need?
Speaker 2:the other beauty of what you guys have accomplished is, you know, you hear half the people say well, cops only like Democrats because they support labor and unions, or cops only like Republicans because they're conservatives and conservatives like the police and military. There's pros and cons to both and it's just like in any other career path. There's nuts in all. You know. There's Well nutty cops, nutty lawyers, nutty doctors. There's nutty politicians on both sides of the aisle and you can't just pick and choose who you want to do business with. You guys have a Mostly Republican commissioners court, your sheriff is a Democrat and y'all navigate beautifully Ours indeed. You got to get along with all of them. You got to figure out a way to work with all of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah big time, and I mean they get along for the most part. I mean they do go at each other all the time. But what's really cool is on the opposite side of it is the our district attorney is a Republican and him and the sheriff. Even though they put parties aside and they get along great and it's a good working relationship, even though they're from two different parties. And I said maybe one day in my career They'll get rid of you know party lines as far as sheriff and district attorney elections go, but I don't know if it'll ever happen. But it'd be nice just to get rid of Republican or R&D behind a name and actually just look at a special with law enforcement.
Speaker 1:That's the law enforcement, like I don't think that it should be involved in law enforcement to begin with.
Speaker 2:100%, 100% and when you can set aside the initial after the R of the D, you can get a lot. You can actually get a lot of things accomplished, professional things accomplished.
Speaker 1:Oh big time. And you don't have to play dirty politics. I mean we've gotten, we've gone to the extreme on some things. And we had one Republican Commissioner that absolutely did not support us and when she came time for her reelection, we bought billboards. We had digital billboards all over Williamson County and saying that she was not supportive of law enforcement. But at the end of the day, she had that R behind her name and her precinct is primarily Republican and she barely won, which was surprising because the JP for that region, I think she got Our 70% of the votes or something like that. And then this commissioner barely won. So we made a dent and it scared her so and made her spend some money. So in the day With gaining political capital.
Speaker 3:So well, and I think it's important because we had Aaron Slater on a couple of episodes ago and and this is the way, looking back on it, I think Clinton, I ran West, I say ran our association, we ran our locals similar what Aaron talked about.
Speaker 3:But Aaron said this If association leadership and or leaderships among law enforcement, police chief, sheriffs and so forth do not look at their Associations and or their agency like a business, right?
Speaker 3:So what you're doing, you're building that political capital, you're building it up and then when it's time to cash in, when shit's gone bad or when you're trying to accomplish a raise or you're trying to accomplish civil service, that's when you cash that in. That's when you you really Need to devote everything in resources to go ahead and cash that in and cash your earnings in and say, okay, we've worked our ass off of this. Our, our community trust us. And I think you hit on during the episode of when that's also the community support, where this is a key community support, says wait a minute, you know this, this is there's a story about you know, deputy DeVall, that we don't really believe so much because we've built that political capital. So there's a two-fold in that of cash to get in for benefits for your association, but also the community aspect when shit does hit the fan, that you guys can rely back on that.
Speaker 2:But the important part, of what you just said. You build your political capital when you don't need it, so that you have it in the bank for when you do. Too many people call and go. Excuse me, they don't do that. They call and say we need to start an association and we need to do this, and what's going on? Well, we've got this fight we need to get involved in. Well, if you're already in war, it's. That's not when you build your army. Now you you should have built your army during peace and pray. You never had a war and it's political capitals the same way. When nothing's going on, be building those relationships, be building that political capital and stored in your account and you guys have done a great job of it. And then, every once in a while, when you need to cash a little bit of that out for civil service or for a raise, you got a whole reserve of that stuff built out. But it doesn't happen overnight. It takes a little elbow grease oh, big time.
Speaker 1:And I see so many presidents on the news now and stuff like that, and they're constantly complaining, complaining, complaining and they don't do anything positive in the community. And so we we took that to mind when we took over the association and one of the things we do now is we pick an elementary school in our county every year and we buy everybody with perfect attendance a new bicycle.
Speaker 3:Wow, Last year we bought 278 bicycles and that was community, your community fund raising and everything.
Speaker 1:That's big time and yeah, we created a foundation which is a nonprofit organization under our association now, so we have that to kind of give people tax breaks. They want to donate. That is cool and it they went from having, I think, 48 kids with perfect attendance a year before to 278 the next year. So it was a pretty big deal and this year we're right back at it. We're doing Florence elementary in Florence, texas, so that is awesome and it's one of those things right.
Speaker 1:It's, you know, creating a political atmosphere or your relationship relationships and building better trust in the community, right, they see, they don't see deputy Deval out there, they see the Williamson County Sheriff's or the Williamson County Sheriff's and Williamson County Deputy's association out there that just donated 278 bikes to an elementary school. And then the next thing, you know when you need to turn around and depend on the community and they're and fight for either money or whatever benefits or whatever, you have the communities backing right, cause they see you out in the community doing positive things, and then you can recreate a better feeling.
Speaker 2:You're not just some jackass that wrote him a ticket.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and they're not just complaining on the news every other week about something or this, that and. And back to your point, it's picking your battles right so you can't just every little adversity you come across, you can't just go to the media and start fighting. You know, it's one of those things that's like you have to give and take a little bit here. It's like all right, yeah, that's not that big of a deal to us right now because we got this brewing right.
Speaker 1:And so this past year, or this past budget cycle I should say, we fought for increasing our staffing quite a bit on patrol. We wanted 22 new bodies and we had that from the judge. But then when it came down to vote, it became political and the Democrat made the vote to give us 11 right off the bat and then 11 halfway through the fiscal year and it died to the lack of second. So she made another motion to give us the 22 died lack of second because she's a Democrat. So it's one of those things that's like, yeah, we fought it a little bit, we went on the news and fought it a little bit, but at the end of the day I let it die because the ultimate goal this year was civil service, so we fought a little bit on it, but not as much as we could have, because we wanted to get civil service.
Speaker 3:So that's where the significant mindset of having somebody like you where you may and I wouldn't need so much called a loss. But you're going to pick that battle. That war is later on, that war is coming.
Speaker 1:Oh, I understand. Yeah, it's coming next year. We did get four deputy positions at the end of the day, after we went on the news and basically said that we're the largest growing county in the state of Texas and they didn't give us a single extra body and we haven't increased our staffing since 2010. So, like, what are we doing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, that's a super valid point to you brought up. There was an association several years back that I had to do some work with, and all they did was call the city manager, who, who everybody had a great work in relationship with, but all they did was call them every day, tune them out, and this sucks, and we don't have this and screw you and we don't have this and we don't have that. So then they called me one day and they were like let's see, manager won't meet with us anymore. And I'm like I quit meeting with you too. You call them every day just to custom and whine and complain. I'm, I'm surprised, you're surprised, I mean.
Speaker 1:You can't cry, Wolf, yeah, no, you can't.
Speaker 1:When you actually need something, You're not going to get it.
Speaker 1:Another thing we do every year is, right around Christmas we send each of our commissioners and and the judge just kind of a gift basket or something just to kind of rekindle relationships, right, Cause we we stopped talking for periods of time and it kind of forces them to reach out and be like hey, thanks, you know, or text or email or call or whatever, and kind of refires up relationships and stuff, like that's not buttering them up, but it's refiring relationships and creating a positive.
Speaker 1:You know, the judge was super mad at me when I went on the news and about the whole increasing staffing and wouldn't talk to me for a couple of months. And then when he saw we did with civil service, you immediately called because we got a 90 percent voter turnout and he was like how did you do it? Can you run my campaign, Like all this stuff? And you know, just rekindle the relationship. And now we're talking again and it's it's one of those things, you know, and he's going to get a Christmas gift at the end of the year and so you know, rekindle that relationship.
Speaker 3:Well it's, it's. It's even better for those that call TNPA local leaders, that we get TNPA legal calls probably every day. I'm not telling you not to call and that we won't get involved, but what you're doing and what you're establishing is really the fundamentals of what we want to promote. Right, because you live in your county, right, I do. You shop in your county, I do you. You attend everything inside your community, your world. Me and Clint don't live in your world. We're not going to have the political capital that you would, because you live, work, breathe, sleep, shit right there in your world. And it means more. When Deval stands up and says something and you work towards that goal, we can be there when shit hits the fan, that's fine. But we can't come build your political capital in your world. It doesn't work that way and because when we leave, that political capital is gone.
Speaker 3:And that's so fucking important. Yeah, that's big time for for for you to do that. I mean so what you're doing? You are the definition of what local leadership needs to recognize and do on the local level and that's a misnomer often, as people like.
Speaker 2:Well, we'll just call team P and here in a couple of weeks we'll have civil service. Yeah, we can't come down like wait the magic wand, because I don't know your commissioners, I don't know. I know your sheriff, just I've met him several times a year, but I'm not going to come in and be effective for you. I will try.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But you're going to be super effective because y'all know your politics, y'all know your people. They know you know some people and or it could be a threat to them. So always call us and we'll come in and get counseling advice, like David's done for you guys. But a lot of times folks will call, call team PA and we'll have civil service here in a few weeks, and it just doesn't work that way. I love it. I love that they think that we possess the ability to do that. But we are here for counsel and to help in mentor and mentor and and you know, advise on roles like that.
Speaker 2:But you guys are nailing it and I love seeing organizations that effectively understand the game, because once you get in the game, uh, for any PD, Plano, PD there's a lot of organizations around that Um, yeah, kind of into. Once you understand how that is played and you do it effectively, it's tough and it and it gets people's attention and that you know you went from. The county judge had no use for y'all too Suddenly. Can I pick your brain? Oh my gosh, how are you guys doing that? Yeah, and the, the. The coin can flip pretty quick. When people start realizing the political capital that you guys possess, that becomes something you can't measure, or the, the, the value of that, Yep.
Speaker 1:No, and we actually, um, when we were going through with the pay raise, we actually endorsed, um, the county judge at the time and everybody's like, well, we don't trust him, we don't trust him, we don't trust him. And I had several meetings, uh, just so everybody in our membership could to make the meetings, and the sheriff actually attended one of them and I was like my first and opening statement is does anybody in here trust the politician and the sheriff sitting right there? And I'm like, well, other than him, cause he's, he's a cops, cop. Sorry, sir.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sorry, sorry, but I was like well when he got fired, he's gonna laugh and he laughs so. But it's true, Like you can't, like these guys will try to be your friends and they're, at the end of the day, they're not your friends. You need to have good working relationships with them, but when they try to be your friends, I mean it's it's opposite, where you keep your friends close and your enemies closer. It's it's flipped in politics, Right, so you keep your enemies close but you keep your friends even closer, Cause the people that are trying to make friends with you they want something.
Speaker 1:And then oh, yeah, yeah, and that's where it turns sideways is you put personal feelings aside and you have to do what's better for the organization, and a lot of people don't understand the ramifications from you know, having personal feelings towards politics and stuff like that, and you have to leave all that out of it and and not be friends Like I mean we're. I don't consider any of the commissioners, or judge or sheriff or anybody my friend, but I mean we have good working relationships and that's the key to success is creating that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and once you remove the personal aspect of it, that removes the R and the D, and now that we've put all this out, now we can talk. Let's talk business. Now that we have all that set aside out of the way, that's how you have meaningful Reagan era.
Speaker 3:Let's reach across the island, handle business and Well and that goes back to even like the ledge there at the Capitol, right, people get so upset and it's like my God, are you that narrow minded that because they have a D in in front of or behind their name, that they're not going to be law enforcement or the cheat on? Have the mindset of we need friends of the Capitol. Give them their got an R or a D, and what you're doing is testimony of what our ledge guys are doing too at the Capitol is that we need friends there. And the fact is that all Democrats are not anti law enforcement. They're not. And if you have to have that mindset of we need friends everywhere, uh, you know to support us. So Kudos for you for doing that. Man it's, um, it's, it's been, it's been cool to watch, uh, seeing you at the first conference and then now to seeing what the success is that you and the entire board is doing. Man it's, uh, it's pretty neat, it is, it is, it is pretty neat on my end.
Speaker 2:So what a flip. You guys have transitioned from a sheriff, that, from your last sheriff to your sheriff now. Um, I guess the morale, the I guess everything is just a 180. I mean, I can't imagine. Often you see changes when you get a different leader. But I mean y'all, y'all couldn't have gone from one end of the spectrum to another any further. Oh, a hundred percent.
Speaker 1:And when I worked at Denver, I mean I went through four or five sheriffs and the amount of time that I was there and never had to worry about my job, right Cause they were appointed but and we've fallen our union and stuff up there, so you don't you have job protection up there. But when I came here, I'm like, and Chotey took office, uh, everybody was like a lot of people were scared they're going to get fired. I'm like what are you talking about? Like why is he going to fire us? And they were like he can do that. And I'm like what do you mean? He can do that? Like he can come in and fire anybody he wants. And I'm like are you kidding me? And like so every four years it's a constant scare. And I'm like something's got to be done about this. And that's when you know our.
Speaker 1:Our board's been very progressive as far as down at the Capitol as well, um, prep previous boards and, uh, current board too. We were down at the Capitol last session as well, um, and put our name on bills, um, but the previous board members have gone all the way to the Capitol, gotten bills changed and put into place so where we could become civil service and got shot down by the sheriff at the time, and then Wilson took over, died again, and then Chote took over they're trying to do it. And then they had passed some bill where we couldn't use the County Census to get civil service, um, for like a two year period or something like that. So we had to wait even further than Gleason took office. And then Gleason was like no, like this campaign promise of mine, we're going to make this happen.
Speaker 1:And I'm like cool, Cause he knows, he grew up in the sheriff's office. I mean, he started as a corrections officer or moved his way all the way up. So he knows what it's like every four years when we get new sheriff, or eight or 12 years when you get a new sheriff, and how scary it can be, cause you don't know if you've rubbed them the wrong way. And you know, after I went on the courthouse lawn and out at our judge, I was like if we don't get server service and you know, republican takes over, I'm the first person they're going to fire. Um, but now I don't have to worry about that cause we're not, we're not at will anymore. So, um, it's, it's a blessing to be able to do that.
Speaker 3:Yep, well, uh, what advice do you have? We're kind of near in the end. What advice do you have to the uh, stagnant leadership, local leadership, association leadership, or the president that just got sworn in yesterday and that just took over a stagnant association, or even an old association? What advice do you have from the lens of of of you, the ball, what? What advice can you give them?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you, you can't have acid, um, you can't. You have to go full throttle. And one of the biggest things that I always tell people that are like you know, thank you for doing all this, thank you for thank you. You know, and I'm a K non handler at the end of the day, but I think I spend more time doing association stuff that I don't get paid for. Um, for the betterment of the department, right, cause it's going to have last long lasting effects, um, but it it's go full throttle.
Speaker 1:Um, create a positive image in the community. Um, that's your, your biggest political cloud, because, at the end of the day, those are your voters, um, and those are the people that are going to affect we were trying to fight at the end of the day. And the other thing is get good work, work and relationships. Where there'd be a city council, um, and I think the, or I know the Seattle POA president talked about that at the conferences. You know, know who you can trust and who you can as far as who's going to back it in the day, and make friends with those people. Um, make friends with everybody that you can, but in the day, some people aren't going to back you and it is what it is right. They just look like fools at day because you actually reached out and you're like, well, I thought we were cool, but, um, you know I'm not going to be able to do that.
Speaker 1:Um, so you got creative and positive uh feel in the community and of positive image in the community and doing good things, whether it be a bike drive or just, you know, some sort of celebration. Whether and we do a mid-year thing at the elementary schools too, we buy them up. Uh, we have a pizza party for Evers. Uh, currently has perfect attendance. So, uh, and we, the news media comes to that as well, and so you're getting basically two positive images out of one overall thing. Um, but whether you just go to a school and give them ice cream for a day or something like that, you know it's invite the media and blast it on social media. It's creating a positive image in the community and at the end of the day, that's going to weigh way heavier on who you're going against than anything. But creating those those good working relationships. And you know, I made the mistake once of trusting a political leader and uh didn't mean. They asked. So, um, it's a, it's a learning curve Uh, it was a huge learning curve for me.
Speaker 3:I just I thought about this, you and I. I just came on TNPA full time during the last conference. Uh, one of my main jobs for people that don't know is to serve TNPA and serve social media aspect with TNPA, do the communication side of it. But my other job I mean with within my job is to work for you guys, is to work for local association leaderships uh, pushing out graphics, pushing out you know, helping out with press releases and so forth. Um, I never want to take control and try to Put words in your mouth or take over that aspect, but can you give kind of an explanation of how TNPA has assisted you as a local association president and how we've assisted you guys on the social media and branding and communication side of it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, tnpa has been a big part of our association, as far as you know, decisions we make and where we kind of run with things and donors too. I mean, they donate to our bike drive every year, which is we're extremely thankful for. But one of the cool things that you've done for us is, you know, shooting out, blasting out social media for us, whether it's the pay raise or whether it's, I think you blasted out for us when we didn't get the staffing that we wanted. And then also this last time we got civil service, and that helps build your POA or your association's political status as well too, because it shows that you have TNPA's backing, which is a huge organization, and a lot of political leaders are scared of bigger organizations right, you can't just go in there and fight for them, but if you have the backing of, you know, a major organization in the state of Texas, then it's going to weigh in.
Speaker 3:Well, it goes back to the benefit because you know local leadership that goes to conference state. That that's one tangible thing that they can walk away with knowing the context between, like you and I are client and getting to know your. You know your TNPA leadership as well as other local leaders amongst the law enforcement association. But that's one tangible thing that you get when you come to conferences, something that you can leave with that. You've got my contact information, we've got the headshots, like we've done something at the headshot that we've seen. So just something to think about for those that they're thinking about attending the conference, that you are a part of your local association. That's one thing. That's. One big benefit of coming is that you can walk away with something you know tangible for your local association in the event that you do have a war kind of brewing.
Speaker 2:So amen you like that, amen Wow.
Speaker 3:Wow, I got a compliment from Clinton. This is a cool thing.
Speaker 1:It's like I mean, when we were talking at the last conference, you know I brought it up to you. I'm like hey, can y'all do a podcast on? I didn't think it was going to be me, but I was like hey, can y'all do a new podcast for these newer presidents?
Speaker 1:and new board members and stuff like that, to kind of help shed them or show them you know the right direction and shed some light on some things and I didn't think it was going to be me at the end of the day, but super honored that y'all had me on here but to speak on it, but it's, it's one of those things that I wish I had when, I first took over and luckily I attended the conference that year and was able to gain a whole bunch from just two hours of class. Like it was insane what they had to deal with up there and how we got through it.
Speaker 3:So one of our long-term goals is trying to create like a how to video, I guess process for each region. That's kind of a long-term goal that we're going to try to implement later on within the next couple of years is of getting that out there. Just exactly what you said. Hey, congratulations your president. Now you've got this cluster to deal with. And how do you do it right?
Speaker 1:So Full-time job.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, because the accolades that you get from being local president of association is zero to none. The benefit of it is seeing the results at the very end. So yeah, that's kind of a long-term goal that we're looking at. Doing is doing small. You know segments of how to he says a local president, or having you on like the podcast. So you know we're going to try to make it get there. So our biggest success is seeing our local association succeed. That's a huge success and a huge testament to our field reps and the relationships they've got out in the field. But seeing our local associations, such as Williamson County Deputy Association, seeing you guys succeed at a local topic, man, that's that's. It's heartwarming for us as field reps to see. Or or TNPA, but man, what a what a testament to y'all's hard work.
Speaker 1:And it's it's been, it's been a big, huge battle and I mean we've got I mean I've got very active members that, like I said, they'll go down to the Capitol put our name on stuff like that. But one of the coolest things is being able to reach out to field rep from TNPA and them showing up, supporting, giving their input and kind of leading in the right direction. And to me that's one of the greatest assets of being, you know, a member of TNPA is I can call on that and you know Curley's been.
Speaker 1:I call him Curley, but David's been extremely helpful in every process that we've had and I can call him anytime and bounce ideas off of him or hey, we're going to have a meeting on this, okay, cool, I'll be there, you know. And when we were doing the voting or the elections for civil service, curley brought the food trailer out. We cooked lunch. We had a big, huge party I think we had. That was the first day of voting and I think we had almost 400 vote that day. Wow, so it was a big testament. Curley ran out of food. He wasn't expecting that many people show up, but it's one of those. It's cool thing. I mean you can just reach out and have that support and that showing and that direction and leadership.
Speaker 2:Yep, if you got questions about local association or you're a new board member, a new president, or questions about elections or questions about getting involved, comment down below or email them into blue grit at tmpaorg. And we'll get them answered, and if we don't have the answers, we'll call the resident professional.
Speaker 1:Robert DeVall's grandson, his best looking grandson. Yeah, absolutely, I'll tell people, I just play one on TV.
Speaker 2:If you got questions, don't don't. Don't leave those lingering. We're. That's what we're here for is to answer them and figure out how to keep things moving along.
Speaker 3:And that's the beauty of for those that don't know, have never been in field services is that we there's a massive email chain that kind of goes on, or text thread, Uh, and the cool thing is, within within minutes, either our board of directors or our field reps, you can send an email out to any, any any of those groups or together, and say, hey, I got a question about this policy or I got this question about you know this local association, and within seconds or minutes, somebody, either a field rep or board of director, is going to email back with the answer for the most part. So if you guys, I guarantee you I don't have any a lot of the answers, um, Clint, my two is to an extent, but we can get them answer. Wow, I got to come from time.
Speaker 2:You did.
Speaker 1:You did. We're talking to each other all the time. We'll mark this day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mark, this time, this day, but maybe you got anything else that you wanted to know. That's one of the cool things too, is that right after you had posted about us getting civil service, um, several other POA presidents reached out to to curly their local uh yeah and put us into contact with each other, and now we have meetings scheduled on how to become civil service and how the process goes and everything like that and what they all need to put in place so one of those really cool networking tools.
Speaker 3:Yep, absolutely. You got anything else big though? No, sir. Well, we usually end the episode with three rapid fire questions. I'm going to let Clint do this one.
Speaker 2:Anything we didn't cover you on, talk about.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:You think we didn't talk about you on. Talk about that one time at bank camp.
Speaker 3:I do think that you look just absolutely amazing today. I got a great eval, and so just want to know that you were just stunning.
Speaker 2:I'm surprised I'm getting a compliment after you got your eval. I figured it was a roll.
Speaker 3:No, absolutely not. Your eyes are stunning. It's neon light, it's just uh, it's great, it's the shirt. It's the shirt.
Speaker 2:Sure, I was sick as a dog over Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:So I feel like I probably look out road hard and put up wet because I have felt like no, look like age one horses. Love you. Rapid fire. Favorite cop movie or line from a cop movie, favorite police car and favorite drink of choice.
Speaker 1:I would have to say Beverly Hills cop, the old school crown, big Obviously, oh yes, obviously, like everybody would think that those that have a step, drove them, and I'm a bourbon drinker, so hell, yeah, what kind of all over the place. Right now I'm into broken saddle, a bottle of bond, broken saddle, not heard of that one.
Speaker 2:Do you like sweeter or a little drier? I like flavors.
Speaker 1:So, as long as it's got good volumes of flavors and stuff that is peanut butter whiskey, is that a bourbon or is that a whiskey?
Speaker 2:That's chicks. Yeah, hey, you just made up for the crown. Bit, just made up for the crown.
Speaker 3:Okay, so I sell the back porch and sit my by the way, I like really do idolized guys that can just drink straight bourbon on the rocks, it's just, it's it yells manly, right. So I do that with the peanut butter whiskey to kind of imitate, or imitate you guys that drink this bourbon straight on the rock, or neat.
Speaker 2:No, thank you. Yep. Neat is a need I'll go like if I find like pappies or something I'll do.
Speaker 1:Have you ever had pappies? Oh yeah, have you really? There's really good bourbon bars in Georgetown. I don't know what the hell pappies is it's expensive, very, oh yeah. I think it's like forty percent, like forty to fifty dollars or four, so shit.
Speaker 3:I'm not drinking that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's expensive.
Speaker 3:I find angels in me right.
Speaker 2:Tell them about angels in me. He needs some of that. I'll tell it, no, we're good, okay, yeah.
Speaker 3:Made you got anything else.
Speaker 2:No sir.
Speaker 3:You no Good I appreciate it guys. I greatly appreciate you coming down and telling your your story and your advice and and you guys got a hell of a thing gorking up there, so keep going.
Speaker 2:Let's do a set of part two. Yeah, once civil service is up and rolling six or eight months a year from now.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Come back on and talk about the successes. What's been challenging? The good, the bad, the ugly, what you guys learned?
Speaker 1:Hopefully all the rules we get in the place as a new as a new shares, as a new civil service shares.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that'd be cool. It'd be cool.
Speaker 3:Well, you guys take care again. It's holiday season. For whatever reason, it's always a dangerous time for law enforcement these next couple of months. So you guys stay safe. God bless you.
Speaker 2:But calling check on somebody during the holidays. If you think somebody struggling during the holiday, I'll check on them. Don't text them, don't send them an email. Freaking, do be old school and pick the phone up and call and check on somebody.
Speaker 3:I agree, buddy checks are needed. Right now Our hearts go out to LA County, the LA. They lost four for deputies and officers to suicide. So it's a real thing and buddy checks are needed. So do that and check on your brothers and sisters, this time of year especially. God bless you guys and, as always, god bless Texas. We're out.