#130- "A Pfeil Good Judge" with Larry Pfeil

On this episode of the Blue Grit Podcast, Host Tyler Owen and TMPA Field Representative Robby Campbell sit down with Polk County Judge candidate Larry Pfeil—not a courtroom judge, but the role that serves as the County’s chief executive. 

In this raw and unfiltered conversation, Pfeil breaks down his vision for restoring leadership, prioritizing public safety, and driving real economic growth in Polk County. From supporting law enforcement to making decisions that impact every resident, this race is about who will lead the county forward.

This isn’t politics as usual—it’s about taking Polk County back.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I understand the personality and the motivation that it takes for somebody to dedicate their lives to public safety, to public service. And when those people are willing to make that sacrifice, when they're willing to put themselves into that situation, something that we that we as a community all depend on. We need to support that. Welcome back, viewers, watchers, listeners.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

I'm your host, Tyler Owen. I am back in Polk County with my right-hand man in the Golden Triangle. Field Representative Robbie Campbell is sitting next to me, and we are in Lehan's office again. And uh had some had some issues in Polk County with uh certain county judge, and that sparked some interest. And so me and Robbie took it on the road, the podcast on the road a couple weeks ago, a couple months ago actually, and uh spoke with one of our regional attorneys. And um unbeknownst to us, it kind of highlighted some issues and some ways that TMPA can be involved uh with somewhat local elections at the request of our local uh members. And so we're back here today. And and uh man, it's always good seeing you. Yeah, it's good to see you. There's some life changes going on at Robbie's Robbie Campbell's house.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Yeah. Well, first of all, it's always good to be up here in Livingston and Polk County. It's a great place, could be a little bit better. Hopefully that'll happen. Um, we'll see what the future holds and we'll go from there. But yeah, a lot of life changes uh in the last last podcast since we did Lee's up here. Um my grandson was born, Cooper. There you go. Uh nine pounds, one ounce, and uh he's doing great. Mom and dad are doing great. Uh, me being Pops are doing great. I've I've officially took on a new name of Pops. So uh even had a shirt made. My darling had me a shirt made, so that's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:37

But you had that discussion with your son and how those how those things are made, and and be careful careful how they because they they do they're fun to make, they're they cost a lot to rain to raise. He's he's figuring that out now. Yeah, yeah. All right, just don't let it soak as long. Good old soaker. BYU University shout out right there. But uh yeah, man, I it's uh it's always good seeing you. Uh things are always good with me and you know, Central Texas, there and wearing blue, but always me and my wife was asking about you the other day and the and how the grandbaby's doing. It's just a it's a life-changing experience, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

It's kind of cool. At first, it's like surreal at first, like this is a kid that you're kind of responsible for, but you can spoil him and give him back, yeah. Which is always cool to do.

SPEAKER_03 2:13

Does it never make is it kind of like uh does it make you feel old? Is it the first time that you wait, like you you you get drunk or you have a hangover and you get up out of the bed and you're like, oh my god, I can't do this anymore? Is it kind of like that moment where you feel old?

SPEAKER_01 2:23

I don't know what you're talking about. Oh no, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Yeah. No, not really feel old, just uh feel proud. Proud to see that your kid, the kid that that you and your wife made, uh grew up, get married, uh has a great career, what he does, and is able to start his own family is pretty uh it's pretty cool. Yeah, man. It's really cool. That's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 2:40

Well, and I know he was married a couple years ago uh over in Louisiana, and we were all celebrated that with you, and and uh you know, super proud for the the Campbell family. Yeah, it's awesome. Well, man, give us kind of a rundown of of the chain of events that have taken place. We have uh we've sparked some controversy, uh unbeknownst or or or not really intended to. Listen, TMPA doesn't get involved with local politics too much because we're kind of maintained at the state level. However, when local members reach out to us and say, hey, there's some issues going on, and this elected official is targeting law enforcement, we're gonna step in. We're gonna step in and just kind of point out the facts of you know things that have worked and things that haven't worked and call them out on their on their BS when we need to.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

And that's kind of what happened uh with the situation in Polk County. Yeah, that's exactly how it happened. I mean, we got members at at Polk County Sheriff's Office a lot, as well as Livingston PD and on Alaska PD and other surrounding counties and police departments that mostly Polk County reached out to me and said, Hey, this is going to be an issue. We need some help with this. Uh as much as we can get involved. And I think what we're doing is the right thing. Yeah. Um so since we last talked with Lee, the election uh happened, and uh it's in a runoff now between Larry Fowle, who we have here, and and Judge Murphy. We'll see how that washes out. Um I reached out to Larry and asked him if he'd like to come on the show. To and this this show reaches a lot of listeners. It does. So it's it's a good thing to have. A lot of folks listen to Lee Hahn's podcast, and it was real very, very good. But to have him come on to give his stance on and what he believes the right direction for Polk County uh should be going in and what what plans he has for Polk County uh would only benefit his uh his platform and his stance in the election. And I reached out to Judge Murphy and sent an email to her office yesterday and uh got a response back from uh the assistant to the commissioner's court that she was going to get the email to Judge Murphy, but I hadn't heard anything back as of yet.

SPEAKER_03 4:31

Yeah. And and we'll certainly allow her the opportunity uh to jump on here and kind of give her the explanations of you know some of the decisions that we would consider bad um during her tenure as county judge. But you know, it's one of those things too that I'm I'm happy to see the TMPA's involvement because if we have these relationships with with elected officials that are going to come into office and say, hey, you know, this is important to us, it's important to the community for public safety aspect and and assist those elected officials in their and their their kind of their their trajectory or or their career path as an elected official and build those relationships up, then we can have these conversations that are difficult. Hey, you messed up on this, and this is our members are upset, and this is the reason why from a law enforcement standpoint. And so I think it's important for us to be you know involved to us to a certain extent. So that's why it's such an honor to be here today.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

Absolutely. Yeah, it's this is a good thing going forward. Hope this helps out uh Larry and his his situation. And if Judge Murphy decides to come on, I uh I wish the best for her as well. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 5:25

Well, again, Larry, I appreciate you stopping by and I appreciate you coming on the Blue Grip Podcast, man.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

Well, thank you guys.

SPEAKER_03 5:30

Thank you for having me. For sure. Uh let's let's talk about you. Let's talk about what uh who who you are, who the hell is Larry, where you grew up at, and then uh why you intended to run for county judge here in Polk County.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Well, uh my name is Larry File, uh spelled P-F-E-I-L, for those that don't know already. Uh grown up in Texas, born and raised in Texas, uh, grew up in a small town of uh in South Texas called uh Refurio. Exactly where it's at. Yeah, you're not far from not many people, not many people know. Uh I spent the first 18 years of my life trying to get out of a small town and get to the big city where I could have all the excitement of the big city, and then spent the next 40 years of my life trying to get out of the big city and back into a small town. So um moved to uh Houston in the uh uh early 1980s. Uh was a uh paramedic with Fort Bend County EMS uh when I moved to Houston. Uh worked as a paramedic for a while, ended up uh I was a paramedic for about 10 years. And uh so you were a county employee during the Fort Bend County. Fort Bend County, correct. Okay. Okay, we're gonna get we're gonna touch on that here in a little bit. Sure. Um uh after that I began uh uh a life of uh serial entrepreneurship, started uh starting small businesses and uh uh did that on my on my days off, ended up uh start making more money in business than I than I did as a uh as a paramedic uh and ended up uh making that my career. Uh put myself through college, went to University of Houston, have a uh Bachelor of Business Administration from Cougars. There you go, from the University of Houston. Uh uh started a um uh a business uh uh technology business in the hologram industry. And and uh that that business took me all over the world. I for through the 1990s, uh I traveled all around the world uh about four times a year um doing uh uh marketing as well as uh anti-counterfeiting and security uh technology. Uh because of the nature of the international business, uh our largest business expense was legal fees. And so I I thought it would be a great idea if I could internalize that. If I if I knew what those lawyers knew, then I could pay myself that money that I was paying the lawyers. So put myself through law school, went to uh South Texas College of Law and uh have a law degree, but never never took the bar, never intended to take the bar, and never intended to practice law. Um treated it more like a uh business self-defense course, if you will. Um after the uh um after the 90s, um I'm uh still in Houston, uh ran a couple of uh actually four different businesses uh in Houston with with a friend of mine, and um uh ended up long story, but uh ended up losing my first wife. And uh when when she passed away, um I remarried and my second wife and I started coming up to Livingston, started coming up to Polk County uh for weekends, for weekends and and vacations.

SPEAKER_03 8:48

Colt County itself or Lake Livingstone?

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Lake Livingston primarily, yeah. So um bought our first house here in uh I believe it was uh probably 2012-2013 uh and have been up here ever since. Um as soon as we came up here, uh my wife and I both joined Scenic Loop Volunteer Fire Department and uh ran primarily medical calls. Uh my wife's a physician and I'm a former paramedic. So uh we we run medical calls with the with the fire department and have kind of integrated ourselves into the into the West Livingston, West County County.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

You said your wife's a your wife's a doctor.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

She's a physician, that's correct. What a what an asset that is to have a volunteer fire department, right? We are the one of the few fire departments that has a uh physician, I imagine so and a paramedic at that.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Yeah, this practice for a while. So a physician, that's impressive. I I like that. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03 9:45

Yeah, and do it for free. I mean I mean I'm not afraid of it. I mean, I'm sure it's it's less than what you'd be making full time as a physician.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Well, uh absolutely. And and it it's something that that that we enjoy. We we we love giving back to the community. We love to participate in the community, and um there's a there's a lot of need, uh, particularly in in that area. And so we really feel like that uh we have a lot to contribute. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 10:12

Let's go back real quick to the Montgomery, to uh you working in McGomberry. Fort Bend County, excuse me. You know, me and Robbie have had many discussions and talked with members across the state, and sometimes majority of those members that we speak with in law enforcement are line level employees, members that you know are first line, that they're you know, one two-year, three-year cops that have just have just entered law enforcement. And and you get this sense when you're 21 to 25 years old that you know how to run the roofs, you know how things operate. And I think it's important to point this out because my understanding is I don't I don't know Miss Ms. Murphy's background, uh, but my understanding is she didn't work for the county prior to to running for county judge. Is that correct? I and I don't know, I don't know that either. But but I I think it's important to touch on this is that you being a prior county employee at a very significantly larger uh county than Polk County, you understand the dynamics of how county county operates and how county culture should work. Being probably you know familiar with the county, you know, the commissioner's court, the county judge operates, and seeing how it's done professionally, and then looking at Polk County, is that kind of what drove your interest to at least say, you know what? I'm living in a county that I've embedded myself in, and you only embed yourself in communities that you truly, absolutely love. Okay. And I think that is was was there a point in time where you kind of sat there and looked around and said, something's just not right here. It's my opportunity to step in and try to make this place better.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Well, that's exactly right. The the um I think what you're getting at, if I if I could maybe put words in your mouth, is that I understand the personality and the the motivation that it takes for somebody to dedicate their lives to public safety, to to public service. And when those people are willing to make that sacrifice, when they're willing to put themselves into that situation, something that we that we as a community all depend on, we need to support that. That that needs to be a priority, and we need to stand behind those people and we need to give them our our full support.

SPEAKER_03 12:17

And that's what kind of drove you to step into this role. Um was it has there ever been a conversation? And I always like to ask, I was I like to ask candidates this has there been a conversation between you and her, uh, of the current county judge of saying, listen, I don't like how things are running, and I'm gonna I'm gonna give you an opportunity to fix them, or I'm gonna step in, or was it just kind of in passing, you just made the decision on your own?

SPEAKER_00 12:37

No, I've I've had I've had some conversations uh with the county judge, and I'm and I've worked with her uh often on in various instances over the over the past 10 years. And I've always had a good working relationship with her. I get along with her fine. Uh I um all of our interactions have been polite and and professional, um, but I disagree. I disagree with her policies and I disagree with her decisions.

SPEAKER_03 13:03

Let's talk about some policies and decisions of the current judge in Polk County. What was your take on the situation with the county, uh, the sheriff's department races? You know, you look at the grand scheme of things and the budget and the the the Senate Bill 20 uh funding for 22, 22, Senate Bill 22 funding. And one has to sit here and and and look at that. You being a very uh well-educated uh you know individual that lives in Polk County, how did you take that as far as her not allowing the other raises, the the the the countywide raises that were not given to the to the deputies because of Senate Bill 22 funding, how did you interpret that?

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Well, I um I I felt like it w I I felt like it was a um I felt like it was a cop-out. That that's no pun intended, yeah. No pun pun halfway intended. That um that money that should have gone to the sheriff's department then was diverted to to other priorities, thinking that that this state money was going to to uh take its place. Uh and I think I think that was the wrong decision. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:09

Would you have done some how would you have handled that as the county judge? Let's say fast forward two years, you you are the county judge, and how how how would you handle it differently?

SPEAKER_00 14:17

Well I I think I think there's a fundamental answer to that. And I the fundamental answer is uh that that the county has to have funding priorities. And I believe that that public safety has to be the top priority. It's the top responsibility for the county government, and it and it has to be a priority. Uh we we need to be funding law enforcement, we need to be funding our sheriff's department first, and then with the money that's left over, then fund some of these other uh projects that that I believe should be lower priorities. I believe that we have our pro priorities backwards. So I would not have gotten us into that situation. Uh um the the impact that underpaying our sheriff's department has had, we've had we've had a a tremendous talent drain from our sheriff's department. And we now have great people, great men and women in our sheriff's department, but with very little experience. Uh there's there's a a lack of experience that is going to have to be replaced. And we can either build it internally or we're going to have to we're going to have to hire it. But but somehow we're going to have to get that experience level back into uh local law enforcement.

SPEAKER_03 15:40

You know, it's funny you mentioned that about relationships. It seems like from the outside in is that the sheriff himself is doing everything he can to navigate around a challenging situation, challenging relationship, but he just continues to get rattled and beat down by the county judge. What would your what would your perception or at least what would your plan of action be to strengthen that relationship? Because right now the sheriff at least seemingly looks like the county judge is combative to having in that open relationship with the with the leader of the law enforcement community here in Polk County.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Well, um and I've watched that. And the sheriff is responsible for how he spends it, as if as if he can create money out of thin air. Uh he his hands are tied.

SPEAKER_03 16:46

Um I I was speaking with a resident there in Hayes County where I reside at last week, and and he had kind of similar mindsets of what I would appear, or at least what what I would think Judge Murphy's is, is that he was complaining about potholes. And the the county judge there, um, Ruben Bacara, is not exactly pro-law enforcement, but there was a significant range that Hayes County got us several years ago. And what his comparison was this is that he would rather have his holes on his road fixed than have the sheriff's office receive adequate pay. And so we had this discussion about the rel the relatability with Austin and then Hayes County, which is very similar to kind of where we are now with Polk County in relation to the city of Houston and the significant pay increase that the Houston officers deservingly got. But it puts Polk County in a situation where you've got to stay competitive. You have to stay competitive to retain the experience. We had this discussion, we had this discussion with Lee last time is that residents, I would like to see the number of people that have graduated from Polk County education programs and have gone on to DPS and gone on to Houston Police Department because reality is they are such an asset to your local law enforcement because they grew up here. They know who the shitheads are, they know who's who's who who does good things and who does bad things, but more importantly, they're members of this community. They are products of Polk County. And I think that's who county officials really need to target as far as coming back to work in law enforcement. My point is this is that my explanation to that man was that nobody's gonna move to Hayes County because they have beautiful roads. They're gonna move to a community because it's safe to raise a family. And I think how you prioritize a county structure is public safety, number one. Number two is what that county can do to supplement or at least assist the education process, because in my opinion, that brings economy for people to come and move businesses to that community. And then third or fourth, give or take, would be the economy and or the road structure. What is your game plan for how to get Polk County back in a situation to where it's respected amongst other counties around here? Because I think, from my perspective, from living in Austin, the the Austin area, is that she's done a significant bad job of bringing Polk County down because of her lack of game plan.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

Well, and and that's that's been pretty much my campaign platform is that uh that that Polk County is suffering from a lack of vision, a lack of leadership, and a lack of a plan. And when I look at when I look at the at the resources that that we have here as a county having a a tremendous lake, we have a fantastic lake that has largely been ignored, has is underdeveloped. There's a lot of of room to grow there. There's a lot of people that don't even that aren't even aware uh of Lake Livingston and all that it has to offer. Tremendous asset. We have the Alabama Cashata tribe that has they have their current casino and they're building a second casino just north of town. Uh the the that that entity by itself is is an economic engine that should be driving this county. Between the the the casino and the lake, I believe that this that the the entire economy of Polk County is going to go through a transformation. I believe that it is going to become a hospitality-oriented economy, which means that we're going to be bringing in hotels, restaurants, entertainment centers. We're going to be bringing in businesses that are going to support both the casino as well as the lake. And I believe that that is where the funding comes from for all of the things that you talked about. So economic development, controlled, planned economic development, sensible economic development that that preserves the culture that we have here, preserves the community that we have here, but it's going to take our involvement. So that economic development, for in order for it to take place, we're going to have to have two things. And that is we're going to have to have a plan for public safety, and we're going to have to have the infrastructure to support it. So public safety has to be priority number one, and updating and upgrading the infrastructure has to be priority number two.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

Yeah, you could you could go two ways with this thing. And Polk County's in that situation, they're kind of at the crossroads right now where you do have that casino, they're going to build a much larger casino, which is going to cause other businesses to come in, like you talked about, hotels coming up, and then you have the lake. You're either going to have to accommodate those changes, those economic benefits, or you're going to have to turn your or be forced to do that. Yeah. Or be forced to accommodate. And if you're forced to accommodate what's coming, you're going to be behind the ball. And you're always going to be behind the ball with public safety, with infrastructure. Let's start building these things out now.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Proactive instead of reap. Absolutely. And that and and that's that's what I've been trying to champion since the day I started this race.

SPEAKER_03 21:58

Yeah, absolutely. What is the relationship? Between the Polk County Commissioners Court and Oregon County Judge seat with the economic development here in Polk County.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

So um I I I don't really know how much has been put towards economic development. Uh I've I've tried I I'm very good at reading spreadsheets. I'm I'm very good at at that sort of stuff. I have looked at the county budget and I I would tell you I have a very hard time making heads or tails of the county budget. But is there a is there a slotted uh allocation to the economic for economic development? There there is. Uh and the the the last time I looked, the total budget for for economic development was three hundred and fifty dollars. From the county. Yes. Wow. Wow. Okay. Um it it has not been that way historically, and and it may be that that that that's going to change over time, but the budget item that that I saw in the in uh the I believe the 2025 budget was$350. What why do you think it's that low? Uh lack of vision? I mean lack of priorities. Uh the priorities being being out of whack. Uh other other projects are taking higher priority.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

Let's let's talk about this for a minute. So you have a county judge that's been there for quite some time that has a lot of ties, history family history ties to Polk County, owns a lot of personal property in Polk County, which is commonly referred to as old money, um, which is the old Maybe Mayberry thing. Maybe maybe these people and that are sitting in commissioner's court and sitting in county judge's seat currently like the old feel and don't have a none of them seem to have a vision. I mean, they're all elected independently in this in the for commissioner's court. So it would take one or two to come. We need to get things going in the right direction. I haven't talked, I don't even know these folks that sit on commissioner's court, so I'm not taking shots at them. But the leader, the county judge is the spearhead of this thing to get things going. That's just the bottom line. And like I said a while ago, you're either going to be forced to accommodate and you're going to be playing catch-up forever, or you're going to have to accommodate now, start building out infrastructure, and start funding public safety. That's just where we're at right now. And I think this is a turning point, and I think that's coming for Polk County. Look at Montgomery County and Conroe and those places like that. It used to be old Mayberry towns, but they had visionaries in the right places that it's grown to what it is today, and it's continuing, it's going to continue to grow. I mean, if they got a Jimmy Buffett Margaritaville and a man-made dug small lake over there that's selling out every weekend and world-class golf courses over there. Polk County could do that exactly here. And I know the distance is not that far away, but why not? Don't be forced to do that. Accommodate that and welcome these businesses in to do that. I mean, you already have it. You already have the no one's gonna take the lake from you. It's gonna be here forever, it's gonna be here. But the property around the lake is beneficial to folks. It's an economic drive. The casino out there on the reservation is an economic drive. You're right, it's a big engine. And take advantage of that, work with the tribal council, get things in place, and build forward. Build your infrastructure in. A beautiful courthouse is always nice to look at, but when you're 10 million over budget or whatever the number is, and it's been sitting idle in a, you know, like a building that ran out of funding for repair, there's issues there. There's issues all over that. Um, but just me, I did it. So I did a salary survey. Let's talk about this for a minute, Tyler. I did a salary survey for uh Polk County. They they asked me to just to see what they were at, and they know they're at the bottom of the barrel on this thing, and I knew it too because of the pay, and they're having a problem with recruiting and retention. And there's a lot of departments across the state, police and sheriff's offices, that have an issue with recruiting and retention. Some handle it better than others, but it goes back to funding. So I include in the salary survey Montgomery County, Harden County, Walker County, the surrounding counties of Polk County, uh outside of Montgomery. There's I think the uh what's the county in between Polk and Montgomery?

SPEAKER_00 26:00

No, Polk and Polk and uh there's there's Liberty San Giceno? San Jacino is on the other side of the lake, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

So these counties here, uh then I included PD's inside Livingston, Dalbaugh on Alaska, and Huntsville, which I'm still waiting on Huntsville's numbers to come in for some reason. They're dragging their feet. So if they're listening, Huntsville PD, please send me that stuff. You have it in an open records request. I need it to complete this, but uh that's the only numbers I don't have. So Polk County is the target line on this. Uh starting pay, they're down 16.5% starting pay.

SPEAKER_03 26:31

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

Their starting pay is$49,406 to start to do probably the most one of the most dangerous jobs you could possibly take on to make life-threatening decisions at the blink of an eye and be armchair quarterback to death on it, where you're could be prosecuted, sued, completely ruined as a person, as a person. How many deputies are working on Polk County at one time? Do we know? Three, four, uh two to three on patrol. Yeah. At one time. And it's a big county. It's a huge county. Uh so and top out pay is sixty-eight thousand dollars. However, uh, to get to top out pay, it's longer than the 20 20 plus steps in the plan. Uh according to our members at Polk County, no one has made top pay as a as a patrol deputy or just a deputy. Um, so that's an issue. No one's making$68,000 there. I take that back. Unless they're making a lot of overtime and they have to make an overtime. Yeah. Because when you that's how you supplement, that's how you you get your rank. You gotta get people to work overtime to to cover and enforce them.

SPEAKER_03 27:31

They do have a lot of vacancies.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

So there are a lot of them are getting a lot of vacancy. They do. And the jail, the jail between Montgomery, Hardin and Walker County, uh, the jail six percent below starting pay and 12% below top jail or pay. That's without having any rank at all. So that's kind of where they're sitting at, and which is alarming. They should be right below Montgomery County, in my opinion, around here. They have that potential to do that. Um this is a this is a big issue and it's a bit big rec flag. They don't have collective bargaining, they don't have a meet confer. So it's gonna be up to a county judge who's been here for quite some time, who's who's not funded the police, the sheriff's office correctly, to do this and commissioner's court to get along with her. So, in my opinion, it it is time for change for somebody else to come in or the county, the current county judge to wake up and say, hey, we got to fund these police officers. We have to incentivize the sheriff's office to get these these ranks filled. However, they want to do that. If they want to call me, I have great ideas. We do, I do it across the area, incentivizing to get people in uh and stay and and retain them. There's uh there's ideas to do that as well. But pay it drives the engine on this thing, is where it's at where cops do. That's why you're losing cops to Livingston PD. Most I'm sure most of the the officers that work at Livingston PD started out at Polk County.

SPEAKER_03 28:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

People leave to go to other places at the jail or whatever. And this is this is departments in their market, which in their market is you could pick up and either go to Polk County to go to work, or you can drive a little while, a little ways longer and go to Montgomery County to go to work.

SPEAKER_03 28:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

That's the market they're in, and that's what you're having to compete with. And I'm not saying right off the bat compete with Montgomery County, but eventually you could get up there with what Montgomery County's doing. Well, but if but if they don't take that step, they're gonna continue they'll continue to kick that can down the road. Yeah, so the ask only becomes larger. That's right. Next year, we need more than this, we need more than this, and this is no, this is no blame of the sheriff. Sheriff Lyons is a great sheriff, the chief deputy is a he's a great guy. Their command staff over there are on point, they're fighting this fight, but every time they go to Commissioner's Court for budget budget workshops or budget requests, it falls on deaf ears. We don't have the money to do it. Yet you're getting to a grant where you fund a public defender's office a million bucks, but that's going to fall back on the shoulders of the county in a few years. And then you're you want to redo this courthouse, uh, but you're way over budget on it. And some things that happen in the contract work on that, hiring the contractor and and getting tools for him and a place to live and cell phones. You're a businessman, you've done this before. You know that's not right. Now, and you know if we dig deep into it, which we have to a certain extent, there's some conflicts in there. Oh, yeah. There's there's some huge conflicts in that. And and I hate to say this, but it's not gonna be completed within the next month. So if you do pull this off Larry and you do win, you're gonna be saddled with getting this thing up and going. I mean, you're gonna have to take this thing over, and God bless you on that, and good luck to you. If you need us, call us, we'll do what we can. But that's gonna be a task in its own. Yep. But I think your priorities are in line and in order with the right thing, and your heart's in the right place. You're a giving person, what you do as a volunteer, and I think you have the right business mindset to get things going in the right direction with all the businesses you've started in the past, and you're a very successful person and a very well-educated person. That's the new change that Polk County needs, in my opinion. And that's my opinion, not necessarily the the opinion of TMPA.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

Yep. Well, I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_03 30:47

Yeah, I'm I do want to hit on this. Leave me living in East Texas, I lived in in near Marshall, I lived in Jefferson for about 20 years, and and I always when I was speaking to people in Central Texas, and this has kind of become the norm in rural counties and really Austin, because of the lack of law enforcement, the lack of law enforcement presence, and the recruiting problem that they've got, thanks to an idiotic uh district attorney they got on there and Jose Garzo, is that the norm now is that if you need law enforcement's assistance, if it's not a priority, absolute priority call, you are waiting an hour and a half to two hours for an officer to get there. I want you to put that mindset on of the resiliency of East Texas residents, they would lose their mind. If a deputy did not show up within two hours of a burglary in progress call or a call that was of significant emergency, they would absolutely lose their mind if a deputy did not respond to that. And these deputies, let's talk about that real quick. These guys are investigators, patrolmen, they they wear so many different hats. EMTs, they wear so many different hats because it's so big and so rural. They've grabbed hoses and helped us fight fire. Exactly. They firemen or game wardens, which is it's it's honestly uh it's the most underrated, it's also the funniest, in my opinion. Being a county deputy, you can still kind of be police in a sense because the use of force is there, uh, because you don't have backup around the corner. But my point is this is if Polk County does not take a step in the right direction, they are going to be in the normalcy of what I'm seeing or I live at of the two-hour response times for a priority call that I would consider a burglary in progress. That is a priority call. That's not a priority call in Austin. You have to be somebody that literally legitimately has to be assaulting priority. Yes. And so that's where we're headed. And I want to make that very clear to the Polk County residents. If there is no decisions that are made right now in your in your mindset, get it through your head that public safety has to take a priority seat because you're losing officers at a rate that you cannot be sustainable.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

And you can't backfill them. No, you can't hire them. And there's there's deputies right now listening and they're paying attention to the election, and they make that may make that decision on based off who wins. And if it's status quo, you're gonna lose more. And you're not, you don't, you can't fill your ranks in the control in the in the corrections department.

SPEAKER_03 33:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:01

You're sending prisoners to Louisiana. That's that blows my mind that you're sending prisoners to Louisiana when you got a great facility out there, you just don't have enough corrections officers to handle the inmates coming in.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

And and and it it doesn't take that much to get that to get that up and fully operational. Right. With about a half million dollar investment, we we can get that whole thing up and operational. We can cut about one and a half million dollars uh a year in in expenditures that we spend on on shipping uh inmates uh out of the county, and we would have excess capacity. We could actually turn the tables and turn that into a revenue source that uh of a of a almost another one and a half million dollars. It's about a three million dollar swing uh just by making that investment.

SPEAKER_03 33:47

Well, and Judge Murphy made an interesting comment several commissioner courts ago. She put the blame back on the sheriff that this could this was his idea.

unknown 33:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 33:56

Touche. But the reason it was his idea, he was forced to do something because of her inability to lead the county into funding a salary increase to get the correctional officers he needed. So, yeah, you can throw the rocks towards the sheriff and say, Well, this was your idea. Yes, it was, but he was forced to do something because of your inability to make a decision and go forth and conquer on the salary aspect to get these officers hired. Is that an accurate statement?

SPEAKER_01 34:24

What she also did is when when the the debate came out about these sheriff's officers' pay being underpaid, understaffed, uh, which goes hand in hand, she put that back on the sheriff. Right. He asked for this money. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:37

He's the one that proposed the money.

SPEAKER_01 34:38

Well, yeah, he yeah, he he he gives the money out where he feels it's it's fit over there. But you didn't give him enough. I I think it's important to point that out. He he had to make a post on social media to defend his own position because she was throwing that on his back. And that's not sheriff lines to de. I mean, yeah, it is sheriff lines to pay his deputies, but if he don't get the money from commissioner's court and the county judge, he don't have it to pay him. Yeah, but it's important to point this out. How often does commissioner's court meet?

SPEAKER_00 35:01

Monthly.

SPEAKER_03 35:02

Once a month. Okay. If people are naive enough to think that conversations don't play take place one-on-one before those meetings to understand, for example, that how that went down, and I haven't talked to the sheriff, I had I don't even know the sheriff's name. All I know is that Judge Murphy, I know Robbie takes care of the sheriff and he speaks to them regularly. But I guarantee you how this went down is the sheriff spoke to each commissioner trying to lobby to get this pay raise done, and he realized very soon after speaking to two or three of the majority and/or the county judge, he realized this isn't gonna pass. They meet once a month. And so, in order to get that passed during the budget time frame that it happened, and I'm telling you this from experience, as a guy that was a captain at a sheriff's office, and I'm the one that handled a lot of the budget aspects for him. That's how it all went down. And so for her to sit there and blame the sheriff that he's the one that presented this in a false pretense and the false, the false way that what she did, it's insulting.

SPEAKER_01 35:55

It is insulting. Yeah, but to try to get that off her back and put it on his, is that's the wrong thing to do. Take, I mean, you've been the decision maker for, I don't know, 10 years. So she's been the county judge for a long time here. Yeah, things look the same, except for the courthouse. That's still a shit show. But the sheriff's office has been losing deputies. But don't put that on somebody else when it's your responsibility to fund that. Yep, I agree. I mean, the budget workshops are about to start very soon. If you win, Larry, then they're gonna be dealing with this budget this year, which is gonna be off of Judge Murphy's her time and deceit. It's gonna be her budget that's set out. So this is not gonna be an immediate fix. Right. Now, you could you can make amendments to that budget to maybe try to fund the sheriff's office if you do win. And I'm not saying do that or what your position is on it, but that you know that you can do things like that. The commissioner's court, of course, has to vote on it to do it. But they're gonna have to do something. They're gonna not put this on somebody else like this their problem. They could the sheriff can pay what they want, what he wants to pay these folks. Not really. Not I mean, what are you gonna give them monopoly money or a couple of extra days off with pay? I mean, you can't you can't have an effective sheriff's office when you don't have the manpower to work it like it should.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

Well, and and you mentioned something uh a second ago about about retention. Uh we're at a point now where retention isn't even the the the biggest issue. It is that that we we need to we need to recruit, we need to bring those deputies that we have lost, the talent that we have lost over the last several several years, and we need to we need to bring them back. And so that means we we don't just need to be competitive, we need to we need to have an attractive pay. Because if if we start today with with competitive pay, then we're it's gonna take 10 years to rebuild that sheriff's department. Yeah, yeah. You're if you're if you start out trying to get in the ballpark, you're already you're still behind the game. We're behind, we're behind. We we have we now have put ourselves in a position where we have to we have to pay more than other departments because we've got we've got to bring that talent back into to the county. So we've put ourselves in a really bad situation here. Yeah. And with with the imagine the traffic, the the the people that are going to be brought into this area with that new casino. Um imagine the the amount of traffic coming back into this county. We are not prepared for it.

SPEAKER_03 38:30

Yeah, I agree. It's gonna be interesting to see how she responds and if she's willing to come on the podcast. Again, TMPA uh has not given you an endorsement, and you recognize that. We've talked about that before, but we are simply highlighting the facts involved in this election and our hopes and promises. Um, well, not any promises, our hopes that a county judge will come in that is very pro-law enforcement, very pro-public safety, and that gets their priorities. So again, Judge Murphy, if you're listening and you do happen to win, all we can ask the TMPA is that you re realign or readjust your visions. Um, but it seemingly right now seems that Larry's got got the vision in order that kind of inlines with what our members want and and what this community needs. So is there anything else you want to go over, Larry?

SPEAKER_00 39:12

Uh I think we've covered it all.

SPEAKER_03 39:14

Yeah. It's been a been a good podcast. It's certainly nice meeting you. Well, it's great meeting both of you. And I I I wish you the very best of luck uh on on this election. And uh we'll have to wait till when when is the early when's the election?

SPEAKER_00 39:26

The election is May 26th, and uh the early voting will be the week before, five days uh so it's a little bit different than last election.

SPEAKER_03 39:33

It's one week before uh May 26th, so it's just one week of early voting, and then the final day of the 26th, which is the day after Memorial Day.

SPEAKER_00 39:41

So uh everybody plan accordingly. If you're if you're gonna be out of town, early vote.

SPEAKER_03 39:46

Um from an EMT standpoint. I think he's saying hydrate uh plenty over the weekend. Hydrate plenty over the weekend. So anyway, good meeting, man. I appreciate it. Hey, for those that don't know, our Texas FOP TMPA conference is coming up July 24th to the 26th. Me and Robbie talked uh before this podcast kicked off. I guess I've not done a good job on pushing the handbid registration out. We use a, and I've talked about this here in another podcast, is that we utilize a website-based um format that allows members that attend our conference the ability to participate in the auction, which is so crucial to the TNPA mission uh for TNPA charities. It's our only charitable uh fundraising event is held at our conference. And so we opted to do that two years ago, and we've we're gonna maintain that this year. Key difference, Texas FOP members, if if you are listening, if you are only wanting to attend the conference itself, the bylaws require that you attend at no cost. So if you want to show up and just simply attend the conference and not participate any hospitality night, uh any networking, you can do that. Go on hand bid. There is a TNPA day pass, complete that. You'll get the day pass for those Texas FOP members that want to participate and hang out with some TMPA folks and uh network a little bit. We certainly would be proud to have you. That's what this event's about. The event is spectacular. This will be your fourth conference, if I'm not mistaken, or fifth.

SPEAKER_01 41:05

Fourth conference as an employee. Uh, I think fifth. Fifth attending.

SPEAKER_03 41:08

Yep. Yeah. First was in San Antonio.

SPEAKER_01 41:10

Yeah, I attended, but I attended before then. But yeah, that's a long time ago. But yeah, so yeah, so there's back to the auction. There's a lot of good, a lot of good auction items in that thing, like a lot of good stuff. So that's a it's a pretty good time. This is gonna be a joint conference, like Tyler said, to expect a lot of people because we usually bring in, what do you think, five to six hundred? I think last year we had six hundred and thirty. And that was just the TMPA conference salon.

SPEAKER_03 41:32

Yeah, that was it. That was it. I also got told today, I think it's the National African-American uh law enforcement association is gonna be there the same weekend. So high regency, I hope you're listening because y'all's service wasn't the best uh two years ago. You better be prepared and you better stock up on plenty of fluids. Uh there was y'all, I think y'all ran out the first night two years ago, and you better be prepared because it sounds like you've got to have a lot of police in there. Yeah, hot regency in Dallas. Yeah, Regency Dallas.

SPEAKER_01 41:57

Yeah, the ball. But Matt, anything else you want to go over? No, man, I think we good. We covered it. Larry, thanks for coming on. We appreciate it. Good luck uh with the runoff. Um I hope it goes like you planned it to go. Um, yeah, that's uh that's it. How about the the three uh the three questions? Have you been studying?

SPEAKER_03 42:13

You got three rapid fire questions.

SPEAKER_01 42:14

This is every so every every guest is asked these questions, and it's just some fun facts at the end of the at the end of the show. It's pretty cool. What is your favorite line from a cop movie or your favorite cop movie?

SPEAKER_00 42:25

Well, um favorite cop movie. Um, so I have I don't really watch movies, but I do I have a friend that is uh the uh first assistant director of the Will Trent uh TV series. And so I'd have to say uh if if you haven't seen Will Trent, you ought to see Will Trent. Okay, check that out. Great, great show. Uh that is that's that's my uh Will Trent.

SPEAKER_03 42:49

That's gonna be the first the first Will Trent. Yeah, for sure. Nobody's ever said that before. You're definitely a first. What's your favorite patrol car?

SPEAKER_00 42:55

My favorite patrol car, uh um oh my gosh. So uh uh I go back uh I go back into the uh into the 80s. The um holy crap is the Caprice.

SPEAKER_02 43:10

No, good for Crown Victoria, Crown Vic. Crown Vic, Crown Victoria. Crown Vic.

SPEAKER_01 43:15

Larry, just by saying that, if I was a voter in Polk County, I'd vote for you just for that. Yeah, for sure. It is the crown victory. You can't break it.

SPEAKER_03 43:22

That's right. The war wagon, you can't you cannot beat that machine. But what's your favorite drink of choice when Larry's relaxing with his wife there at Lake Livingston hanging out here in Polk County?

SPEAKER_00 43:31

So uh I don't really drink, but uh um I uh if I were going to drink, I would say uh probably a nice scotch. There you go.

SPEAKER_03 43:41

That's also one of kind of a few. Not many people choose Scotch uh on the blue grid. I think this is the third one.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

Look, Linda Levitt 12 or proven reserve is good. 12, 15, yeah. I got them in my liquor cabinet at home. They're good go-tos.

SPEAKER_00 43:53

I've I've done a lot of business in in Scotland, so I've had it, I've had a chance to travel around Scotland and taste all of them as well.

SPEAKER_03 44:00

As it's not Angels Envy. As long as it's not Angel's enemy. He's just a wore out. I think it's overrated. Oh man. Well, hey, you guys take care. Uh again, Larry. Greatly appreciate you coming on. Thanks to Lee Han for hosting this event here at the uh allowing us the opportunity to come to podcast. We had to be in town anyway for uh some discussion on an on a legal case that Lee is handling. So, you guys, if you need anything, this is a great example of when members reach out to their field rep and explain some complicated situations that we typically wouldn't get involved in, but once they explain them, we're here, right? Um, similar situation happened in Hearst that that we dealt with uh two weeks ago, dealing with a with a Lee Merritt attorney. So, anyway, you guys take care, get out and vote if you reside in Polk County. We're not endorsing Larry, but we're certainly going to tell you get out and vote and go ahead and cast your vote and be heard. So you guys take care, stay safe. God bless you, and as always, may God bless Texas. We're out.