Public Safety
The #1 job of government is to secure our rights, and public safety is where that promise is either kept or broken. I’m proud to have earned the endorsements of both the Plano and Dallas Police Associations — a testament to how strongly I’ve championed public safety for years. On Plano City Council, I voted to authorize our new Fire Training Center, and I voted to OVERfund the police during the “Defund the Police” movement.
Collin County is a funnel for illegal activity heading north from the border, and that isn’t speculation. In 2017, Sheriff Jim Skinner stood up the North Texas Criminal Interdiction Unit specifically to work the US 75 corridor through our county. It has since grown to eight counties, seizing narcotics, weapons, and cash — and intercepting human beings being moved north as cargo. The fentanyl that kills our neighbors’ children comes through here on its way somewhere else. As Commissioner, I’ll make sure our law enforcement is provisioned strategically for that fight, and that cooperation across agencies and county lines is deliberate rather than left to chance.
Our jail is overcrowded, and it needs capabilities it has never had. Nearly a third of the people in the Collin County jail have a mental health disorder. More than half require detox protocol at booking. The average wait for a state hospital bed runs about 129 days — which means someone who needs psychiatric care can sit in a county jail cell for four months waiting for it. The county’s new Medical and Mental Health Facility opens this year and adds 125 specialized beds, and that’s real progress. But a building is not a program. The federal dollars that built it won’t staff it. I’ll fight to fund the clinicians, the detox capacity, and the Veterans Treatment Court that keeps men and women who served this country out of a cell and into treatment.
Our Constables face the same danger as the Sheriff and his Deputies. They answer the same calls, serve the same warrants, and take the same risks — and they should be equipped and funded accordingly. I’ll make sure they are.
And in parts of this county, it takes contracted Fire and EMS thirty minutes to reach a house. In a cardiac arrest or a structure fire, thirty minutes isn’t a delay. It’s an outcome. Voters approved Emergency Services District No. 1 last November with 72 percent support, and its first service contracts begin this October — so my job as Commissioner isn’t to campaign for it, it’s to make sure it works, and to work with local Fire and EMS on sharing resources so coverage is measured in minutes rather than jurisdictions. But the ESD doesn’t cover everyone. Allen, Fairview, Anna, and Frisco kept their ETJs out, and those residents still depend on city contracts. Where the county is contracting, I’ll make sure those agreements are equitable and that they deliver genuine coverage — not a line item that looks like protection on paper.