Sheriff Lupe Valdez Continuing on Crash Course with City Leaders and Employees

This week Sheriff Lupe Valdez was yet again in the headlines with problems in her leadership and her reign in the prestigious office of Sheriff. Last week members of several groups came out saying they were not happy with the way the Sheriff has been handling the human resource end of her job.

They were upset about several major issues. They had a news conference on the steps of the Frank Crowley building to say the way they have been treated in regards to cutbacks and other complaints was wrong and they felt Sheriff Valdez was responsible for what had been happening. The Sheriff made her own public statement saying that she felt the overwhelming majority of members of the Sheriff's Dept, totally supported her %100.

Now, one of those groups has decided to see exactly how much support she really does have. The Dallas Chapter of The Latino Peace Officers Association is planning to poll their members to see if they support and agree with Sheriff Valdez or not. They have about 360 members.

Mike Ramirez is the Vice President of the group. He told the Dallas Morning News that they had made many requests to Sheriff Valdez to come and meet with them. She never even returned the request with a no. She just didn't respond at all. All of the labor groups are reacting to her lack of response to the people who serve under her.

She was also given an invitation to come to the Hispanic Leadership Forum on Thursday but did not respond to that either.

Sheriff Valdez appeared to be a forward thinking and dedicated official in her first term. When she began her second term, everyone thought she was going to improve with the experience. The job as Sheriff in Dallas County was actually the first position of this magnitude in her entire career. She came through the ranks of law enforcement and was a fine example of her titles.

Since January of 2007 has been in the headlines on a regular basis. Definitely not headlines that would be a plus on the resume. Last January, Sheriff Valdez was reprimanded by the Dallas Commissioners Court for assigning county vehicles to employees and to civilians that were not legally permitted to take them home. This is a process that requires the approval of the Commissioners Court before action is taken. Many issues were in questions. Liability, lack of concern of the Sheriff for procedure requirements and more.

This was also a beginning of the morale problem. According to Blogs in the area, employees were starting to feel that Sheriff Valdez was not as concerned with their best interest as they had thought.

Sheriff Valdez's trouble has continued. Her huge fight with the Commissioners Court regarding HER decision to allow the Discovery Channel to film the new and improving conditions of the jail. Dallas was failing inspections all the time since 2003. Her efforts to improve those statistics were admirable. Then she took more control than she legally is allowed by signing documents with the channel giving her exclusive rights.

That error in judgment costs taxpayers of Dallas County about $11,000. It became a huge legal battle with the Commissioners Court having to sue the Sheriff to get it settled. This appeared to be an exercise of power by the Sheriff. She even fought to have email correspondence away from anyone's request. This again took focus off of Dallas County issues and cost the taxpayers of Dallas County money that is desperately needed for services across the board.

Recently Sheriff Valdez made a proposal to increase deputy coverage in on the South Side of Dallas to increase the chances of revenue increase because of more opportunity to write traffic tickets. Her theory is to increase the freeway patrols in those areas and it will add millions of dollars in money needed to operate many departments of the Sheriffs Office and county.

The Commissioners don't think this is going to help. It is a fact in Dallas County that the ticket writing end of the equation is a lost venture. People don't always pay their tickets, and then you have increased costs to find them.

Her choice to recruit outside of Dallas County for a new officer to be in charge of inmate housing was a much talked about subject among the rank and file. Their choice would have been to recruit inside of the Sheriff's Dept because of familiarity with the County system. She chose an officer from Smith County.

This just proved to fuel the fire with any problems employees were having already. With all of the controversy now surrounding Sheriff Valdez, will she be able to run the County office and continue to move forward or will the problems overwhelm the progress made already and any continuing progress in the future.

The poll being done by the Dallas Latino Peace Officers will give us a glimpse into what the real attitude of the employees may be.