Local reactions to Governor’s plans
There is a reason for Gov. Greg Abbott’s trip to San Marcos last week to announce his new school safety plan: Hays County plays a pivotal role in some of the plan’s aspects.
One of the governor’s objectives is to make schools safer, and one of the steps involved in that is providing active shooter and emergency response training. The Texas School Safety Center will provide training next month for schools across the state in applying “high-quality planning practices.”
Abbott has praised the Standard Response Protocol developed by emergency personnel in Hays County as a “road map” for better training. He also gave recognition to Lt. Jeri Skrocki from the Hays County Sheriff’s Department for the development of the program; but Skrocki has said it was a collaborative effort involving Will Schwall from the San Marcos Fire Marshal’s office, San Marcos Police Assistant Chief Bob Klett and Hays County Emergency Services Coordinator Kharley Smith.
Representatives from area emergency response departments were present at the governor’s press conference at the Hays County Law Enforcement Center, as were members of the Hays County Commissioners Court, San Marcos CISD Superintendent Michael Cardona, and candidates for county judge Will Conley and Ruben Becerra.
“It is a positive reflection on our community when the Governor of our state holds up your plan and calls it a ‘road map for the rest of the state,’” said Conley, the Republican candidate for county judge. “Years ago we started working on school safety. In fact our initial discussions were led by the Precinct 3 office, and our first pilot was in Wimberley.
“Once we worked with all law enforcement, first responders and emergency personnel and school administrations across our county, we implemented the plans countywide with all our schools,” Conley continued. “We continue to train and communicate on a daily basis to do everything within our ability to make sure our schools are safe in Hays County. It has been a great community effort, and I look forward to building on this success if given the opportunity to do so by the citizens of Hays County.”
Becerra, the Democratic candidate for county judge, issued a statement saying, “Our children are dying in their classrooms. Our elected officials are so scared to lose votes or support that their only response to these shootings is to show a powerpoint. Arming teachers and putting more guns in the schools isn’t the answer. We need true leadership on mental health issues, universal background checks, and we must listen to and support our law enforcement officials that work inside our schools and universities, about how to best protect our classrooms. We must ensure that we are investing in our law enforcement training, offering competitive pay and benefits packages that compete with all other law enforcement agencies. Our children are the singular most important thing in our lives and our elected officials must act accordingly.”
The governor’s plan does include some measures to improve gun safety, such as closing information gaps to help prevent shootings by making sure critical information— like legal adjudications that would disqualify a person from owning a firearm — is made available more quickly for federal background checks. The plan also includes an interim charge for legislators to study the merits of a “red flag” law that would allow law enforcement, a family member, school employee or district attorney to file a petition to remove a potentially dangerous person’s firearms after legal due process is provided. Abbott has also proposed strengthening the Safe Firearm Storage Law and requiring gun owners to report within 10 days any lost or stolen guns.
Abbott’s School and Firearm Safety Action Plan also proposes better mental health services as a means of prevention and recommends hardening school campuses as targets, including the hiring of retired peace officers and military veterans for additional school security and training more school marshals.