Justin Hewlett

First and foremost is the need for a County-wide Strategic Plan. I want to sit down with each department head and elected official and talk to them about their concerns and needs and discuss an overall strategy for the county. Once we have input from each department, the court will formulate a plan that will set goals and objectives for the county as well as each department.  In everything we do, will we ask the question, does the decision or request we are about to make, help us meet the goals and objectives we have set. The plan must be clear, concise and communicated to all employees and citizens.

 

Johnson County Jail - I have toured the jail and understand the need to improve, remodel and expand certain areas.  The Commissioner's Court has taken the first step towards hiring an expert to help them identify and analyze the problems and then propose solutions. I would like to see three different solutions offered:

 

1) What is the minimum amount to fix the identified problems.

2) What will we need to do to plan for future growth.

3) Are there changes that we can make to the jail to make its operation more efficient and cost effective.  

 

Each of these options will have a price tag and then the Commissioner's Court will have to look at the options and make the best decision for the county.

 

Transparency - First, I want to post all supporting documents on the County website along with the agenda for each Commissioner's Court meeting. This gives our citizens and news organizations the backup information to understand what the court is talking about. Other documents such as the Strategic Plan should be posted on the website for everyone to see rather than having to file an Open Records Request. We need to improve the sound system in the Commissioner's Court room so that we can work toward streaming the meetings over the internet for anyone to watch.

 

Salary Study - We need to conduct a comprehensive salary study for all positions in the county so that we can determine what areas we need to work on to make our salary structure more competitive so that we are not losing so many people to other communities and municipalities or to private companies. We appear to be spending a tremendous amount of time and money getting people trained only to have them leave and go somewhere else to make more money.

 

Animal Control - We need to work on a solution for county-wide animal control. I would like to see us work with cities and towns in the county that already have animal control facilities and develop policies and procedures that everyone can work together on.