SMITH COUNTY, Texas — Primarily within the City of Tyler limits, Smith County Precinct 1 has 23,000 registered voters.
Precinct 1 candidates:
Bobby Garmon who was appointed to the post in 2017, Curtis Traylor a Texas Juvenile Justice Department corrections officer, and Willie Mims a Precinct 1 constable’s deputy. All have different levels of experience in law enforcement, but they’re campaigning to represent the Precinct 1 community as constable.
The current Constable Bobby Garmon was appointed to the position in December of 2017 after his predecessor was suspended.
“I'm appointed to constable, but I had retired from the [Smith County] Sheriff's Office, I have a number of years’ experience,” Garmon said.
He says being appointed to the position, he never knew when his time would be up, and if he’s elected, he wants to make long-range plans for the position.
“I want to do quarterly meetings,” he explained. “You know if we got a problem in the community or something, I want to be there.”
Garmon also says he would like to expand the constable’s responsibilities.
“I want to set up more programs,” he said. “We go to different churches, apartments, business community and teach them the law what is the law, what they can do, what they can't do.”
Garmon says the time he spent with the Sheriff’s Office would benefit the community.
"I’ve got a network with one of the local papers here, I do different tips, you know, safety tips," Garmon said. “I want to continue that kind of work with the community in that way. And that's my skills, my background, I have over 40 years’ experience in law enforcement and most of mine's been administrative, so I know how to lead."
Curtis Traylor has spent the last 13 years working in criminal justice. An experience he thinks will help him if elected constable.
“Working in county detention and working as a correctional officer for maximum-security prison,” he said. “People come to the constable's office for advice, they come to the constable's office for all sorts of things, not just civil process, and security. So I think I have a lot of experience in people in general and being able to relate to them.”
Traylor already has plans on what changes he’d like to implement, like an internship program.
“They'll come intern in the office for six to eight months, we’ll sponsor them through the police academy,” Traylor explained. “Get those kids 30 hours of college credit once they complete the police academy with us. That gives them one-year worth of college toward their bachelor's degree, so that sets them up to be marketable in this field going forward and also being able to find the best jobs.”
He also spoke about making changes that would help the community.
“Creating diversity is big for me, make sure we're reaching out to the Hispanic community and make sure we're reaching out to women, make sure they have a place in policing,” Traylor said.
Willie Mims is no stranger to the people of Precinct 1, he’s worked as a deputy constable for the area since 2005.
"People asked me to run for the office, they thought that I was the right person for the job since I've been in community all my life, and I got a good relationship with the community,” Mims explained.
Mims’ plan if he becomes constable isn’t to make new changes, but to bring back former programs.
“I’d like to bring back community policing, that was primarily with the apartment complexes,” Mims said. “We went out and we got some contracts and that's how we were able to employ more officers.”
Mims says the community policing and the tobacco programs both ended in 2017 due to grant money running out. If he’s elected he wants to revive both.
“Tobacco program was a great program, you know, it educated the kids on tobacco and educated the stores on tobacco,” he said. “What we did, we went out and set up stings, control buys and if they sell to minors, we go in write them a ticket.”
This election hasn’t been a quiet one between the three men though. At the beginning of January, Garmon filed a lawsuit against the Smith County Democratic Chair Michael Tolbert.
Inside the lawsuit, Garmon asserted that Mims’ application to be on the ballot for Precinct 1 constable did not include a petition with at least 200 valid signatures from registered voters in Smith County Precinct 1.
There was a hearing Jan. 21, which allegedly resulted in a temporary injunction that keeps Mims on the ballot but invalidates any votes cast for him.
However, Mims’ says the hearing did not follow Texas Election Code and he’s since filed an appeal. According to the documents, the Texas Election Code was broken with the timeliness of the lawsuit filings and the date of the court hearing.
“My votes do count,” Mims explained. “If I win the election, it will go back to the democratic party and the democratic party will make that decision.”
The primary election is March 3 and all candidates are hopeful for a big turnout.