Lubbock Left

When government does something well, it’s worth noting. (Quick example: Lubbock City Council selecting the old Barnes and Noble location as the new home of Godeke Library.)

A friend clued me in to something that — strangely enough — local media seems to be missing or ignoring completely. And it’s kind of a big deal.

The County of Lubbock has just won (actually, back in August!) three prestigious awards from the Texas Association of Counties. They are part of the 2009 Best Practices Awards. Along with Travis County, Lubbock was the only county to win three awards. (Lubbock County’s awards are way cooler than Travis County’s awards, by the way.) Each of the three awards represents a significant, unique achievement of Lubbock County — unmatched in the State and with only a few peers throughout the whole nation.

Here’s what Lubbock County won:

CourtTools Accountability Program

Lubbock County is the only county in all of Texas to provide accountability through all ten measures of the CourtTools system. Only a few entities in the nation provide this much accountability. And 2009 is not the first year that Lubbock County has published metrics through CourtTools, either — reports go back as far as 2005.

What are the CourtTools metrics? They are:

1. Access and Fairness
2. Clearance Rates
3. Time to Disposition
4. Age of Active Pending Caseloads
5. Certainty of Trial Dates
6. Reliability and Integrity of Case Files
7. Collection of Monetary Penalties
8. Effective Use of Jurors
9. Court Employee Satisfaction
10. Cost Per Case

Courts Administrator David Slayton and his staff are responsible for compiling these reports.

The especially valuable thing about these reports is that, over time, they provide an objective measure for courts and the judges that run them. We’re fortunate to have a court system that takes these measures seriously.

Vote Centers

As most of you probably know, Lubbock County has been the leader in Texas when it comes to voting anywhere you like on Election Day — a concept known as Vote Centers (formerly Superprecincts). Our November 2006 election was the first such election, and we’ve done it again several times since. The November 2008 election is the one that got Lubbock County this award, not only for remaining the statewide leader in vote centers (Erath County was the only other County to attempt vote centers in November 2008 — prior to that, Lubbock was the only county to do so), but also for innovative ways to help voters find their nearest polling place. The County used text messaging, email, snail mail, radio, TV, websites — the works — to get the word out.

Elections Administrator Dorothy Kennedy and her staff at the Elections Office are responsible for implementing vote centers. (Notice a pattern of nonpartisan, appointed administrators behind these successes?)

An important note — Primary elections will continue to be precinct-driven, due to the nature of internal Party political structure (for all Parties).

Regional Capital Case Public Defender’s Office

Last but not least, Lubbock County hosts the regional public defender’s office for capital cases, for which it also won an award. The public defender’s office serves 70 counties in West Texas.

Why is this such a big deal? The costs involved in bringing a capital murder case to trial can easily bankrupt a rural county. Extra steps have to be taken for a capital trial to take place, and attorneys must have special certification to take part in a capital murder trial. (And they must maintain it as part of their continuing legal education.) Having a regional public defender’s office for capital cases is like life insurance for the counties involved.

Lubbock attorney Jack Stoffregen is the Chief Public Defender of the office, which was created in November of 2007.

Oh, and one more…

As a final note, there is one other area worth mentioning here that Lubbock County does well that didn’t make it to these awards: drug court. The drug court is a special court that hears cases involving nonviolent drug offenders and works to rehabilitate them. By doing so, it can divert the nonviolent drug offenders from the regular courts (and jail system), returning productive citizens to the community and saving taxpayer dollars. Really, the drug court deserves its own post, but I wanted to mention it here because people may not be aware that it even exists.

So, way to go Lubbock County! It’s nice to have non-embarrassing news from our area every now and then.