Commissioners discuss exempt vehicle plates, table action on order

Gonzales County commissioners will wait another three weeks before deciding whether to adopt an order that would allow certain county vehicles to bear general issue license plates and not have descript markings rather than be required to have exempt plates.

Commissioners discussed the order on Monday, Oct. 24, about a month after previously discussing the issue of exempt plates during a September court meeting, when Gonzales County Attorney’s chief investigator John Brumme asked to have a general issue plate placed on his Tahoe, similar to what Emergency Management Coordinator Jimmy Harless has on his vehicle.

At the Sept. 25 meeting, Precinct 3 Commissioner Kevin La Fleur and Precinct 2 Commissioner Donnie Brzozowski had said when they originally approved giving vehicles to Brumme and Harless, it was with the idea that these departments would have “more visibility, so they were (to be) Gonzales County marked.”

“Now, I don't know if we're going undercover or what that we’ve got to have these different license plates and unmarked cars,” La Fleur said. “The reason we did it was for visibility.”

“We received phone calls when we were turning in people’s driveways, Jimmy and I, and our offices were getting complaints,” Brumme answered. “We got some very hostile people who called in the past and wondered why we were turning around in their driveway, so we were trying to eliminate some of those phone calls.”

“I agree with Commissioner La Fleur,” Brzozowski said. “I distinctively remember that when we did these two cars that we wanted them with the signs and stuff on them so people would see them. It would be important to have exempt plates and some sort of sign on (Harless’) since you are the emergency management coordinator. What was the reason for putting a regular license plate on your car?”

“My concern nowadays with law enforcement is that we can be a target,” Harless said. “I'm not driving around in uniform with a full vest, going to calls. And with the sign of the times now, I would prefer not to be a target as much as possible. That was my reasoning.”

Brumme spoke about the need for a departmental vehicle to have what are sometimes called “alias” plates because the vehicle is used to transport crime witnesses or others who might become targets for retaliation.

“I do not wear a vest all the time like most patrol officers do,” Brumme said. “I also carry witnesses in certain cases and I don’t like to advertise that I am hauling a witness around. That’s why my windows are tinted darker in the back so they cannot see any witnesses inside the vehicle. If, at that point in time, I’m in a marked unit, they are going to be a target.”

Brzozowski was firm in his demand that county vehicles needed to be marked.

“I think they need to have exempt plates and I think they need to be marked like they were before, like we started out,” Brzozowski said. “That was decided in court and I don’t think you should have made those decisions without coming to court. If we aren’t going to follow the decisions we make in court, then why are we sitting here?”

County Attorney Paul Watkins said the “heat” for wanting to use unmarked vehicles shouldn’t be placed on Brumme or Harless. He told Brzozowski and La Fleur, “You're absolutely right. That's exactly what was agreed to six years or seven years ago, but the world is a different place now.

“Not only does John carry private citizens around in his vehicle, but occasionally he carries my staff,” Watkins said. “That was the reason why we wanted the vehicles to stay unmarked. There would come a time when that would be important and critical.

“The mistake was mine and I should have put it on the agenda and asked you gentlemen and explained it individually. But it's still a valid point and they are each law enforcement officers that are traveling out in public.”

Watkins said he receives phone calls “every week about ‘Who is this guy? What's he doing in my driveway?’”

“The first time I got it, I thought it was a joke, but it's happened the entire time John's worked for me,” Watkins said. “It is your call, but you can't say, ‘well, six years ago, we decided that’ you have to decide that under today's conditions.”

Brzozowski made a motion to “go back to exempt plates on these cars and to have signage on them like we had in the past.” His motion failed to get a second, however, and died.

County Tax Assessor-Collector Crystal Cedillo then asked Brzozowski to clarify what he meant by “exempt plates” because there are general-issue plates for exempt vehicles that are allowable by law as opposed to the standard exempt plates that are issued for county-marked vehicles.

“There are certain vehicles they can apply for the standard-issue license plates on an exempt vehicle,” Cedillo said. “They are still considered exempt plates but they do not display exempt. So when you say exempt, it actually covers both.”

That’s when Precinct 1 Comissioner Dell Whiddon made a motion on Sept. 25 to table the matter until the next meeting and it was seconded by La Fleur and approved unanimously.

Fast forward to the Oct. 24 meeting, when commissioners began discussing an order exempting certain county-owned vehicles from standard exempt plates, which Cedillo had sent to County Judge Pat Davis along with the form VTR-119, which is the application for general issue license plates for exempt vehicles.

According to Section 721.005 of the Texas Transportation Code, the county commissioners court can issue an order which exempts having standard Texas exempt license plates on certain vehicles as long as they are being used to perform an official duty by the sheriff’s office, constable’s office, criminal district attorney’s office, district attorney’s office, county attorney's office, magistrate, county fire marshal's office, medical examiner or a juvenile probation department vehicle used to transport children. These vehicles are allowed to have general-issue plates that are still considered to be tax exempt.

Vehicles that cannot be issued general plates must have standard exempt plates and the vehicle must have the name of the count and title of the department in a different color from the body of the vehicle in such a way as to be “plainly legible at a distance of not less than 100 feet.”

With Whiddon absent from the court meeting and with a desire to make sure the order they pass conforms to state law and works best for the county, commissioners decided to table the matter until their Nov. 14 court meeting.

Harless did tell Brzozowski that he did go back and look into the original decision of the court regarding his vehicle and admitted Brzozowski “was right” that it was supposed to be marked. Harless said he is waiting now on artwork for his vehicle so it can be properly marked.