Following eight years as Constable of Precinct 4, Republican Trever Nehls is challenging Judge KP George, to take over the position of Fort Bend County Judge.
The issues that will take front and center of this race include the handling of the county’s law enforcement resources and the effort to decrease unnecessary county expenditures.
George has led the county through the pandemic, electrical grid issues, and inclement weather storms. He has also increased job availability, invested in public safety infrastructure, and cut taxes for county residents.
In addition to his time as Constable, Nehls served 33 years in the military, retiring as a Colonel. He is running against George to tackle what he reports as an increase of crime in the county, under George’s leadership.
He attributes the rise in crime to shortage of law enforcement, claiming that the county is missing 145 deputy personnel in the sheriff’s offices and 70 deputies short for county patrolling purposes. Nehls has made a commitment to allocate the necessary resources to ensure the county matches these vacancies.
Additionally, in an effort to what Nehls describes as ‘out of control’ taxes and inflation, if elected he has plans to decrease tax rates for Fort Bend County residents.
George plans to continue his concentration in public infrastructure to meet the needs of the growth of the county. “That includes building enough roads, expanding public transport operations and making sure people can get to where they need to go without sitting in traffic,” Taral Patel, volunteer coordinator of George’s campaign said.
George will also continue his efforts in flood and drainage management with the Army Corps of Engineers to do big regional studies and propose solutions in the form of drainage bond mitigation projects, Patel said.
George received criticism concerning his handling of COVID-19 following a request for an audit of an awarded vaccine outreach contract. George supported the audit, which found the contract that was estimated to be $343,000, had only seen a share of $102,237 paid out by the county. The county decided to put the contract on a hold.
In response to this scrutiny and his pleas for residents to stay home and wear their masks during the pandemic; George received a string of hate emails, Facebook comments and other prejudicial notes left by residents on social media sites.
“He is the first chief elected official of color to ever lead the county,” Patel said. “It is a call to action to remind us this stuff exists.” Though there have been no specific attacks of this nature during this election cycle, there is some concern that with his re-election efforts there is an increased chance of sentiment like this being spread again.
According to Patel, Fort Bend County has seen a high turnout within the last few days of early voting. Voting locations around the county had voters waiting their turn to cast ballots outside polling locations, which was not the case in the first few days of voting. There are still a good portion of voters who need to cast their ballots and will do so on Election Day, Patel said.
In Fort Bend County, all Election Day polling sites will be open and available to voters from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2022.
