New Como mayor suspends police

COMO—Como city council members emerged from an executive session at Tuesday evening’s regular meeting to immediately take a vote on the indefinite suspension of Como’s police department. The vote was unanimous.

“After much deliberation, …there is one thing we have to do tonight,” new Mayor Jerry Radney said. “We just want to change some directions.”

At 1:23 p.m. Wednesday, public safety director and lone Como police officer Andy Lowen signed off.

“Please advise I am out of service, and I have been defunded. Thank you for your time here,” Lowen told dispatch.

“After much deliberation and talks about the direction of the city and where we’re at and some things that need to be done, there are a lot of things, and we can’t do everything in one day, but there are some important things that we need to take care of tonight,” Radney announced following the executive session. “One thing we have been discussing is the Department of Public Safety and fire. We will be discussing with Andy [Lowen] directly.”

When asked about the fire department by a firefighter who was present, Radney stated that the council would discuss the topic with the involved parties “directly.”

“We still need to have those meetings,” he said.

Lowen explained in a phone interview with the News-Telegram Wednesday, “When Darla [Henry] hired me almost two years ago, I was hired for code enforcement. I need to be able to write tickets, have a court to go to if needed.”

A few months later, Lowen stated that Henry wanted to move forward with a local police department and asked him to be the chief or director of public safety.

“At the meeting last night, he [Radney] told me, ‘We don’t have a court, you haven’t written any tickets, you haven’t been developing any revenue. …We’re going to close it [Como Department of Public Safety] down until we can get a court set up,’” Lowen said.

Radney verified this plan in a phone interview with the News-Telegram late Wednesday.

“There are some things that need to be in place prior to getting that back running, so we really felt that in the best interest, instead of us just wasting…taxpayer money, just running a patrol car up and down the street without any enforcement of law…because we don’t currently have any court or judge that oversees anything,” Radney explained about the decision.

He further said that they do want a police presence, “We just don’t want it to continue like it is right now.”

Lowen has been doing everything he can do, Radney said, since “other than writing a letter saying, ‘please clean up your place,’ ‘don’t park here.’ That’s really all we were doing was asking things, and they weren’t being complied with because they weren’t being followed up with a citation or even a warning,” because the court system isn’t currently in place to provide that support.

“It will be in the best interest of the city to have a [law enforcement] presence here,” Radney said. “We want this to be a quick resolution. …We want to make sure that we do everything [setting up local law enforcement and court] right, so it’s set up the right way.”

To establish a court, according to the State of Texas Government Code 29, a municipal judge and court clerk must be in place. They are “selected under the municipality’s charter provisions relating to the election or appointment of judges.” A municipality can authorize an election of a judge or one may be appointed, depending on the city’s charter. In some cases, the mayor may serve as ex officio judge of the municipal court, meaning that the person holds another office and judicial powers are implied.

The judge may then serve for two years. Following the election or appointment of a judge is the appointment of a security committee comprised of the judge or their proxy, a member of local law enforcement, a city citizen and anyone else the judge appoints as necessary to the proceedings of the committee.

Radney stated that COVID is now the current top priority.

“We haven’t done anything with anything else. COVID is top priority here, so let’s start going with that. We have some COVID monies, but we didn’t discuss that,” he said. “We just want to change some directions.”

—News-Telegram reporter Taylor Nye contributed to this report.