Another Mistake by the Jail but Where Does the Fault Really Lie?



The Bexar County Jail.
The Bexar County Jail.

What? Was Sheriff Salazar getting jealous because Constable Barrientes-Vela was getting all the media coverage? Does he believe in that old saying that all publicity is good publicity? I don’t know what the deal is but I know as a citizen of Bexar County that I am completely embarrassed and upset with what is happening at the Sheriff’s Office.

Sheriff Salazar has destroyed the reputation of the hard-working individuals at the jail. Everyone is looking at the officers as if they are a bunch of idiots and that’s the nicer version. For all those who bought into Sheriff Salazar’s insinuation that mistakes were being intentionally done to make him look bad, the officers are being perceived as criminals.  Those people don’t see that what he said was a desperate bid to avoid his incompetence being the issue.

In this latest mess-up two inmates were mistakenly sent to the Texas Department of Corrections.  On the bright side, they weren’t released outright.  According to the KSAT 12 article, there were two lists.  The original list had the inmates on it.  The revised list did not.  The officers had the original list.  Our question is, were the officers ever given a copy of the revised list?  It’s extremely obvious that there are major communication issues occurring at the jail.

If you listen to the Sheriff you will frequently hear him saying how they have changed the policy, are creating new policy, have revised processes and so on.  That’s fine but when you continuously change things you have to make sure people are fully briefed on the changes.  They need to be trained.  And those two things need to come AFTER the change has been tested to ensure it does not cause other problems.  Change in an organization is a process.

But hey!  Wait!  The Sheriff’s Office has a position for this!  They have a Change Management Specialist!  If all the different changes are confusing the officers and causing mistakes, shouldn’t this be something that is the responsibility of the Change Management Specialist?

Why don’t we ever hear about what he is doing to fix the problems?  Why isn’t he being placed on administrative leave for what is very obviously poor job performance?  Why isn’t his job at risk?  Could it have something to do with the fact that the person Sheriff Salazar hired into that position is his campaign manager, Robert Vargas?  According to a KENS 5 article, Sheriff Salazar said, “The fact is I needed somebody that is an expert in legislative issues, an expert in local government, and relationship building and Robert Vargas is all of those things.”

Maybe Mr. Vargas is knowledgeable in those things, though expert may be stretching it, but how much of his time is taken up reviewing legislative issues?  Being knowledgeable in local government just tells him who he needs to go to when an issue needs to be addressed, though we never hear of him actually doing any addressing of those issues.

No.  I don’t think his time is being taken up with those things at all and it sure isn’t being taken up with helping the officers manage change.  Relationship building?  That is something that could be taking up his time.  Funny how that aspect would be beneficial for Salazar’s re-election campaign.  I wonder what else Mr. Vargas is doing while being paid by the taxpayers of Bexar County?

The two inmates will be returned to the Bexar County jail to await their new transfer date.

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