From: Kaye King
Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2008 10:39 AM
Subject: Why I'm voting for Cindy Stormer
I want to endorse the following letter.
I am aware of the details and fully agree with what MaryLee has written.
It is time that we begin to think of what is best for our County and not just what serves a few.
The following letter states facts and only facts. Please spend the time to follow up on the information. Do not listen to propaganda and gossip. It is possible for us to have a well run County, but only if we, the citizens of the County, take the responsibility to vote with knowledge. We have to stand up and vote for what is right and not because we are afraid of consequences. Our County and how it is run is not just up to your neighbor, but to you and me. Please take the time to vote.
Kaye Briscoe King
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: MaryLee Alford <alford@ntin.net>
Date: Feb 17, 2008 9:48 AM
Subject: Why I'm voting for Cindy Stormer
Dear Friends,
I had the honor of serving on the Grand Jury. I was also the recording secretary while serving on the Grand Jury. My responsibilities included recording the dates of arrest for crimes. During my 6 month tenure on the Grand Jury I was astonished at the age of the cases we were reviewing for indictment. We handled an extreme backlog of cases. It was also shocking and eye-opening to see the amount of and severity of crime happening in Cooke County.
I do not know why the DA's office was so behind on cases prior to Cindy Stormer's being elected as our DA; there must have been a reason the work had not been done. I can only testify that the cases our Grand Jury dealt with were very old, pre-Stormer cases and numerous.
The DA's office under Cindy Stormer compiled statistical data regarding crime in Cooke County. The political finger pointing and denial compelled me to seek data outside of the County. Information I was able to obtain through the reporting mechanisms of the State and the Texoma Council of Governments supported the fact that crime was severely high in Cooke County at that time. Some wanted to keep this information quiet out of fear that it could have an adverse effect and look bad for our County. Others, including Cindy Stormer believe that the crime had to be recognized and dealt with in order to improve quality of life in our county. Lower crime is a quality of life issue.
Cindy has been strong at dealing with crime in our county under adverse conditions. She has kept records of the number of cases she has worked compared to the number of cases worked in the past. The problem of compiling such data is that it looks bad for the person who previously held the position. I don't believe it was Cindy's intent to embarrass the previous DA but rather to show that she (Cindy) is doing a good job as a public servant. However, the data showing a great increase in the case work may have created a certain amount of embarrassment resulting in controversy and uncooperative attitudes with some of our local politicians.
I witnessed Cindy requesting and being denied the necessary budget to more quickly clean up old criminal cases. As long as criminals were not being indicted and tried, many of these criminals remained free in Cooke County. When the Commissioners Court denied her budget request that would have enabled her to hire part-time help to prosecute these cases, Carl and I volunteered to donate the amount she requested because we wanted to do what we could to make Cooke County a safer place to live. The opinion from Texas Attorney General Gregg Abbott's office was, "District attorneys generally are not authorized to accept funds donated to compensate their employees. A commissioners court is authorized to accept such donations, and a commissioners court's acceptance of such donations is necessary before the funds may be used to compensate a district attorney's employees. A commissioner's court that accepts funds donated on condition that the funds be used to compensate the district attorney's employees, but fails to use the funds for that purpose, risks revocation of the donation." Our donation was not accepted by the Commissioner's Court. Had it been accepted, Cindy Stormer would have hired Lydia Springer to help prosecute criminals.
With her increased budget request and our donation denied, Cindy continued to do an excellent job for our county within the budget constraints. I have observed her working extra long hours, through lunch, and taking little time off in order to get the job done.
It is interesting to me that the extra amount requested for her budget to prosecute the backlog of criminal cases, which was also the amount Carl & I had volunteered to donate to the DA's office for the same purpose - was also the amount that the Commissioner's Court approved to pay for attorney fees for the District Judge in the mandamus action brought by Cindy Stormer. This too was very controversial but the ultimate ruling was in District Attorney Cindy Stormer's favor. The final ruling states, "We conclude that Respondent has exceeded her authority under article 39.14 by granting the defendant's requests A.2, B.3, B.6, and F.6 in their current form and requiring the State to create documents that currently do not exist or are not within its possession." You may read the decision yourself by going to the Texas Judiciary website: cca.courts.state.tx.us/OPINIONS/HTMLOPINIONINFO.ASP?OPINIONID=15584.
I recommend that you Google or search the names of the people you are considering voting for before you cast your vote. I found an article titled, A Devil's Deal in Dallas Court that stated, "Warder maintains there was no deal and that she did, in fact, disclose all exculpatory evidence, but her own paperwork tells another story. Faced with a heinous crime and two scumbags, did Warder make a deal with the wrong devil?" Read the story at http://www.dallasobserver.com/2007-09-27/news/a-deal-with-the-devil/
I am disgusted at the lack of cooperation between some of our judges, the Commissioner's Court and the DA's office and, as a tax paying citizen; I want a solution to this problem. I am not in favor of getting rid of a strong, respectable person such as Cindy Stormer. If our current political servants can't work better together, I'd rather see a shake up resulting in strong, disciplined, tough crime fighters with a good business sense who make quality of life and sustainability of this county a priority above their personal agendas.
I have tremendous respect for Cindy's steadfast willingness to stand for what's right.
Cindy is respectable, honorable, and tough enough to do what is "right". We need to keep her!
Cindy has served our county well and has an impressive background and education that includes training at the F.B.I. Academy in Quantico, Virginia and an advanced police certificate. To see just what she has done for our county I encourage you to visit her website at www.cstormer.com
REMEMBER EARLY VOTING IS FEBRUARY 19 – 29. Please vote early and forward my email to all in your address book if you want to keep this tough woman as our DA.
MaryLee Alford
P. O. Box 604
Muenster, TX 76252
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