A backlog of nearly 10,000 warrants is finally being tackled.
Several months ago the News 4 WOAI Trouble Shooters requested information about the citations issued for illegal dumping in the Camelot II neighborhood. While researching that request, Bexar County’s Information Technology Department discovered tickets were being written in Precinct 3, but warrants weren’t being issued when people didn’t show up to court.
"We discovered that there was this massive amount of cases that were in limbo,” District Attorney Susan Reed told us today.
Justice of the Peace Keith Baker claimed he was unable to issue warrants because he had lost one of his clerks to budget cuts.
During a Commissioner’s Court meeting back in August, Commissioner Kevin Wolff asked the District Attorney’s office if and how Baker could be removed from his position. Shortly thereafter, Judge Baker opted to retire after serving the county for 30 years.
“It's been really eye opening for us and allowed us to really look at the system from one end to the other,” Wolff said.
Today, the DA’s office announced they would step in to help work with Baker’s staff on issuing all those warrants. The IT Department also installed new software to help process those warrants faster.
In just the last few weeks they've issued about 3,000 notices and plan to be caught up by the end of October.
On October 9th Commissioner's Court will vote on a plan to appoint a new JP for Precinct 3. Once they do that, applications will be available online. The person they appoint will fill the spot from January 1, 2013-December 31, 2014.
