Precinct 2 Constable
By Robert Bell
Friday, 20 February 2009
Dale Vannoy, Williamson County Constable, Precinct 2
- Terms served: Appointed to finish unexpired term of Jim Wilson in 2004, elected in 2004 and 2008
- Office: 350 Discovery Blvd., Ste. 205
- Contact: 260-4270,
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- How does a constable’s job differ from that of a sheriff’s?
- We’re required by law to have more training than what a sheriff’s deputy would because our knowledge and our responsibilities are much more broad.
The sheriff’s office primarily enforces and supports the criminal side. We have that full authority and same responsibilities statutorily, but we also have a lot more responsibilities on the civil side of the law.
Criminally, you can be punished with your life and freedom in Texas. Civilly, you’re punished monetarily.
One of my deputies involved with Leadership Cedar Park on Public Safety Day best described [our job]. He pulled out [the penal code book] and said, ‘When I was a police officer working in the municipal police department, this is the book I had to know.’ And then from the podium he pulled four different law books and said now, working in the constable’s office, he has to know these too.
- What is the chain of command at the Precinct 2 constable’s office?
- My staff reports to me and I report to the voters. That’s the premise of how the structure was organized many years ago. So essentially I get approved every four years — or not — whether I’ve done a good job or not.
- What unique challenges does Precinct 2 present to your office?
- The population growth is always the challenge — how you balance need and resources. [Increased] population breeds a lot of different things. Of all the good stuff that comes with it, there also seems to be the bad side that population brings with it as well. And unfortunately, in many cases, we’re the service provider that deals with those bad things. So just the rapid growth and the continued growth is always going to be a challenge as long as we continue to grow in double digits.
- Can you tell us about your education and background in law enforcement?
- To me, community is not just where you live, but it’s a sense of being. To make the community better has always been my desire. I’ve been in law enforcement for going on 14 years. I worked myself through a regional police academy. I worked for two municipal police departments. And then I got out of law enforcement for about nine months and bought a local business here in Lakeline Mall. That business did really well. Then the opportunity evolved in the constable’s office to get back into uniform and provide management in a law enforcement capacity, and that’s what attracted me to the business. The constable’s office is one of the few departments in the county that generates revenue for our services. We don’t consume all tax monies. A lot of the services we provide are paid for when the services are rendered. So there’s a big part of the constable’s office that is business related. Taking my business skills and experience, combined with my law enforcement, is what really attracted me to consider the opportunity at the office of the constable, especially in my own backyard.
- What would be some of those activities that generate revenue?
- There are fees associated with each paper served. Some of the more routine papers are service of subpoenas for criminal and civil cases. A lot are evictions. If people fail to follow through part of their commitment on a lease, then we have the duty to go out and to continue to enforce the process and to let landlords recover their property.
- What is another challenge you and your deputies face?
- I think that anytime, when the people give you their trust, it’s always important to make sure that you’re connected with the community. Those services should be a resemblance of that community and what their expectations are. I really don’t see it as a big challenge, but it’s a constant awareness that I operate on a daily basis to make sure that we are engaged with the public, so we do know how the community is, how it’s evolving, how change comes, so that we can try to predict where those challenges are in the future.
- It’s not significantly different than the growth. I don’t know if there’s any other big challenges other than the growth. There’s a constant awareness of some issues that you have to be aware of, but any big challenges, there are none.
