A forum featuring Wood County judge and the district attorney candidates was held at the Yantis Community Center last Thursday night. A crowd of 30 people were on hand to hear from the candidates and submit questions to moderator Jim Rogers. 

The forum started with the Wood County judge’s race between Judge Lucy Hebron and challenger Kevin White. 

Incumbent Hebron was the first to speak. “I am a military brat. My Dad was in the Air Force so we traveled around a lot. I am a native Texan. Several years ago my husband and I wanted to start a family and we ended up in East Texas thinking we would be here for a while, but lo and behold we are still here 30 years later,” Hebron noted. “The cost of living here is low and the quality of life is high. I have spent the last 30 years doing legal work. I have experience in the legal field and the financial field. I can give back to my community; what I do best is legal work, financial work and community service. I ran on the basis of leadership, financial background and legal experience. I have put those assets to work for you in saving the taxpayers of Wood County money by improving court efficiencies, by working on case backlogs, speeding up the case disposition rates, and this is all something I did not do by myself. It is a joint effort. I hope you remember that experience counts, results count and leadership counts.”

Challenger White gave his opening statement. “I am the fifth generation of my family to call this my home. I have had a 30-year career in education as a coach, a teacher, athletic director and high school principal. I know exactly how to run an organization. In 2015 I retired and went into the oil and gas leasing business and started real estate sales. I looked in the paper and saw that Jack Jones, our city councilman in Mineola, was not going to run. I ran for the spot and won,” White said. “The city was in financial stress. Working with the mayor at that time, Rodney Watkins, we tried to stop the bleeding. He told me he was not running again and wanted me to be the Mineola mayor. Through organizational methods I had learned in 30 years we righted the ship. We were able to make payroll in October 2015 and when I left office, we had over $9 million dollars in the bank. I never raised people’s tax rate. We were able to do that with cooperation of all the city departments. We were able to exceed our budget expectations without raising taxes through cooperation and collaboration.”

Wood County District Attorney Angela Albers and former DA Jim Wheeler were up next. Albers talked about experience. “The last election I ran was about experience and this one is about integrity and I am the candidate with integrity. I am committed to justice for all citizens. I’m committed to opening and keeping the bridges I have rebuilt with the law enforcement community. I keep my commitments and I keep my word,” Albers stated. “Since my appointment in 2019, I have raised over $15,000 for Wood County non-profit agencies. I also implemented the first-ever ‘No refusal weekend’ in Wood County. I have worked hard to keep the streets of Wood County safe. I applied for and received a grant for a victim’s coordinator so we are serving the victims in Wood County again. I am tough on crime.”

Challenger Wheeler gave his credentials. Wheeler worked in the McLennan County DA’s office after graduating from Baylor Law School. “I successfully transitioned to a private practice in Wood County at the request of my father. As a defense attorney I successfully defended Judge Larry Pack. I represented Genie Wilson who was falsely accused of molesting her children. I’m running for this job because I was asked to,” Wheeler said. “There are people who are good people getting hurt because the atmosphere at the courthouse is poison. I’d like to fix the mess at the courthouse and I am here to offer my services.”

A question was asked concerning what the DA candidates thought was Wood County’s biggest problem. “The problem in Wood County is like it is all over the nation, it is drugs,” Albers said. “I personally tried most of the cases in 2019 and we got shut down most of 2020 because of COVID. I talk to the juries afterwards and ask what they think should be done about drugs. If I ask each of you, most of you have a family member or a friend with a drug problem. I do my part, I prosecute people. For first time offenders I try to give them an opportunity with probation. It gives them the opportunity to turn their life around with treatments.”

Wheeler talked about the problem being the presence of a senior level cartel. “I asked the attorney general to come down with their trafficking task force in 2018,” he said. “Operation Dirty Bird made clear the distribution of meth oil and the trafficking of children stretches all the way to the East Coast and as far north as the Great Lakes. Our biggest problem is the cartel presence in this county. I expect our United States Congress to dedicate funds to Wood County to address the cartel presence that is moving methamphetamine through this county using its citizens and attracting its children. If that is not addressed this county will suffer.”

Additional forums are Thursday, Feb. 3 at Mineola Civic Center; Monday, Feb. 7 at Hawkins Community Center; and Tuesday, Feb. 8 at Quitman Public Library. The date of the primary is March 1. Voter registration deadline is Jan. 31.