Jail alternative; Greene on Paris; put down the phone; bathroom bill

Jail alternative

I take exception to "Texas judges can opt for an alternative to jail...but they rarely do so" (“Texas mulls non-jail options for those who can’t pay fines,” Sunday). Here in your Tarrant County Justice of the Peace Courts, we have been offering community service in lieu of fines and/or payment plans for years.

The plea is the key. When one gets a citation, they have an obligation to contact the court and enter a plea. Disposition comes after that plea is entered. If they want a payment plan or community service those options are readily available.

The real problem is that folks choose to ignore their responsibilities, instead of contacting the court and taking care of business. Making a plea is the first step, and the vast majority of folks simply ignore their promise to appear.

When that happens, the only option to the courts is to either issue a warrant, (which is the exception) or turn the case over to the state OMNI agency. We must move the cases forward, we cannot simply allow cases to sit idly on the dockets.

Is it fair to the citizen who do take care of business, if the courts simply erase the tickets of those who do not?

Greene on Paris

Richard Greene’s column (“The irrelevancy of the Paris Accord,” Sunday) tried to make “hollow” the critics' argument that it is wrong to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement. Then at the end he sends a "global warming denier message" citing NASA’s finding that polar ice is increasing and “the planet seems to be doing just fine on its own.” A quick search on NASA’s website glaringly proves this false. While it’s true that some increases have occurred in the “Antarctic” ice cap, "overall global ice decreases" have far outweighed the Antarctic increases. I note the following from NASA’s article on the subject:

While the Antarctic sea ice yearly wintertime maximum extent hit record highs from 2012 to 2014 before returning to average levels in 2015, both the Arctic wintertime maximum and its summer minimum extent have been in a sharp decline for the past decades. Studies show that globally, the decreases in Arctic sea ice far exceed the increases in Antarctic sea ice.

Mr. Greene, as long as you quote partial tidbits of real data to justify your conservative views you’ll deny our future generations a world anything like what we have now. The planet is not doing just fine on its own. While the Paris Agreement is far from perfect, it’s a start. We should try to improve and build on the existing agreement. Otherwise the world may choose to drop out as well.

Put down the phone

A new Texas law will ban texting while driving.

How in the name of Alexander Graham Bell will the officer know whether a driver is texting or just dialing a number?

Many countries outlaw using a phone while driving — period.

This law should be just the first step.

Bathroom Bill

Why are Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick so eager to waste legislators' time and public's money in an effort to enact a totally unenforceable law? That's what SB6 would become (unless they also provide funds to hire monitors for every school bathroom in the state and issue state-approved ID cards to every student. Fat chance of that happening.).

This story was originally published June 12, 2017 at 5:25 PM with the headline "Jail alternative; Greene on Paris; put down the phone; bathroom bill."