As the political battles become more pronounced, the truth is becoming hard to find in Kerr County

When Roman Garcia denied that he placed an item on a recent Kerrville City Council agenda, it was a remarkable moment because it was another example of his dishonesty.

While campaigning from a position of integrity, Garcia repeatedly showed contempt for facts and the truth during his first three years on the City Council, and his approach to governance is just one example of what qualifies as a Kerr County Republican — dishonesty. 

Once a bastion of President Abraham Lincoln’s traditional and honest values, it tolerates and even embraces dishonesty. This fringe takeover in Kerr County has left old-school Republicans in disbelief at the extremes that now infect the GOP. A growing number of new Republicans embraced conspiracy, bullying and defamation to get their way. 

In recent years, acts of intimidation and bullying went unanswered by those in elected office, or when faced with facts, some GOP members decided it was a cheap shot when questioned about their connections. Most recently, Kerr County GOP operatives misled business owners by saying they were passing out “non-partisan” voter guides, even though the literature directly endorsed candidates running for Kerrville City Council.

When Hill Country Community Journal Publisher Tammy Prout was involved in a traffic collision, members of We The People Liberty In Action suggested that Prout, who at the time was running for Precinct 1 Commissioner, was drunk. Another whisper campaign began that suggested Prout’s husband, a Kerr County Sheriff’s captain, had covered up the crash. No one apologized to Prout. 

In recent months, those affiliated with Kerr County Precinct 2 Commissioner Rich Paces bombarded the Kerr County Tax Assessor-Collector’s office, searching for evidence of widespread voter fraud. As that effort persists, fringe elements ignored former Precinct 1 Commissioner Harley Belew’s felony conviction that should have prevented him from running for office. 

The problem isn’t just here in Kerr County but across the nation, where dozens of Republican operatives are facing criminal prosecution connected to efforts to cast fake electors to support Donald Trump in 2020. Others tied to Trump plead guilty to crimes related to election interference in Georgia. Former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani suffered catastrophic legal defeats after accusing a pair of election workers, a mother and daughter team, of voter fraud. 

None of that matters to the diehards in the party, who have affixed themselves to constitutionally credulous claims of civil rights discrimination. 

Consider our current cast of those aligned with the Kerr County GOP and some positions they’ve taken. 

Kerr County Precinct 2 Commissioner Rich Paces

• Paces has earned the dubious distinction of being one of the most dishonest politicians in recent memory. His dishonesty is a direct attack on our democratic process. By buying into conspiracy theories and spreading lies about the 2020 election, Paces has undermined the very foundation of our elections. In recent weeks, Paces suggested that Kerr County’s elections were possibly corrupt and embraced a nonsensical 2022 election recount by Kerrville Place 3 City Council Candidate Brent Bates, who got trounced in a bid for mayor in 2022. 
• Paces led a campaign against three general obligation bonds to improve county facilities, including a new animal shelter. To do this, Paces used fuzzy math and outright dismissed the work of a five-person team that spent three years developing the bond proposals. 

Former Precinct 1 Commissioner Harley Belew

• Belew’s dishonesty is usually couched as entertainment until it finally caught up with him thanks to his removal from the Commissioners’ Court last year. The shock-jock DJ spends most of his day concocting fanciful conspiracy-driven stories on his radio show. However, when The Lead revealed that he was a convicted felon, essentially committing election fraud on two occasions, he pulled up all the stops to convince people that his conviction wasn’t what it seemed. It was what it appeared: he was a convicted felon who lost three court rounds trying to prove he wasn’t. 
• When Belew sat on the court, he rarely did anything, and when it came to budget discussions last year, he bailed on the meetings, only showing up periodically. 
• When the requirement came to put general obligation bonds on the ballot in 2022, he decided to skip the meeting rather than take action to cast a yes or no vote. 

We The People, Liberty In Action

• We The People, Liberty In Action is dishonest in many ways, and it’s hard to categorize all of the falsehoods this group commits. The origins began with “Let Us Vote,” which worked to torpedo a revenue bond to construct a public safety building in Kerrville, and then morphed into the considerably more toxic We The People, which operates in the muck between heavily regulated political action committee and nonprofit. The group lies about Kerrville’s budget, advocates for anti-LGBTQ+ politicians and ignores the moral failings of politicians solely because they support extreme measures. They repeatedly apply disinformation to Kerrville’s debt situation, creating an aura that the city’s financial situation is unsustainable. They pin the number at $120 million without context; more than half of that money comes from two buckets — water infrastructure and the new voter-approved public safety building.
• Even worse, when they faced embarrassing evisceration by a federal judge, they tried their best to spin it as a win. It wasn’t. All of that, of course, is based on their limited view of the law, and it showed when one of their lawyers became mute under questioning from the judge. 

Barbara Dewell Ferguson

• Barbara Dewell Ferguson attempted to lure a panel of water experts into trashing Kerrville’s significant investment and work with aquifer storage and recovery wells. Instead, the experts said Kerrville’s work with ASR wells was important, innovative and groundbreaking (because Kerrville was one of the first to do it). However, the underlying message is clear: Dewell Ferguson has worked to undermine confidence in Kerrville’s water system without considering that all water systems are inherently fragile. 
• Dewell Ferguson, joining the We The People chorus, started chirping that the city was trying to control political and religious speech. To do it, she pointed to the timing of the ordinances and the election. 
• When faced with most of her early campaign expenditures being spent at out-of-town businesses, Dewell Ferguson took to Facebook to say the city gave Lennar $30 million. The city allowed Lennar to recoup $27 million in infrastructure costs if it met performance standards over the coming years. It’s not a $30 million gift, and the mechanism Lennar uses to get that money is backed by state law. 

Others embrace dishonest arguments or conflate the truth, but Garcia’s failures are an appalling reminder of his unfitness for office. While others only see the veneer, careful observers of City Council meetings see grandstanding and disrespect to Mayor Judy Eychner. Just remember the following: 

• Garcia tried to suggest he had a bachelor’s degree from Texas Tech. He tried to dismiss it, but that was a red flag for those who have been hiring managers. He only dug himself into a deeper hole by suggesting his website never said he had a bachelor’s degree. After being confronted by reporter Rosa Lavender of the Hill Country Community Journal, he ran away. 
• In a past City Council meeting, Garcia claimed a letter from the Secretary of State said Kerrville must conduct its election in November 2022. No such letter existed in the context Garcia and his equally dishonest collaborator George Baroody suggested. 
• And when a frustrated Mayor Bill Blackburn lashed out at Baroody for his preposterous and nonsensical position on the November election issue, Garcia backed an ethics complaint against the mayor. 
• Knowing the arguments weren’t true, Garcia read into the public record letters accusing his City Council colleagues of profiting off land deals. 
• Garcia’s moral failing was striking when a Mountain Home sent a letter to the City Council wishing the death of four members. Garcia earned a reprieve from inclusion because he supported book-banning efforts at the Butt-Holdsworth Memorial Library. When the City Council voted to add additional security for City Hall meetings, Garcia voted against it. 
• When Mike Hayes confronted Garcia about repeatedly accusing the city of legal wrongdoing, Garcia led another fight against Hayes that dredged up memories of a previous effort to fire Hayes led by former Mayor Bonnie White. 
• And in the last few weeks, Garcia denied that he was the one who asked for the soliciting, canvassing and peddling ordinance to be included on future agendas. He did exactly that in August 2023, but blamed city staff for its inclusion six months later.  

And others are emerging. Thanks to Wes Virdell’s presumptive election as the 53rd District Representative, Kerr County now has a seat at the table for Texas secession. More to come.