ACLU sues Hidalgo County over truancy cases, ‘debtor’s prison’

EDINBURG — The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas filed a federal class action lawsuit against Hidalgo County this week alleging a “debtor’s prison” kept low-income teens in jail following school-related violations.

The lawsuit asks a judge to enjoin practices that have improperly sent dozens of the county's low-income teens to jail for weeks at a time for fines related to school attendance violations they were unable to pay.

The lawsuit, which was filed Monday in the McAllen U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, alleges that Hidalgo County magistrates failed to make indigency determinations before giving teens two options: pay or go to jail. This practice is contrary to Texas law and violates constitutional protections against being jailed because of one's inability to pay court-assessed fines, ACLU officials said.

The defendants named in the suit, other than the county itself, include Sheriff Lupe Treviño, judges and magistrates Mary Alice Palacios, Gilberto Saenz, Jesus Morales, Bobby Contreras, Rosa E. Treviño, Luis Garza, Ismael Ochoa, Charlie Espinoza, and E. “Speedy” Jackson.

"Locking up low-income kids in what is functionally a debtor's prison doesn't just violate the law, it compounds the very problem that truancy laws are supposed to address," said Gouri Bhat, ACLU senior staff attorney. "Hidalgo County is pushing students who need help into the criminal justice system instead of back into school."

In a written statement issued on Tuesday, Hidalgo County Executive Officer Valde Guerra said he could not comment on pending litigation.

“Hidalgo County has been made aware of the class action lawsuit allegedly filed in Federal Court by the American Civil Liberties Union; however, Hidalgo County has not yet been properly served as of this time,” Guerra said Tuesday. “…The county’s and other parties’ responses to this lawsuit will be made to the Federal Court, in accordance with the law.” 

Over the course of a months-long investigation during which dozens of records were reviewed, the ACLU of Texas found that teens who landed in jail for unpaid truancy fines were often first subjected to unnecessary ticketing by school police, and then deficient processing by the justice of the peace handling the vast majority of truancy prosecutions in Hidalgo County, Judge Mary Alice Palacios.

According to ACLU research, which started in April, Hidalgo County schools ticket significantly more students with the more severe charge of failure to attend school, a Class C misdemeanor, instead of truancy. Since January 2009, about 150 teens served jail time and that may be attributed to unpaid fines for failure to attend school or other school-related offenses. ACLU officials said Palacios handles most of the failure to attend school charges here and is aggressive about issuing orders to appear to teens once they turn 17 for violations that were issued years earlier.

“In many cases, teens and their parents had been under the impression that their outstanding fines had been resolved, but because of poor record-keeping and notice practices by Judge Palacios’ court, their failure to attend school charges remained pending without their knowledge,” officials said.

One of the plaintiffs, Elizabeth Diaz, 18, was jailed for 18 days in early 2010 because she and her mother could not afford to pay over $1,600 in outstanding fines related to truancy tickets dating back to 2006, court documents state.

Another teen, Francisco De Luna, also spent 18 days in jail after he was arrested on a public intoxication charge with 24 open warrants for his arrest for failure to attend school and other school-related violations dating several years back, the suit states.

The court or the county magistrate who committed the teens to jail made no attempt to make a determination of the teen’s ability to pay the fines. The teens were given no other alternatives to jail time, like community service or payment plans, the ACLU claims.

"The county's unconstitutionally flawed practice of jailing defendants who are unable to pay fines is the final failure that sends teens like these plaintiffs to jail," said Lisa Graybill, legal director for the ACLU of Texas. "This is a civil rights issue that extends far beyond the truancy context in Texas."

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Dr. Dahlberg leaving Family Health Center of Mission

By Carina A. Brunson

MISSION — Dr. Jason Dahlberg, a vital part of Family Health Center of Mission (FHCM) for almost four years, recently announced to patients in a farewell letter that he is leaving FHCM to relocate to Greenwood, S.C.

Dahlberg knew he wanted to be a doctor when he was 17, after he took a trip to Voice of Calvary Ministries in Jackson, MS to work on rebuilding houses. He said he realized that the church was meeting the spiritual and physical needs of the congregation and community.

“I remember thinking I wanted to do something like that someday, work with a local church to help people that are in need. I desired to be able to share of the love of Christ though my care as a physician,” he wrote in his farewell letter.

This desire led him to South Texas to work with doctors Matthew J. Johnson and Steven Havener.

At a recent medical mission trip to Reynosa, members of his former church in South Carolina where he served his residency, asked him if he would like to start a medical clinic in a new church they were organizing.

He was asked if he wanted to run a clinic in an unused portion of the church. The clinic would work with current programs that the association of churches already has set in place such as The Most Excellent Way, a faith based Alcoholics Anonymous and Celebrate Recovery, which brings in 200 to 300 people on a regular basis. The association is also supporters of a teenage program he worked with while he performed his residency in the area.

“At first I was almost a little upset, why ask me when I lived halfway across the country and not while I was living there? Then the practical questions arose: How would I get a clinic up and running? Would I be able to earn any income at all? Still I could not hide the fact that it was a church wanting to start a clinic for a group of people that could be reached through medicine,” Dahlberg wrote in his letter.

During an interview with Dahlberg, he said he probably wanted to do something like this four years ago.

“If this opportunity had come up four years ago, I would not have been able to do it. I maybe would have tried, but I probably wasn’t as equipped as I am now at 38,” he said. “These last four years I have really learned to be (a doctor), how to manage and run a clinic.”

Dahlberg has asked the government-funded community health center in the area if they would consider putting a branch in a church building letting him put the profits of the clinic back into the clinic to hire a social worker, counselor, or assist the church financially. If the clinic becomes profitable, anything above the fees of running the clinic will not go to him. All profits will go back into the clinic to hire needed staff.

While he knows there will be a lot of bumps on the road, he said he’s ready to see what will happen once he gets the clinic running.

He said he is ready for this new challenge and believes the time he has spent at FHCM with Johnson and Havener will help him in this endeavor. Dahlberg said he was blessed with great bosses like Johnson and Havener, the most organized office manager in the world, Janine Havener, an efficient and fun staff, and patients that trust him and follow his advice.

“There is not a day that goes by where I don’t look at myself and ask, ‘Are you sure you should leave this place?’ God has not promised me that following Him will always be comfortable,” Dahlberg said. “But He has promised that He will meet my needs as I try to follow His direction.”

While working at FHCM Dahlberg said he’s learned how to run an efficient clinic.

“These are great people to work with and learn from, because I think they do it so well,” he said.

As Dahlberg prepares to leave, Havener said he hopes he’s taught the young doctor enough to help him run his own clinic.

“I hope he has learned how the business side of the practice runs, because he didn’t have any experience running the business side of a practice before,” Havener said. “We tried to involve him, include him in some of those aspects. Because now he is going back and actually open a practice of his own. He is very capable and we didn’t really have much influence in his medical side.”

Johnson said the way Dahlberg enjoyed his practice was encouraging to watch. His general enjoyment in what he did was something Johnson said he learned from his time with Dahlberg.

“He is a great man and doctor,” he said. “He impacted the staff and everyone.”

As Dahlberg worked his final days in the Mission clinic, he reflected on his time learning how to run a clinic and the relationships he’s built over the years with his patients and young families he’s worked with.

“I am saddened to leave all my great friendships here in the Valley but I am excited for the future,” he said. “I would appreciate all of your prayers as my family enters into a time of great change.”

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HCCRD approves grant request resolution for commuter rail service grant

By Kathy Olivarez

EDINBURG — The Hidalgo County Commuter Rail District (HCCRD) passed a resolution this week in support of the Hidalgo County Regional Planning Consortium to apply for grant funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

The Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant Program is designed to support multi-jurisdictional, multi-faceted plans. The Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Transportation will be working with HUD on the project.

Officials at Tuesday’s meeting said $98 million is available for Texas. The proposed rail system envisioned by the federal government would run along the border from Brownsville to El Paso. Hidalgo County could get from $500,000 to $5 million for planning a commuter rail system.

Receiving the grant would be the first step in creation of a commuter rail system that would run from Mercedes to Sullivan City in Hidalgo County, serving the county’s 500,000 people, using existing rail lines. However, before commuter trains could be used, the existing rail bed would have to be reworked to accommodate passenger trains running at speeds of 70 to 80 miles per hour.

Rev. James Edge of Mercedes, who heads the HCCRD, said that Cameron, Willacy and Starr counties are already at work on their sections of the proposed border rail line. Edge said a feasibility study conducted by Lockwood, Anderson and Newman that looked at the ecology, technology and engineering aspects needed to create the line showed creation of the line is feasible. If funding becomes available, the east to west line could be operational in as little as five years.

Andrew Canon, transportation director for the Hidalgo County Metropolitan Planning Organization, said the project came about through a federal mandate, but explained the rail was not the only thing that had to be considered. Connecting transit lines to get people to and from the rail line had to be in place before the system could work. Planning for what would develop along the rail lines was necessary. This planning included what type of businesses would be created along the rail lines, the impact the rail line would have on housing, the location of transit bus lines and roads for vehicular traffic. Because the east-west line runs through the hearts of most Valley towns, it could lead to major revitalization of the downtown areas of local cities.

For those unable to afford vehicles, the rail line would dictate low-income housing close to the line. People would have to be able to walk to the station or use bus lines to get to the station. The grant will study the amount of subsidized housing located within two miles of the proposed rail line. Medical facilities, food stores and other essential needs of people without cars will be considered. If there are not enough at the present time, plans for increased subsidized housing to be located along the rail line along with other essential services would have to be planned for future development along the line.

One purpose of the line would be to aid families who cannot afford vehicular transportation the ability to move around Hidalgo County from one end to the other and access stores, banks, shopping centers, job locations, medical facilities and colleges without use of a personal vehicle. It would also provide transportation for those who do not want to fight the vehicular traffic on the roads.

Canon said it is getting harder to find right-of-way, ROW, to build roads. The amount of right-of-way needed for the rail line would be much less and thus easier to acquire.

Canon said plans include a long-range line that would run from the Hidalgo International Bridge to the University of Texas-Pan American in a north-south direction, with stops close to the McAllen airport and the medical center. While there were once short lines running to Hidalgo, some of the portions of the abandoned rail line have been sold so it will take longer to get new ROW. There may need to be new connections to take people to the medical centers. All the planning and ROW purchases could make the north-south line take much longer to become a reality, Canon said.

Similar connector lines are being planned in Cameron County. One would connect Port Isabel and South Padre Island to the commuter rail line.

Although Edge and Canon could not say how long it would take before the segment in Hidalgo County or other parts of the Valley or the entire line stretching to El Paso would take, they said they’re positive. As it gets harder to find land for roadways and the cost of owning a vehicle rises, more people will be looking for alternative methods of transportation.

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Gov. Perry: Prepare for 2010 hurricane season

AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry on Tuesday urged Texas residents to take steps to protect their families and property from potential storms this hurricane season. June 1 marks the first day of the 2010 Hurricane Season, which lasts through Nov. 30.

“In Texas, our strategy for dealing with disasters is to hope for the best but prepare for the worst.  Texans can be assured that no state is more prepared than ours to handle the full spectrum of threats, including man-made and natural disasters,” Perry said. “With national weather experts predicting a considerably active hurricane season, Texas residents must also do their part and take simple steps to protect their families and property to ensure we have a safe hurricane season this year.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an “active to extremely active” hurricane season, with an estimated 14-23 named storms, eight-14 hurricanes and three to seven major hurricanes. By comparison, an average hurricane season will produce 11 named storms, six hurricanes and two major hurricanes.

Last month, Perry addressed more than 1,500 individuals at the Texas Hurricane Conference in McAllen, which brought together state and local emergency response personnel, volunteer organizations and private sector partners to discuss ways to further enhance preparedness, response and recovery efforts during future storms.

In advance of the 2010 Hurricane Season, residents should take simple steps to protect their families and homes should a storm threaten the Texas coast, including:

• Creating a plan for your family;

• Having an emergency kit;

• Prepare your home and vehicle before evacuation; and

• Knowing your evacuation routs.

These tips and other helpful preparedness resources can be found at http://www.texasonline.com/portal/tol/en/emergency/hurricane.

Also, a special Hurricane Preparedness section is included in today’s edition of the Progress Times. This special section contains many useful tips and information to assist families in their hurricane preparation planning. Additional information will also be available on the Progress Times Web site www.progresstimes.net.

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