San Antonio, TX

After six hours and five candidate interviews, Bexar County commissioners on Wednesday voted to appoint longtime Chief Deputy Rolando R. Tafolla as interim sheriff.

Tafolla pleased commissioners when he told them Wednesday he had already reached a mutual agreement with Premier Management Enterprises, a Louisiana jail services company, to terminate its operation of the jail commissary. The contract with Premier sparked an ongoing public corruption investigation that forced the resignation of former Sheriff Ralph Lopez on Aug. 31.

To his advantage, Tafolla also had the backing of both deputy unions and a detailed plan to put more deputies on the street at no additional cost to taxpayers, reduce call response times and continue to shrink the bloated jail population.

Tafolla, nominated by Commissioner Paul Elizondo, was sworn in just minutes after the court voted, first in a 3-2 vote for Tafolla, then unanimously to appoint him as head of the Sheriff’s Office.

Commissioner Lyle Larson nominated Michael Quinn, who retired as major after 26 years with the Harris County Sheriff’s Department, and Commissioner Tommy Adkisson nominated Matthew “Nite” Marshall, a longtime former constable.

Current Jail Administrator Dennis McKnight also was a strong candidate, but his refusal to say for certain that he would not consider a run for sheriff next year “killed his opportunity,” Larson said.

County Judge Nelson Wolff told the court he saw Tafolla as a “middle relief pitcher, not a closer,” someone who could continue to run the Sheriff’s Office with little upheaval until a new sheriff is elected in November 2008.

“I’ve never aspired to run for anything,” Tafolla said. “Wait, let me make that clearer. I will not run for sheriff — this coming election or the following.”

Wolff asked commissioners to remember that the scandal that enveloped Lopez did not extend to the entire department.

Earlier, Tafolla took great pains to distance himself from John Reynolds, Lopez’s longtime campaign manager and friend, who is still under investigation on allegations of bribery, money laundering and campaign finance violations, partly in connection to the role he played as chairman of Lopez’s Benevolent Fund board, which oversaw the commissary contract.

“John Reynolds is not my friend,” Tafolla said near the end of his hourlong interview. “I’ve known him since 1993, but if I’ve spoken to him for more than five minutes in all that time, it’s probably too much. If he told me to walk across the hallway, I wouldn’t do it.”

As Lopez’s appointed chairman of the Fund’s board, Reynolds pushed the Premier contract through, despite stiff opposition from several other board members. He later accepted payments from Premier in the form of consulting fees and donations to bogus charity accounts he controlled, court documents allege.

Premier formalized its intentions to divest its San Antonio assets and turn the commissary back over to the Sheriff’s Office in letter penned Sept. 4, the same day Lopez pleaded no contest to charges related to his acceptance of a Premier-paid golfing excursion to Costa Rica, along with Reynolds.

Tafolla said the board would meet today to formally accept the early termination of Premier’s five-year contract.

Reynolds, who says he has committed no wrongdoing, resigned from the board last month. Premier has not been indicted nor named specifically as a target for prosecution, and its attorneys have said company officials believe the checks were for real charities.

For reasons that remain unclear, the disclosure that Premier had agreed to leave the jail commissary and had already hammered out sales of assets back to the county was never made formally to commissioners, who, just the day before interviews were scheduled with the interim sheriff finalists, made it clear that candidates would be asked what they would do about the contract with Premier.

“We’re going to want to sever that relationship,” Wolff had said.

Once Premier is gone, the Sheriff’s Office will run the commissary, Tafolla said, while he decides what to do about the Sheriff’s Benevolent Fund.

A 25-year veteran of the San Antonio Police Department, Tafolla, 72, has been the Sheriff’s Office chief deputy, running the day-to-day operations, since 1993. In his law enforcement career, Tafolla held positions in patrol, homicide, vice, traffic and organized crime.

A lifelong resident of Bexar County, Tafolla holds a bachelor’s degree from Texas State University and an associate degree in law enforcement from San Antonio College.

As sheriff, Tafolla will oversee 1,826 personnel and be responsible for a $99million budget, which includes law enforcement and detention. In addition to working closely with Commissioners Court, Tafolla will work with the district attorney’s office, the courts and the city of San Antonio.

“My goal is to restore confidence in the Sheriff’s Office and to make it the best law enforcement agency in the county,” he said.

Source