Effective next week, the Hays Free Press will replace its regular weekly online poll with excerpts of the best reader commentary on our stories. The Hays Free Press, since its founding in 1903, has sought to nurture dialogue about issues impacting the community. The launch of our new website in January helped amplify the voice of readers who choose to become engaged. Highlighting the most insightful and thoughtful of those comments on the Opinion pages of the print edition is another way we hope to encourage meaningful discussion.

— Brad Rollins, Editor

A Buda man died after being struck by a vehicle early Saturday as he walked along the southbound Interstate 35 access road near Cabela’s.

Donald Scott Roberts, 28, was walking in the inside lane of the frontage road at about 5:15 a.m. when he was hit by a 2009 Honda Civic driven by Nathaniel Villegas of Kyle, who was treated for non-incapacitating injuries at the scene, said Lisa Block, a Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson.

The accident is being investigated by trooper Jesse Amaya. More information to follow when it is available.

» Did you know Donnie Roberts? E-mail us here.

Central Texas Medical Center Chief Executive Officer Gary L. Jepson is leaving that post after nine years, the San Marcos hospital announced this afternoon.

“I believe someone with a new vision and fresh supply of energy will be best able to build on all that has been accomplished,” Jepson said, saying he “accomplished what God brought me here to do.”

Gary L. Jepson

Jepson said his tenure is marked by improvements to the Adventist Health System hospital’s quality of care and safety, citing a hospital-acquired infection rate below 1 percent. He also oversaw completion of a longterm facilities master plan and major expansion and renovation which included the new Women’s Center, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), cardiac unit and state-of-the-art operating rooms and surgical facilities.

“Gary has done an outstanding job transforming CTMC from a small community hospital into a modern day 178-bed medical center that is today providing a wide range of complex healthcare services throughout the Central Texas region,” said Ken Finch, Adventist Health System’s southwest region president and chief executive officer.

Jepson implemented new programs at the hospital including the Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Institute, which offers highly-specialized rehab care; the Institute for Advanced Wound Healing, a wound care and hyperbaric medicine program; the Institute for Healthy Living to promote healthier lifestyles; Advanced Imaging, a comprehensive outpatient imaging center built in partnership with local radiologist; the Kyle Clinic, offering primary care, lab, x-ray and rehab services to Kyle area residents; and the Sleep Improvement Center – helping diagnose and improve sleep disorders.

Under his leadership, the hospital performed its first spine surgery; recruited specialist; implemented a state of the art electronic medical records system; and partnered with St. David’s Health System to improve the emergency department and launch a neonatal intensive car unit.

“I have never had the privilege of working with a better CEO than Gary Jepson. “He has led CTMC through a period of explosive growth, improvements and change. Gary has been willing to make the tough and often unpopular decisions to facilitate the improvements while at the same time somehow managing to nurture and grow a caring culture at the hospital,” said Dr. Tom Porter, the hospital’s chief of anesthesia and former medical staff president.

An interim CEO will begin duties at the hospital before Jepson’s departure, Finch said.

Under the advisement of Hays County Fire Marshal Mark Chambers, the Hays County Commissioners Court enacted a countywide burn ban effective Monday, officials say.

The burn ban is due to drying conditions and possible high wind days, which could cause serious fires, the Hays County Sheriff’s Office says.

Under the ban, all outdoor trash and debris burning is restricted in the county. Also, extreme caution should be used with any required vocational fire source activity, such as welding. Be sure to always have an ample supply of extinguishing materials for emergencies, officials say

Surrounding counties also under burn bans include Travis, Comal, Blanco and Caldwell. The burn ban will remain in effect until further notice of the court. For any further questions contact the Hays County Fire Marshal’s Office.

Sherri Tibbe

STAFF REPORT

In her first response to former sheriff’s office criminal investigations division head Kevin Ficke, District Attorney Sherri Tibbe denied a political feud with Sheriff Tommy Ratliff, a key part of the lawsuit’s foundation. Ficke resigned this summer after Tibbe said she would not be able to use him as a witness because of a 1993 no contest plea to felony tampering with evidence while he was a law enforcement officer in Uvalde County.

Text of Tibbe’s statement:

“The recent allegations of a so-called public feud between Sheriff Ratliff and myself are unfounded and unrealistic. Furthermore, the idea that Mr. Ficke’s resignation was the result of any political disagreement between Sheriff Ratliff and myself is misguided and, in my opinion, deliberately calculated in an attempt to establish a legitimate basis for a lawsuit where one does not exist. Our agencies have worked well together since the time Sheriff Ratliff took office and continue to do so.

“While I am prohibited from addressing Mr. Ficke’s specific situation, I can say that as a prosecutor, I have an obligation to ensure the integrity of the criminal justice system. The public must be able to trust that investigations and prosecutions in this county are conducted in a manner that is both ethical and in compliance with the rule of law. Our juries must be able to trust in the system and the people who run it. I fully intend to do what I think is right in order to meet this obligation and will continue to do so in the future.”

A 37-year-old Austin man was killed Friday night in a single vehicle rollover caused by a tire blowout, an official says.

At about 10 p.m., Alfonso Rocha was driving eastbound on FM 2001 when he lost control of his 2003 Chevrolet Trailblazer after a tire blew out. His vehicle hit a barbed wire fence and ejected Rocha, who was not wearing a seatbelt, a Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson said.

The vehicle rolled over and came to rest on top of Rocha. He was pronounced dead at the scene, about two miles east of Windy Hill Road in Buda, the spokesman said.

San Marcos CISD Superintendent Patty Shafer at a special board meeting on Monday announced her impending resignation, effective Dec. 31.

Patty Shafer

In a statement issued this morning, Shafer said, “I feel that the timing will be good for both the district and me. Upward progress is evident in the district, and the board will have four months to do a quality search for a leader to take that improvement forward. Systems are in place for this school year that can continue as the new leader learns about the district and staff members before planning begins for the next school year. On a personal level, I am at a point where I need to devote more time to my family.”

Dr. Shafer became superintendent in spring 2007, replacing former Superintendent Sylvester Perez took the superintendent’s job in Midland ISD.

Trustees will discuss a superintendent search at their regularly scheduled Sept. 20 meeting, school board President Kathy Hansen said.

“Dr. Shafer’s retirement letter was received by the board with regret, but understanding for her many years of dedication to public education. She will be truly missed by the faculty, staff, students, and community members of SMCISD. Through her guidance and experience, she led our district to excellence as noted in our Recognized rating. Her commitment to our district is appreciated, and she is to be commended for her tireless efforts,” Hansen said.

The Texas Department of Transportation will temporarily close a segment of the northbound Interstate 35 access road for about four weeks starting Monday.

The road will be closed from about a quarter mile south of Hillside Terrace Drive to about a quarter mile north Hillside Terrace Drive, said John Hurt, a transportation department spokesperson.

Traffic will be detoured around the closed section where crews are building an overpass. Traffic headed to Hillside Terrace Drive will be routed through Kelly Smith Lane.

» Download Ficke’s lawsuit here [pdf]

by BRAD ROLLINS

Sheriff Tommy Ratliff’s chief investigator abruptly quit his job this summer after District Attorney Sherri Tibbe said his felony charge 16 years ago of tampering with evidence discredited him as a witness for the state.

Now former Lt. Kevin Ficke is poised to sue the county for wrongful termination, saying his 1994 charge in Uvalde County became fodder for an ongoing feud between Ratliff and Tibbe. His attorney, Chad Dunn of Houston, said this evening that Ficke would file suit on Friday.

“All he’s done for 20 years is protect Central Texas citizens from criminal elements. He’s essentially become collateral damage for a public spat between two public officials who should know better,” Dunn said.

Ficke submitted his resignation on June 24, three days after Tibbe’s office faxed a letter to Ratliff that said Ficke’s “continued employment at the Sheriff’s Office places in peril not only future cases in which he may be a potential witness but also raises legal concerns with regard to prior cases which resulted in a criminal convictions and [in which] Lt. Ficke’s history of misconduct was not disclosed to the defense.”

As the sheriff’s office chief investigator, the letter stated, Ficke was subject to be called as a witness in any case investigated by the criminal investigations division. As the supervisor in charge of the evidence room, Ficke was a potential witness in other agencies’ cases in which evidence had passed through the sheriff’s office, Tibbe wrote.

In a separate letter, also dated June 21, Tibbe wrote Ficke, “Our office must be able to vouch for the credibility of officers who testify on behalf of the State of Texas. As a result of your conduct, we are unable to do so.”

Ratliff, who was appointed sheriff in December 2008 following Sheriff Allen Bridge’s death, declined to be interviewed through a sheriff’s office spokesperson. Ficke, a trained hypnotist, was hand-picked by Ratliff for the position and widely regarded as Ratliff’s right-hand man in the department. At the time of his hire by Hays County, Ficke had worked as a Guadalupe County Sheriff’s deputy since 1996.

Two years earlier, in 1994, Ficke was sentenced to four years deferred adjudication for one count of tampering with evidence or fabricating physical evidence, a third-degree felony. The incident occurred while Ficke was a law enforcement officer in Uvalude County, but no one — not Tibbe nor Dunn — is willing to discuss the nature of Ficke’s offense because a state district judge in Uvalde County effectively sealed records in the case sometime in the last few years, shortly before Ficke was hired by Ratliff.

Sources close to the affair say the case involves tapes of a colleague’s drunken driving offense.

An order of nondisclosure like that granted by the Uvalde judge prohibits criminal justice agencies from disclosing to the public criminal history records related to an offense, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety’s records division. But such an order does not prevent use of the information within law enforcement and criminal justice agencies, the department’s website states.

The district attorney office’s use of Ficke’s past charge to force his resignation “was a reckless violation of a judge’s order done for reasons have nothing to do with law or law enforcement,” said San Marcos attorney Charles Soechting, who represented Ficke in the 1994 criminal case.

Soechting and Dunn said they do not believe Tibbe’s office only recently learned of Ficke’s prior charge. Said Dunn, “It’s not until this political spat that it has become significant” to prosecutors.

Tibbe, citing the Uvalde judge’s nondisclosure order, will not discuss details of Ficke’s criminal history or its application to criminal cases in Hays County. Her office is currently seeking an opinion from the Texas Attorney General supporting her refusal to provide the Ficke memos in response to a request from the Hays Free Press.

Told on Thursday that the Free Press obtained the documents through other means, Tibbe said the Supreme Court case Brady v. Maryland and subsequent case law requires prosecutors to disclose a wide swath of information to defense attorneys.

“The prosecution has an affirmative duty to disclose any kind of information that would be exculpatory or comes under impeachment evidence. There’s not even a good-faith exception to it if something is in someone else’s possession that you, the prosecution, doesn’t have,” said Tibbe, who emphasized that she was speaking in general terms, not specifically about the Ficke situation.

Though that case was subsequently sealed, as well, Tibbe has already disclosed Ficke’s evidence tampering charge in at least one case investigated by the sheriff’s office, that of Buda resident Stephen Hollar, who was indicted in February on a family violence charge.

This reporter sat in a courtroom on July 21 as 22nd State District Judge Charles Ramsay called both a prosecutor and Hollar’s defense attorney, as well as Soechting and an attorney from the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, to his chambers. Within a few days, references to Hollar’s criminal case file had disappeared from the county clerk’s computerized records system though not before a reporter saw an entry that indicated Hollar entered a guilty plea in exchange for 200 days in jail on July 22, the day after the case was apparently discussed in Ramsay’s chambers.

Hollar’s attorney, Todd Dudley of Austin, declined to comment, saying Ramsay ordered parties in the case not to discuss it.

Tibbe’s letter to Ratliff saying she could no longer vouch for Ficke’s credibility echoes language she used a few days later in a letter to San Marcos Police Chief Howard Williams regarding another embattled law enforcement office. In that June 25 memo, Tibbe said officer Paul Stephen’s “history of dishonesty” meant she could not call him as a witness in any cases he investigated. Consequently, even though an civil service examiner later ordered Stephens’s indefinite suspension rescinded, Williams has said Stephens won’t be able to work as a street cop.

Tibbe’s stance on Ficke and Stephens are concerning to the Combined Law Enforcement Association of Texas, said CLEAT attorney Tom Stribling.

“I don’t know that the complaint with the Ficke thing is that the district attorney believed that [the charge] may be Brady material,” Stribling said. “The problem is her taking a blanket position that he is not a credible person and she would never be able to use him as a witness. I think that’s kind of going out of her authority. That’s for a judge to decide.”

CLARIFICATION: The story was edited to replace references to a conviction on a tampering with evidence charge. Ficke pled no contest to a felony count of tampering with evidence and was sentenced to four years deferred adjudication. SEPT 1: Edited to say 1993 instead of 1994.