Montgomery County Judge Mark Keough has a major problem

Update: "Montgomery County Judge Mark Keough facing DWI charge from September car crash"

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/neighborhood/moco/news/article/Montgomery-County-judge-facing-DWI-charge-from-15785487.php

Montgomery County Judge Mark Keough has a major problem: he's lost control of his vehicle twice in the past three years. On March 28, 2017, Keough “swerved into oncoming traffic several times” in Austin before hitting a flatbed truck, according to a crash report filed by the Austin Police Department [1]. Then on Sept 10th, 2020, he was involved in another collision striking one vehicle before coming to a stop through colliding with a constable's car on Grogan's Mill Road in The Woodlands. Department of Public Safety deputies collected blood samples from Judge Keough as part of the investigation; however, no toxicology results have been produced yet.

The simple solution to this problem is that until Judge Keough knows why he keeps losing control of his vehicle and addresses the problem, he shouldn't be driving. He's a danger to everyone on the road: (A) children walking to/from school, (B) pedestrians in general (a large portion of the roads in The Woodlands have sidewalks), (C) bicyclists, (D) motorcyclists, (E) other vehicles that have a lower/lighter center of mass than his SUV, (F) any vehicles in which all the passengers within may not be seat-belted for whatever reason. Why does this REALLY matter? Imagine if he had lost control of his vehicle in the Market Street area of The Woodlands.

Why is the simple solution not so simple? I'm going to tap my fingers here while the political action committee folks that were involved in Judge Doyle's alleged Open Meetings violation try to skitter away from the answer [2]. Ready? Too bad. The problem is that he would need to have a taxpayer-funded chauffeur in order to do his job at that point. I'm sure that the Montgomery County Constables would insist on the charge, which would then increase the cost to roughly $250k annually (likely more). Know what else you can get for $250k? Seven full-time bus drivers covering routes in the county. That may not seem very useful, but if they were deployed like a "shared ride" shuttle service, the 17 DUI fatalities out of 54 total in 2019 could be reduced [3]. Too drunk to drive? Call the shuttle service. All sobered up the next day and need to get back to your car? Call the shuttle service. Prefer instead to have a family member or friend just come out to collect you? Have him/her call the shuttle service. The savings? Multiply 231 DUI crashes (say, half of the total because you're never going to reach 100%) by roughly $500k (investigation time, police/prison resources, hospital expenses, bankruptcy, etc). That's $115,500,000.00. The Return on Investment? Over 400X's the investment. Try getting THAT on Wall St.

But there's a problem. THAT'S SOCIALISM! *dramatic scream* No, it's called "Democratic Capitalism" [4]. Regardless of definitions, there's a real problem. Judge Keough is a proud cutter of taxes [5]. Mangler, more like. Let's take a look at population A that's at risk each time Judge Keough gets behind the wheel: school children walking to/from school. Each time when the State of Texas cut funds to schools, school districts ended up increasing taxes locally [6]. And some of those cuts were real chicken feces. Right now, Texas has set a two mile radius in which its school children are expected to be able to walk to/from school [7]. Even as young as 5 years old. By the way, some learning problems don't become clear as to their cause, such as autism, dyslexia, or an emotional disorder, until the age of 7, and there are many issues with special education here in Texas [8]. Another special detail with that radius? It doesn't account for obstacles such as freeways or train tracks, so that two miles could actually be much, much longer in practice. So remember I mentioned that Judge Keough could end up running over school children next time? It's extra special because he helped keep them there, vulnerable, during his tenure as Rep. Keough.

Another organization that uses taxes to do its job and one of whose members could have been killed by Judge Keough last September? The Montgomery County Constables. Constables are generally paid by the county taxes that are imposed through property and sales taxes. However, they can be recipients of state and federal funding as well through various programs, but those funds are minor in comparison. Care to guess who in Montgomery County has the greatest impact on their budget? Anyone? Anyone? Keough [9]! This is possibly the reason that it's the Texas Department of Public Safety that's performing the accident investigation into the Sept 2020 incident. So does anyone know why it's taking so long to do the toxicology analysis? Is it COVID? Did they find some kind of chemical that's unusual? Doctors in Austin initially thought that Rep. Keough had suffered a stroke, but he provided a "clean bill of health" to address the Texas Medical Advisory Board's temporary suspension of his license [10].

Regardless, Judge Keough has a major problem, and he needs to accept personal responsibility for what it means...no more driving out of concern for the safety of others. If he doesn't face facts, then the people of Montgomery County will need to address the same conundrum: sacrifice safety or spend limited tax funds on (a) his personal chauffeur or (b) a mass transit expansion that can support his activities. And/Or they could start asking: If it sacrifices safety, are certain tax cuts really worth it? Look at the Return on Investment discussion above...

References

[1] https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/investigations/article/DPS-still-investigating-crash-involving-15709389.php
[2] https://communityimpact.com/houston/city-county/2016/06/25/montgomery-county-officials-indicted-open-meetings-act-violation-charges/
[3] (a) https://ftp.txdot.gov/pub/txdot-info/trf/crash_statistics/2019/40.pdf
[3] (b) https://ftp.txdot.gov/pub/txdot-info/trf/crash_statistics/2019/13.pdf
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_capitalism
[5] https://keough4texas.com/about_mark/
[6] (a) https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/rick-perrys-budget-sleight-of-hand/2011/08/15/gIQAuiGCHJ_blog.html
[6] (b) https://www.mytexaspublicschool.org/documents/budget-cuts-impact.aspx
[6] (c) https://news.utexas.edu/2018/10/09/texas-needs-to-fund-its-public-schools-differently/
[7] https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/pearland-news/article/Two-mile-rule-for-bus-service-now-the-norm-for-2124665.php
[8] (a) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-21/texas-saved-billions-cutting-special-education-now-the-bill-comes-due
[8] (b) https://tea.texas.gov/sites/default/files/Technical%20Assistance%20-%20Child%20Find%20and%20Evaluation%20-%20June%202020%20Revised%28v5%29.pdf
[9] (a) https://www.houstonchronicle.com/neighborhood/moco/news/article/Montgomery-County-judge-gets-additional-security-15719456.php
[9] (b) https://www.mctx.org/departments/departments_a_-_c/county_judge/index.php
[10] https://www.yourconroenews.com/neighborhood/moco/news/article/Keough-gets-clean-bill-of-health-following-March-12386938.php
[11] Image credits: https://ballotpedia.org/Mark_Keough

Elizabeth Jensen, PhD, PE, CSP is the Treasurer of Referee PAC, a non-partisan, non-ideological voter information service. https://refpac.org