Buda officials are going ahead with plans to replace their dedicated patrol from the Hays County Sheriff’s Office with their own police force. The city already has tabbed Bo Kidd to run the department after Hays County Sheriff Tommy Ratliff demoted him from leadership of the county’s Buda patrol last summer.

Hays County Sheriff Tommy Ratliff has promoted veteran officer Ronnie Strain to Lieutenant of Patrol. Strain has 12 years with the Hays County Sheriff’s Office.

Colonel Prentice A. Lindsay is retiring after 14 years on the Hays County Sheriff’s Office Academy Board. Lindsay, who spent several of those years as chairman, was honored in a ceremony by Hays County Sheriff Tommy Ratliff.

Hays County Sheriff Tommy Ratliff kept his losses low in Buda and was marginally favored across the county, winning the Democratic nomination to fill the rest of the term left unexpired when the late Sheriff Allen Bridges died in December 2008.

Hays County deputies traced more than a dozen stolen political signs this week to two teenagers in Driftwood. The matter has been turned over to the Hays County District Attorney’s Office.

Challenger Bill Huddleston came out firing against Hays County Sheriff Tommy Ratliff in the San Marcos Area League of Women Voters debate last week. Huddleston and Ratliff are competing in the March 2 primary election for the Democratic nomination.

A Staples woman was sentenced last week in a 2008 smuggling case that originated with a search of a San Marcos mobile home that turned up about two dozen aliens from Honduras, El Salvador, Mexico and Nicaragua. The aliens were being forcibly detained pending payment of smuggling fees by family and friends.

The Hays County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) held retirement ceremony last week for Deputy Alvin Eugene (Gene) Pittman, who is leaving for force after almost 17 years. Ceremonies were held at Barton and Wallace Middle Schools, where he served as a school resource officer for the last eight years of his career.

The Hays County Crisis Negotiations teams recently placed second in the Annual Crisis Negotiations competition. The event was sponsored by Texas State University, Hays County Sheriff’s Office, and the San Marcos Police Department.

The Hays County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) is looking for two men who ran a “pigeon drop” on an unsuspecting man Tuesday in Buda.