Meet the Candidate: Bill Ruland – Robertson County Sheriff
BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) -Early voting is underway and one race Robertson County voters will see on their ballot is County Sheriff.
All six candidates will appear on News 3 at Six before election day on March 5.
Gerald Yezak has held the position since 1996, but he is not running for reelection. Six candidates are vying for the position: Karen Box, Rip Brown, Johnny Lopez, Bill Ruland, S.A. Smith and Miguel Vasquez.
Ruland joined News 3 at Six on Friday to discuss why he believes he’s the right person for the job.
“I have 32 years in law enforcement. I’m about two months short of that 32 years. I started in Houston in Harris County, and I have a lot of experience in all phases of law enforcement,” Ruland said.
Ruland says if he is elected, residents can expect to see some changes.
“Robertson County is growing and there are a lot of challenges that come with that, and we are already starting to get those challenges now,” Ruland said. “We need to adjust some things. Of course, we’re all bound by budgets just like everybody else. So the first thing we’re going to do is we’re going to get in and have our Command Staff have full authority to do what we need to do to, get a smoother operation going and we’re going to take the existing budget and we’re going to find ways to get more visibility with the units out on the road. That’s one of the first things we’ve got to do from day one.”
Ruland also says he would focus on training.
“We’re going to train we’re going to exceed the state minimum standards. We’re going to try and work with Commissioner’s Court on some things to maybe entice people to stay instead of going in and out because once somebody comes in and they leave right away, it costs a lot of money again to retrain them and we’re going to try to avoid that so we can manage our budget a lot better.”
You can watch our full interview with Ruland in the player above.
