Longtime county judge bids farewell
Robert Hebert, who has served as Fort Bend county judge since 2003, was voted out during the November midterm elections. The 76-year-old will retire at the end of the month and took some time to discuss his accomplishments, challenges and plans for the future with the Houston Chronicle.
The conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: How are you feeling these last few days? Has it set in that you’re leaving office?
A: It set in on Nov. 6 when I saw the initial election returns that I was leaving. That’s not been an issue. If anything, I’m pragmatic and I’m a realist, and (if ) I lost by three or four hundred votes, I’d be second-guessing myself as to what I could have done different, what meeting I should have gone to, but I lost by over 15,000 votes. I knew when I saw the early returns that the election was lost, so I reconciled myself to leave. It’s an easy thing to do. I have a life outside of county judge. So I just have to redirect my energies to what I haven’t been able to do
a lot of while I’ve been county judge.
Q: What accomplishments are you most proud of during your time in office?
A: The problems that we solved. We brought, I think, a very businesslike structure to the finance issues confronting the county. I think the county has and will continue to benefit from that. I brought a comprehensive commitment to an executive management structure that I think in many ways offsets the weaknesses that commissioners courts have under state law. We let our managers run the county, and that wasn’t always the case, I’m told. I have no firsthand experience, but there seemed to be some initial resistance on the part of managers and elected officials to putting that structure in. Once they got comfortable with it, I think everybody embraced it, and I think it’s a good system.
Q: What do you think has been the most challenging part of being county judge?
A: The biggest issue is establishing yourself as a county judge in the eyes of the four members of the court. If you try to tell them what to do, you’ll accomplish nothing. I’ve said it before: The county judge is not a chief executive position under the law. The constraints of the county judge as an executive authority are numerous. It’s more like a board of directors.
Generally, 99.9 percent of our votes (in commissioners court) are unanimous, probably higher than that. The thing I take great pride in, from a county judge standpoint, most of our split votes are not along party lines. I had a split court for eight years, two Democrats and two Republicans. As Judge (Jim) Adolphus told me when he decided to step down, you can do anything in the county with three votes. Without three votes, you can’t do anything. That was the most challenging — keeping the three votes. Obviously, my goal was to strive for unanimity. I felt if we were 5-0 in the decisions we made, I think it really meant we were probably going in the right direction.
Q: Did you have certain goals left that you still wanted to accomplish in the county judge’s office?
A: I was getting ready to retire and my plan was to retire — when Hurricane Harvey came to town. I decided that I needed to do four more years because I believe that if we don’t have strong representation from the county in Austin and Washington, the further we get away from that disaster the less interest the Legislature and Congress have in funding it.
It’s a very critical battle for Fort Bend County residents because we have 300,000 people living behind levees. We have billions of dollars in value behind these levees. These levees aren’t structures built by the state or the federal government for the convenience of the population. These are levees that are built and paid for by local taxpayers. There’s no state or federal money in any of our levees. We have already paid millions of dollars in construction costs or debt to build the levees. We pay millions of dollars a year to maintain the levees.
I saw that there was a need for me to stay engaged for four more years, to help get the funding from the state and federal government that we need in Fort Bend County.
Q: What has been the most enjoyable part about being county judge?
A: You feel like you can really help the community. It’s the people that are important in the county. It’s not the county government. It’s not the dirt. It’s the people that are here and the communities that are being built. We have a number of different communities in Fort Bend County. We are the most diverse community in America.
I’ve always said that’s a very good thing. Regardless of the outcome of the election, I still think it’s a good thing. It’s the future of America, and we need to realize that. I don’t know how many synagogues, temples, mosques, churches, chambers of commerce I have met with in 16 years, but it’s probably up in the hundreds. Different communities, just talking about county government and finding out what we could do to do better. I think that’s the most rewarding aspect in the 16 years I served was the fact that I was in a position to do good, to make good things happen in Fort Bend County.
I think the county is in much better shape than it was when I was came on board. I hope that Judge KP George is very successful. I want him to succeed.
Q: What are the biggest changes that have taken place in the county since you took office?
A: (There were) probably close to 400,000 people that weren’t here when I took office in 2003. We’ve doubled population in this county since I took office. We’ve gone from a rural county with an urban component on the east side to a very urban county with a rural component to the west and south. Fort Bend County is an urban county. There’s no question there. We are substantially larger than everybody but Harris County.
Fort Bend will continue to grow. The growth is driven by dynamics of the Houston economy, which will continue to grow. I’m amazed to a certain extent with the degree in which the different ethnicities have integrated into a Fort Bend County community. Certainly, they all still have their church, religion, their traditions, but I’m very, very pleased that when I go out to talk to crowds, that the crowds reflect the diversity. I think that will only grow as the county grows.
Q: What are your plans as you exit office?
A: I don’t have to do anything, but I have a consulting business. I now find there are people of interest in getting me to do some work for them because I’m fairly knowledgeable in business matters, especially organizational development, knowledgeable in the mortar industry — water issues are a growing problem around the United States. My background is water. I’ll probably do enough of that to keep me busy.
I could basically go fishing and live a good life, but I feel like I need to give back. Even when I was running business, I was engaged in public service, have been for 60 years since I joined the Navy. I’ll continue to do that, just exactly how much of it, just depends on what’s available and what I want to do. I certainly don’t want to go back to working 60 to 70 hours a week that the county judge works. I’ve been there, done that. I’ll let KP do that.