Texas County Preps for Post-Vote Chaos

DALLAS — An increase in Lubbock County's property tax rate will allow the West Texas county to cope with financial and political problems if President Obama is re-elected in November, Judge Tom Head said Wednesday.

The additional revenue will offer salary support for prosecutors in the district attorney's office and allow the hiring of additional sheriff deputies, the judge said.

Insurrection or takeover of Lubbock County by the United Nations is unlikely in the event President Obama is re-elected, Head said, but the county must be prepared.

"In my opinion, the worst-case scenario that I see, politically and financially, is if President Obama and the Senate Democrats do stay in power," he said. "I have genuine doubts about what they are doing and what they will try to do if they stay in power. I have to prepare for that."

County commissioners will consider raising the current property tax rate by 1.7% on Sept. 10. The new rate would result in an annual increase beginning in 2013 of less than $23 a year in the tax on an average home valued at $110,200.

Lubbock County, which includes the city of Lubbock and Texas Tech University, has a population of 280,000 and occupies some 900 square miles on the southern edge of the Great Plains. Lubbock County is 325 miles northwest of Dallas.

The county is rated Aa1 by Moody's Investors Service.

Head is a Republican and former city marshal. He is in the middle of his third four-year term. County judges in Texas are the highest elected county official. It is an administrative, not a judicial, position.

Head said the tax increase is related to public safety and the safety of officers who patrol the large county.

The additional revenue would allow the sheriff to add three patrol units, including deputies and vehicles, as well as three detectives, a narcotics officer, and an animal control officer, Head said.

In an interview with a Lubbock TV station on Aug. 21, Head said additional deputies would allow experienced officers to devote their attentions to preventing U.N. troops from entering Lubbock County.

"I'm thinking the worst," he said on KJTV, the local FOX affiliate. "And we're not just talking a few riots here and demonstrations, we're talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms and get rid of the guy."

"Now what's going to happen if we do that, if the public decides to do that?" Head said. Obama "is going to send in U.N. troops. I don't want them in Lubbock County. So I'm going to stand in front of their armored personnel carrier and say 'You're not coming in here.' I don't want a bunch of rookies back there. I want trained, equipped, seasoned veteran officers to back me."

Head later said an invasion by U.N. troops is probably not going to occur.

"I'm not going to take those guys and stand in front of the U.N.," he said. "I don't think the U.N. is going to come rolling into Lubbock County. That's probably not going to happen,"

"An F5 tornado is probably not going to come into Lubbock. But as emergency management director, I have to be prepared," the judge added.

Head said he opposes President Obama's re-election, but prays for the president and other leaders every day.

"God put Barack Obama in office," he said. "I don't know why He did it. I wouldn't have put Barack Obama in office, but I'm not God."

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