Jones files for TAC

Mike Jones is one of four Republican candidates running for Erath County Tax Assessor Collector (TAC) alongside a candidate on the Democratic ticket for the March 5 primary election. If elected, he wants to ensure that taxpayers are taken care of.

Jones, who was the first to file for the office of Tax Assessor- Collector, lives in the Clairette area and enjoys taking care of livestock on his property.

He has a Bachelor in Business Administration in Management at Abilene Christian University.

He originally moved here in 1995 and began to work for Coca Cola in sales.

Jones throughout his life has been extremely civic minded and has been on the board of the Stephenville Optimist Club, graduated in the 2001 Leadership Stephenville class, was on the ErathCountyCrimeStoppers Board and has served as the Vice Chairman for the Erath County Republican Party.

Throughout his life, he had thoughts of going into office and then 9/11 occurred.

In 2003, at the age of 32, Jones made the decision to serve his country and joined the Army. He served as a Signal Operations Support Specialist, helping with communications equipment. Jones entered basic training at Fort Benning and then served at Fort Gordon and then at Fort Campbell.

Jones was in active duty from 2004-08. He served with the 1-61 Calvary, 101st Airborne Division during Operation Iraqi Freedom in Southeast Baghdad from 2005-06. He finished out the military as a sergeant and served in the reserves from 2008-10 in Waco.

“I served with a great group of people, many of whom I’m still friends with,” he said.

Jones has several awards from his time in the military, many from helping those outside his immediate responsibility.

“I was never instructed to help this group (Civilian Police Assistance Training Team) but wanted to take every opportunity to help other units and groups in the area as much as I could,” Jones said. “The work these individual small units did is a huge part in trying to get the Iraqis secured and able to keep the peace. Not an easy task—not a safe task. I am more humbled and honored to know them and to have seen and worked with them.” During his time in the military, he worked in the division tax center, which aids those in the military and family members in preparing their taxes.

While serving, Jones took a leave of absence from his job and then resumed work in 2008. In 2015, the company was restructured and his job was dissolved. After attending school to learn about wind turbines and then being unable to secure a job in that field in Texas, he began working for Yumi in 2017 as a sales associate. He is still employed with yumi as a territory sales manager and says it has taught him a lot about customer service, people, how businesses are doing and an education on issues that independent business owners deal with.

“All of these will help me if I’m elected to TAC,” he said.

Jones said he was asked to run for TAC by friends in the local Republican Party.

He said he has gotten to know Chief Deputy Lana Stevens well over the years as a taxpayer and has began to garner knowledge both from Stevens and Jennifer Carey about the job, in the event he is elected.

“I have concerns about the logistics of anyone replacing a Tax Assessor Collector that has been serving for 40 years,” he said. “It’s going to be extremely challenging. We need to get stability as fast as we can and business owners need to be taken care of. You better have a good grasp of what happens in that office. It’s kind of like running to be the Wizard of Oz.”

Jones said, if elected, he will work to get stability back in the office as fast as possible and establish confidence for the taxpayer.

“We have business to take care of,” he said.