‘What’s the rush?’ 2 Fort Worth council members want to delay hiring of city manager
A handful of faith leaders gathered with Fort Worth city council members Chris Nettles and Jared Williams at the new city hall on Monday, Dec. 9, to call for more transparency in the city manager hiring process.
They argued the selection was being rushed, and called into question the legitimacy of the council’s sole finalist. Jay Chapa, a former assistant city manager who was named Dec. 5 as the choice to succeed city manager David Cooke.
The city manager is responsible for the day-to-day operation of city government, oversees the budget and carries out the policies approved by the City Council.
“What’s the rush?” Williams said.
The council was not made aware of the vote to confirm Chapa until moments before the Dec. 5 announcement, he said.
Both Williams and Nettles accused fellow council members of picking Chapa at the beginning of the process without giving other candidates a fair shot. Both stressed their criticism had nothing to do with Chapa’s qualifications, but more to do with the distrust engendered by selecting him without public input.
“It’s not surprising to anyone that governments around the country have issues with trust,” Williams said, adding that the process to select Chapa without having public input furthers that distrust.
The process was flawed from the start, Nettles said. He compared the process to hire Chapa to the ones to hire the library director and the police oversight monitor.
Those processes took months, but the public is getting less than a week to learn about Chapa before the council makes its decision on whether to hire him, Nettles said.
“I called that flawed. I call that baked and predetermined,” he said.
Both men called on their colleagues to delay the vote to allow the public to weigh in.
If approved, Chapa would be the first person of Hispanic heritage to hold the city’s top job.
Chapa spent 25 years working for the city of Fort Worth before retiring in January 2022 to open a private consulting business.
During his time with the city he led the development of the 2022 bond program and helped shepherd several economic development projects, such as the city’s partnership with Texas A&M and the development of the Crescent Hotel in the city’s cultural district.
Nettles raised alarms about the possibility their may be conflicts of interest between Chapa’s consulting work, and his position as city manager. He sent a letter to the city attorney’s office calling for a review of possible conflicts before the council’s final vote.
The council will vote on the nomination at its Tuesday, Dec. 10. meeting.
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