Tarrant County Commissioners cut number of monthly meetings
Tarrant County commissioners voted along party lines Tuesday to reduce their meetings to once a month, beginning in October. Commissioners on both sides had concerns about how it would affect the functionality of the county.
Maegan South, assistant county administrator, told the commissioners that the change was suggested due to a review of data and a state legislature change. She did not go into detail about what the data said.
Beginning on Sept. 1, all governing bodies will have to post a notice of their meeting and the agenda three business days before the meeting takes place. The law previously said it had to be posted 72 hours ahead of the meeting.
Under this change, the Tarrant County Commissioners Court will post its agenda by 11:59 p.m. on the Wednesday before its Tuesday meeting. South said it takes county staff about two weeks to prepare the agenda for each meeting.
Starting in October, the Commissioners Court meetings will take place on the second Tuesday of the month. Until then, the meetings will continue on the twice monthly schedule as the court discusses the budget for the next fiscal year, which begins on Oct. 1.
Democrat commissioners Roderick Miles, of Fort Worth, and Alisa Simmons, of Arlington, voted against the change. Miles said the move limits the public’s access to address their representatives, obscures how their tax dollars will be used and lowers the standard for local government.
“Tarrant County serves over 2 million people and oversees health, justice, infrastructure and public safety systems that demand consistent oversight,” Miles said. “A monthly schedule does not reflect the urgency or magnitude of the issues we are entrusted to manage.”
He said the decisions made on the dias are time-sensitive and cannot afford unnecessary delays. Miles said this move to once meeting a month sends a message “that constituent voices can wait.”
Simmons said it is unacceptable to only meet in front of the public once when the commissioners are being paid “handsomely” to serve their constituents transparently.
With the exception of the county judge, who is paid $10,000 more, the commissioners each receive $214,191 annually.
Simmons highlighted that the meetings are already inaccessible to the majority of those constituents due to the 10 a.m. meeting time. She said the meetings could instead be held at night, outside of the typical work day hours.
Republicans Judge Tim O’Hare of Southlake and commissioners Matt Krause of Keller and Manny Ramirez of Fort Worth voted for the change, saying they’d give it a shot.
Krause said he shares some of Miles’s concerns but is hopeful that a reduced meeting schedule will make the process less “haphazard.”
Rather than diminishing the opportunity for transparency, accountability or engagement, Krause said fewer public meetings give the community a chance to “really understand and digest what’s going to come up at every meeting.”
O’Hare said his staff’s load is “so agenda heavy” that they are struggling to achieve what they want to or research more efficient ways to run the county. With the knowledge that he retains the ability to schedule emergency meetings or specially-called meetings, he said he’s willing to “give it a try” but he doesn’t know if it’ll work.
The county judge pointed out that the meeting schedule was cut down to two times a month from four in 2023, “and that seemed to work out from my perspective,” O’Hare said.
The six people who commented opposed the move to reduced meetings. One called it an “anti-democratic move.”
The same speaker, Katherine Godby, asked if the three who voted in favor of the change find it “unpleasant” to hear from the public.
“I don’t think the Fort Worth City Council makes anywhere near what you bring in, and they meet publicly quite a bit,” Godby, an Arlington resident, said. “I’m thinking that facing unpleasant things might be part of the job description for a quarter of a million dollars almost. We’re supposed to hold you accountable. The public is. But it’s really hard to do in Tarrant County.”
Fort Worth resident Bishop Kirkland said with the twice monthly meetings already stretching into the late afternoon, the once a month meetings will go “past supper time into breakfast time.”
This story was originally published August 5, 2025 at 2:41 PM.