Tarrant County commissioner accuses colleagues of canceling meeting to protect sheriff
Late in the evening before the Tarrant County Commissioners Court session scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 5, Precinct 2 Commissioner Alisa Simmons was notified that her Republican colleagues would not be attending.
With three of the court’s five commissioners not present, the session would not reach quorum. A county spokesperson announced the meeting was canceled on Tuesday morning.
Simmons doesn’t believe their absences are a coincidence. She thinks they intentionally broke quorum to avoid addressing items on the agenda that would have cast Sheriff Bill Waybourn in a negative light on the day he is up for reelection.
Waybourn faces Democratic challenger Patrick Moses in the race for Tarrant County Sheriff in the Nov. 5 general election.
Several agenda items related to the Sheriff’s Office “would have highlighted issues around Waybourn’s inept leadership and runaway spending,” Simmons said in a press release.
“Let’s be clear, this is an effort to sidestep accountability and shield Waybourn from answering tough questions from the public,” she said.
Representatives County Judge Tim O’Hare and Gary Fickes did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Tracey Knight, Manny Ramirez’s spokesperson, said the commissioner had to miss court for personal reasons and called Simmon’s accusation that the absences were an intentional move to break quorum “absolutely absurd.”
In her press release, Simmons pointed to agenda items related to hiring outside legal counsel in the case brought by the family of Anthony Johnson Jr., who in July sued the county and the jailers involved in the altercation that led to the Marine veteran’s death.
The county commissioners have so far hired five outside attorneys to represent jailers in the case, approving up to $150,000 for their services.
The agenda also included an item seeking approval of more than $16 million in funding to renovate the county’s Law Enforcement Training Center, and a briefing on a Department of Justice report on conditions in the jail that Waybourn presented in October.
A Sheriff’s Office spokesperson said “it would seem unusual for him to attend any meetings on election day due to his own responsibilities as a law enforcement official and as a candidate.”
Conducted by consultants contracted by the DOJ’s National Institute of Corrections, the report does not constitute an official approval of jail conditions by the DOJ, Simmons said.
“Proclaiming that the Department of Justice had investigated jail operations and cleared the jail of any wrongdoing is just misleading,” Simmons said in a phone interview.
The following disclaimer prefaces the report: “Points of view or opinions stated in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.”
Simmons has called for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to look into the issue of in-custody deaths in the jail, which was not addressed in the report. Other prominent Tarrant-area Democrats, including Precinct 1 Commissioner Roy Charles Brooks and U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, whose district covers much of Fort Worth and some of Arlington, have also called for the Civil Rights Division to inspect the jail.
“That’s who I want in here to take a look at all that, not somebody that comes in and says it smells good because you knew they were coming and you mopped your floors … before they got there,” she said. ”No, we want a civil rights investigation into the jail, and that’s not what has occurred.”
Signs posted on doors at the Tarrant County Administration Building in downtown Fort Worth ahead of the meeting, notified of the cancellation. However, Brooks and Simmons met to officially record the lack of quorum.
Citing his seniority in the court in the absence of the county judge, Brooks questioned the legality of canceling the meeting without first calling the roll to establish the lack of quorum.
“I know that there has been a notice sent out that today’s commissioners court meeting has been canceled, but there is some question, at least in my mind, about whether or not there is sufficient authority in the local government code and in the Open Meetings Act to cancel a duly scheduled meeting of Commissioners Court,” Brooks said. “So out of an abundance of caution, just to make sure that we are all the way legal in everything that we do, I’m going to call to order this meeting of commissioners court.”
The meeting was adjourned after the lack of quorum was established.
Asked after the meeting about the legality of the attempt to cancel the meeting ahead of time, County Administrator Chandler Merritt told the Star-Telegram that it was a legal matter and he would have to discuss it with a county attorney.
This story was originally published November 5, 2024 at 11:37 AM.
