State of Fort Worth is good; here’s one way to make it better

Fort Worth’s explosive growth — near the top nationally — means plenty of transplants who could share stories of dysfunctional, even incompetent political leadership and underperforming communities where they used to live.

An entirely different picture emerged Tuesday at the State of the City luncheon hosted by the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce.

Aside from a far-reaching onstage interview of Mayor Betsy Price touching on both the city’s accomplishments and challenges, the Chamber highlighted four of Fort Worth’s most dynamic small businesses.

Fittingly enough for a flourishing city, the top emerging business, 6th Avenue Homes, was also named “Grand Forte,” as Small Business of the Year.

Witnessing the energy and enthusiasm of the audience for 6th Avenue Homes — as well as other winners Silver Creek Materials (manufacturing/distribution), Tribe Alive (consumer/retail) and Elements of Architecture Inc. (professional services) — was a reminder of what really makes this city go: a bold, passionate, business community risking everything to fulfill folks’ basic needs and wants, and maybe a few audacious dreams.

It helps when the local government is a competent partner in all that, and Fort Worth is blessed with a mayor and council that work on the things they can agree on and work out the things they don’t.

One example cited by Mayor Price: a proposed fix to the city pension fund’s $1.6 billion unfunded liability that, if approved by city employees, would make Fort Worth the first big city in Texas to reach such a solution without state help.

Price touted efforts at neighborhood revitalization, particularly in the long-neglected but historic Stop Six neighborhood, which she says has seen a 48 percent increase in permitting activity and a 26 percent decrease in overall crimes, including a 53 percent drop in prostitution and drug activity.

Challenges, Price said, include implementing recommendations in a recent Race and Culture Task Force report; continuing to tackle homelessness; an infant mortality rate of 6.7 per 1,000, above the national average of 5.9; and most important of all, because it affects everything else, early childhood education.

On that last point, Price promoted Read Fort Worth — a public-private coalition led by the mayor, Fort Worth Independent School District Superintendent Kent Scribner and BNSF executive chairman Matt Rose, which aims to get all third-graders reading at grade level by 2025.

It may be the most important thing we do for the city’s future, as a literate, educated workforce is the only thing that will power Fort Worth going forward — especially when you consider the high-tech nature of future work.

It’s also a daunting goal to shoot for, getting 100 percent of kids reading at grade level: Currently, only 35 percent of the district’s third-graders do. Even with Read Fort Worth’s current efforts — which include community volunteers reading to at-risk kids in schools — only about 70 percent of third-graders are projected to be proficient by 2025.

More of us will have to pitch in. Various opportunities to help Read Fort Worth, such as reading to children, can be found at fwisd.voly.org.

“There’s a renewed commitment in the city to tell the Fort Worth story,” says Jarred Howard, Chamber senior vice president for small business/entrepreneurship. “We’re bullish about making sure that small businesses are part of the story that’s being told.”

And the rest of us need to make sure our kids can read all about it.