Fort Worth lands strong finalist for CEO. That doesn’t mean the search wasn’t flawed | Opinion

The Fort Worth City Council will almost certainly vote Tuesday to hire Jay Chapa as the next city manager, and two seemingly conflicting storylines about it are true.

Chapa is highly qualified and, as a longtime assistant city manager, well-situated to step into the job on Day One. But the process by which he became the finalist for the job was flawed.

Chapa is rooted here. His quarter century working for the city is a qualification no other candidate could approach. He spent several years under the retiring city manager, David Cooke, and a few as a consultant, seeing efforts to work with the city from the other side. Chapa will also be the first Hispanic city manager, a notable and overdue hire for Fort Worth.

He seems well-liked and has experience overseeing huge swaths of city government, including the Police Department. That will come in handy immediately, as Chief Neil Noakes announced his retirement Monday.

Council member Chris Nettles has complained that the selection of Chapa was driven by insiders and that the city did not hire a national search firm to broaden the pool of candidates for chief executive.

And Nettles has a point. This is not hiring a department head. This is the CEO of an enterprise that spends nearly $3 billion a year, with more than 8,000 employees. Few corporations of similar size would count on their internal human-resources departments to find candidates for the top job.

Other council members and city officials said there were plenty of candidates without a national search firm. The number, though, is not the issue; it’s getting the right mix of experience, vision, leadership ability to consider an array of possibilities.

If nothing else, a search by executive headhunters could yield a group that can share a fresh assessment of city government and new ideas. After 10 years with Cooke at the helm, a strong outside look makes sense.

There’s a sense that city government has become somewhat insular. Cooke and his team proposed a modest property tax increase this year, a move so tone deaf, amid years of crushing inflation and rising housing costs, that every council member demanded it be changed. This came after staffers suggested creating a new street-maintenance fee. A growing city has increasing needs, but Fort Worth needs answers that don’t stress residents’ wallets even more.

Interestingly, Chapa will have a chance to demonstrate the usefulness of a targeted professional search not long after he takes the helm. Noakes was the second straight police chief promoted from within, and while he and predecessor Ed Kraus have done admirable jobs, why not at least see what the perspective is on the department from top outsiders?

Fort Worth should be one of the most attractive big-city police chief jobs in the country. The department is well-funded through the city budget and voters’ decision to provide dedicated crime-prevention sales tax revenue, an indication of strong back-the-blue sentiment among residents.

If there’s an internal candidate who balances fresh ideas with knowledge and experience here, great. The best way to be sure will be to hear from a broad array of others. That way, an insider won’t face questions about a short-circuited process — again.