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Fort Worth council approves resolution authorizing city votes for a named candidate, with contingency
Summary
At a special called meeting, the Fort Worth City Council approved a resolution authorizing the city to cast its allotted votes for a named candidate and added a contingency that the number of votes cast be adjusted if the city is later determined to be entitled to a different number than 281. A councilmember abstained and public commenters raised concerns about vote reporting.
Mayor Parker presided over a special called Fort Worth City Council meeting where the council approved a resolution authorizing the city to cast its allocated votes for a named candidate, adding a contingency to adjust the number of votes if the city is later determined to be entitled to a different total than 281.
In presenting the motion, Councilmember Flores moved “to approve item 25-5518 with the following modification. If it is later determined that the city of Fort Worth is entitled to a different number of votes than 281, this resolution will be considered to be authorizing the casting of all such votes for the named candidate.” The motion was seconded by Councilmember Crane and the presiding officer announced, “Motion carries.” The transcript does not include a full roll-call tally; Councilmember Blaylock had announced an abstention before the vote, saying, “due to my role on the TAD board, out of an abundance of caution, I'll be abstaining from this conversation and vote.”
During public comment before the vote, Eric Crile said he had already “spoke to counsel” and offered to answer questions when the item was discussed. Public commenter Daniel Bennett spent several minutes alleging problems with vote-reporting software and related disclosures. Bennett said the chief appraiser and “one of the candidates” knew about a processing issue in June and did not notify others; he also referenced an email Dr. Anglin sent on Sept. 18 and quoted what he said was an internal reply: “Joe Dahn said, yeah. We messed up.” Bennett additionally described actions he said trustees took to reschedule school-board meetings so a candidate he named as Syeda Syeda would not forfeit voting rights.
The council did not take additional action on Bennett’s claims during the meeting, and no formal staff report or investigative directive regarding the software or appraiser concerns appears in the transcript. After the council announced the vote outcome, Mayor Parker adjourned the public meeting and said the council would convene in executive session to seek legal advice and deliberate on multiple matters as authorized under the Texas Government Code, citing sections 551.071, 551.072, 551.087, 551.076, 551.089 and 551.074.
The resolution approved at the meeting will take effect according to the council’s normal administrative process; the transcript does not specify an effective date, a full vote tally, or follow-up actions to investigate the public allegations.
