When Fort Worth resident Ken Shimamoto speaks at government meetings, he knows his comments probably won’t sway elected officials’ votes. But to him, that’s not the point.
“I’m not doing this to change anybody’s mind,” Shimamoto, 68, said. “I’m doing this to remind myself who I am and to let fellow citizens of like mind, who are afraid to speak up, know that they can do this.”
Shimamoto, a member of the grassroots civic engagement organization Indivisible TX-12, has become a familiar face at city and county government meetings. He’s among a small percentage of residents who participate at such meetings and those who say recent changes to the meeting schedules may hurt public engagement.
This year, Tarrant County commissioners and Fort Worth City Council members — elected officials who make up the two largest government bodies in the nation’s biggest urban purple county — cut the number of public meetings they have, giving residents fewer opportunities to speak to them in an open forum.
Politically tense issues, including an unusual mid-decade county redistricting; ongoing deaths in the Tarrant County Jail; the suspension of municipal programs devoted to diversity, equity and inclusion; and accusations over a casket left outside the mayor’s home have included blunt criticism of elected officials, arguments between city and county representatives, and the occasional removal of a speaker.
Civic engagement, open government and free speech experts told the Fort Worth Report and KERA News that limiting opportunities for residents to speak at public meetings is legal but not best practice.
“Even when they have discretion to do it, I think the government cutting back on opportunities for public comment is bad policy,” said Aaron Terr, director of public advocacy for the national civil liberties group Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. “There’s a difference between what’s legally permissible and what’s good for democracy, and eliminating or sharply limiting public comment opportunities makes government less transparent and less accountable.”
In October, the Commissioners Court began meeting once a month, a switch up from the previous twice-a-month schedule. Commissioners voted 3-2 to approve the change after a year marked by contentious meetings with some speakers getting removed, arrested and even criminally charged for clapping, swearing or shouting.
Next year, City Council will have 10 meetings exclusively dedicated to hearing comments from residents — down from the 15 such meetings scheduled in 2025. Speakers may address the council on any agenda item during regular meetings and on any topic during public comment meetings.
Some council members in favor of the reduction, which the council approved 7-4, argued that public comment meetings draw low turnout and often see the same residents voicing concerns about the same issues. In 2024 and 2025, public comment meetings saw an average of 18 speakers, according to an unofficial review of meeting minutes by the Fort Worth Report.
At least one council member is considering rolling back the reduction but has yet to present an unofficial proposal.
Elected officials from the two entities said the approved schedule changes will ease high workloads for staff who prepare the meetings.
When commissioners voted on their meeting reduction, County Judge Tim O’Hare said it would help cut time needed to prepare meeting agendas but added that commissioners can call additional meetings as needed.
“I’m willing to give it a try from the standpoint of ‘I am regularly talking to staff about what can we do here, what can we do over there, what can we put together,’ and it is so agenda-heavy that it keeps them from being able to go look at stuff and research stuff and come up with different ideas about how to do things,” O’Hare said of the reduction in August.
Residents and activists who frequent Commissioners Court and City Hall criticize the reductions as undemocratic and an attempt to silence those who disagree with their elected representatives.
Throughout the year, such meetings have seen commissioners and council members accuse residents of performativity, virtue signaling and partisan bickering.
Driving public engagement
Texas law requires government bodies to provide their residents the opportunity to comment on any listed agenda item before voting on the matter. Some city and county governments, such as Fort Worth’s council, schedule additional meeting time for residents to share comments and concerns unrelated to the meeting agenda, but they’re not legally required to do so.
Usually, local government meetings go like this: Officials vote on government business listed on the meeting’s agenda, item by item. Residents who sign up in advance typically get three minutes each to speak on agenda items before they’re voted on. A sound will chime when their time is up, at which point the resident must stop speaking and sit back down.
“We need to be able to have access to the people that we’ve voted for to be able to hear us. And when those opportunities are diminished, our voices are diminished,” said Sheri Allen, a member of the progressive activist group Justice Network of Tarrant County and a frequent government meeting attendee.
Public comment is one of many ways for residents to give input on local government, but it’s not the end-all, be-all, said Larry Schooler, a communications professor at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation. It’s helpful to have public commentary recorded in an official capacity, he said, but people shouldn’t get “hung up” on the idea that that has to happen at an official government meeting.
“There’s very limited payoff to just this idea that we’ll put a microphone in the middle of the room during a council meeting or county commissioners court meeting, and we’ll get comments that we can meaningfully incorporate into what we’re voting on,” said Schooler, who for eight years led public engagement efforts for the city of Boston. “The chances of that are very, very low.”
That’s a line of reasoning Fort Worth City Council members have used to explain, and justify, the meeting reductions. During the September meeting to approve their 2026 schedule, several council members in favor of reducing public comment meetings said they are more than willing to meet one-on-one with constituents to address concerns and identify solutions privately.
Mayor Mattie Parker, who supported the reduction, said in a statement that the council’s new meeting schedule prioritizes efficiency while giving residents ample opportunity to speak.
“As a reminder, there is allocated time for anyone to share comments or concerns publicly on every item of city business, and I am always happy to listen to concerns from residents outside of the regular council schedule as well,” her statement read.
At the Commissioners Court, residents have argued that only one meeting per month in a county of 2.2 million residents will lead to long meetings that further hinder the public’s ability to participate. The court’s Tuesday morning meetings are already hard for many people to attend.
Commissioner Matt Krause, who supported the court’s meeting reduction, said there’s some legitimacy to residents’ frustrations but he’s also available outside of commissioners meetings.
“I’d say that’s even better because when you come to our office, we’re using even more than three minutes,” Krause said. “It kind of forces more meaningful conversations.”
Terr, the national expert, said private meetings with government officials are no substitute for a public dialogue.
“It’s great when officials make themselves accessible for one-on-one meetings with constituents and can have a back-and-forth conversation, but it’s not an either/or,” Terr said. “There’s no reason that they can’t or shouldn’t do both.”
Bill Aleshire is an Austin-based attorney who helped draft the original legislation that became the Texas Open Meetings Act, a law that requires government entities to keep official business accessible to the public.
A former Travis County judge for more than a decade, Aleshire said it’s “really important” that the public understands why government officials make the decisions they make, even when the public doesn’t agree with the decision. Allowing residents to weigh in during public comment gives officials the opportunity to address concerns and share their reasoning in response.
“The more you can do that in a transparent, open way that everyone can see, the more faith we have in our government,” Aleshire said. “It’s better to have conversations in public than just private conversations.”
Schooler emphasized that there isn’t a “one size fits all” solution to civic engagement at public meetings. The bottom line, he said, is that governments should ensure the public can influence decisions that impact them.
In-person comment opportunities should be supplemented with other forms of engagement, such as text messaging, telephone calls and social media, Schooler said.
His proudest public engagement effort was a board game he helped design for an Austin bond election, which gave residents a hands-on opportunity to share how they would spend millions in available bond dollars on various infrastructure projects. That’s one example of how government officials can think creatively and innovatively to foster civic engagement and gather resident feedback outside of traditional public comment meetings, he said.
City Council member Michael Crain, who supported the schedule change, said he’s exploring a proposal to reverse the reduction and provide even more opportunities for public comment. A vote on his proposal may come before the council in January, he said.
Crain said he doesn’t regret his vote in favor of the schedule change, but he experienced “a little change of heart” after hearing feedback from residents.
“I want to make sure that we have an environment where everybody feels they can come to their city government and air grievances or give kudos or whatever it is that they want to come say,” Crain said. “It’s a fine balance.”
The challenge of public comments
Over the past decade, public engagement at Tarrant County Commissioners Court and Fort Worth City Council meetings has ebbed and flowed, according to an unofficial review of council and commissioners meeting minutes by the Fort Worth Report and KERA.
Commissioners Court meetings rarely saw more than one resident speak in the 2010s until 2019 when commissioners voted to extend a partnership between the sheriff’s office and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. About 40 people spoke before that vote, with the majority in opposition.
Since then, controversial issues such as deaths in the county jail and the elimination of the county’s rental assistance department have drawn dozens of speakers, extending meetings for hours.
City Council didn’t implement stand-alone public comment meetings until 2021 shortly after Parker was elected — a change meant to improve efficiency and end long meetings and late nights at City Hall, she said at the time. The council’s combined regular meetings and public comment meetings this year as of mid-October saw people speak 450 times, a slight decrease from the 486 speakers recorded in 2016, according to the Report’s review of meeting minutes. The city’s population grew by more than 200,000 residents during that time frame.
As residents urge the two bodies to increase rather than decrease public comment opportunities, some of them question whether such input has a tangible impact on government decision-making.
The most recent example of this at the Commissioners Court came this summer, as Republican commissioners, led by O’Hare, barreled through a redistricting process intended to favor Republicans. The process drew hundreds of residents to court meetings and town halls, with the majority of speakers opposing the map commissioners eventually adopted.
O’Hare did not return a request for comment on the meeting changes or public comments.
Krause said he was clear during his campaign that he would support redistricting to favor Republicans, so it “didn’t matter how many people we heard against it.” He stayed true to that promise and the wishes of his constituents despite public opposition, he said.
Commissioner Alisa Simmons, a Democrat who voted against the meeting change, said her Republican colleagues wanted to limit public meetings after facing unwanted scrutiny from local activists over the county redistricting process, as well as deaths in the county jail.
“We’ve got some court members who are thin-skinned, which begs the question, ‘Why did you even run? Why did you sign up for this job?” Simmons said. “The job entails serving taxpayers, and you have to listen to them.”
Two Fort Worth City Council meetings in the past decade drew more than 100 speakers. Those included one in 2017, at which the majority of speakers wanted Fort Worth to join a lawsuit against a Texas law targeting “sanctuary cities” for immigrants; and one in December 2024, where most speakers were there to support or oppose the politically active Mercy Culture Church’s request to build a shelter for human trafficking survivors.
At both of those meetings, council members voted against the majority of speakers.
Sometimes, Crain is set in his decision before hearing public comments, he said — particularly for zoning cases that require months of planning and research before coming to a council vote. Other decisions, such as his vote to delay suspending diversity, equity and inclusion programs, were influenced by hearing public comments.
“There’s been a handful of those decisions that are, I would say, consequential in some way that public comment did help at least slow down the train a little bit,” Crain said.
Crain and Krause said as elected officials, they have to weigh the concerns expressed during public comments as well as private communications with constituents, while also knowing they were elected to ultimately make decisions on behalf of residents.
“I don’t think it’s a hard thing to juggle,” Krause said. “I think you stand strong on your beliefs, but you’re always willing to listen, to know there may be something else out there that you could learn from.”
Schooler, the UT professor, said it’s hard for residents to effectively impact government decision-making through public comments. Public comment is the last chance for residents to weigh in on a decision, usually only moments before the decision is made, he noted.
In response to the changes at Commissioners Court, several frequent attendees formed the People’s Commissioners Court, their own version of a public comment session for residents to air grievances publicly amongst each other. Their first meetings were in October and November.
Regardless of the schedule changes, Shimamoto said he plans to attend the People’s Commissioners Court and keep showing up at local government meetings to advocate for public issues that need his voice, he said.
“The only remedy for isolation and depression is action,” Shimamoto said. “If you feel powerless, if you feel overwhelmed, turn off the screens, hit the bricks and go be with some folks because that is where you will find connection and community and the realization that there is work we can do that will make a difference.”
Cecilia Lenzen is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at cecilia.lenzen@fortworthreport.org.
Miranda Suarez is the Tarrant County accountability reporter for KERA. Got a tip? Email her at msuarez@kera.org.
At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
