Tarrant County Judge Tim O'Hare wants to keep what he calls misleading and inaccurate agenda items out of future commissioners court meetings.
The discussion came after O'Hare said last month's meeting included a requested briefing from Precinct 2 Commissioner Alisa Simmons that was considered "grossly misleading."
That item was "Briefing from Elections on Discrepancies in Secretary of State Reconciliation Reports preventing Voters the Ability to Vote by Mail with Ease and Causing Vote by Mail Ballots to be Rejected at a Higher Rate than Usual."
During that discussion at the March 10 meeting, County Elections Administrator Clint Ludwig told commissioners that ballot board members mistakenly combined the portion of unreturned ballots, 36%, with the portion of rejected ballots, 2%, which led to 38% being incorrectly recorded for the total of rejections in the January runoff.
O'Hare claimed Simmons' briefing description was inaccurate because there were no discrepancies, there is no evidence voters couldn't vote with ease, and the higher rejected votes was a documented error.
While O'Hare said he's sure it wasn't intentional to mislead residents, it still had an impact.
"I fully support anyone putting an item on the agenda to discuss, I'd like to clarify the facts, get information, find it out, but every one of us here in my opinion has a responsibility to have an agenda item that's fair, that's accurate, and that's not factually incorrect or grossly misleading," O'Hare said.
The county administrator is in charge of adding items to the agenda and checking the language is factually correct, something O'Hare said needs to continue to be enforced.
"What I'm asking you to do, is to make sure inaccurate and misleading things like that don't show back up on the agenda," O'Hare told county administrator Chandler Merritt.
Simmons told O'Hare her briefing request was not misleading and that it's the commissioners' responsibility to ask questions and demand transparency from county staff and department heads to help educate and inform.
"Every agenda item goes through a structured multi-week vetting process led by the county administrator alongside departments, department heads, elected officials that run large departments, legal counsel," Simmons said.
"For the judge to now label these items as inaccurate, misleading, I guess it's an attack on me. It's not just an attack on me, it's an attack on y'all's professionalism and expertise of this very staff who is responsible for ensuring that this agenda process has integrity," she said.
There have been concerns from residents about limiting certain topics in the past. Commissioners in February approved to prohibit briefings on ongoing jail deaths, law enforcement investigations, active criminal prosecutions or pending civil lawsuits against the county.
O'Hare said this agenda item isn't meant to prevent commissioners or people from asking questions.
"This is not an attempt to stop you from asking any questions, or anyone else from asking questions, are bringing up issues and finding answers," O'Hare said. "I do think it is important that in the actual agenda item title, it does not have information that is false."
Simmons said if there was a problem with the wording of her briefing request, one of the administrators would have caught it.
"Let's just tell the truth — this has nothing to do with efficiency," Simmons said. "This is all about avoiding accountability for passing bad policies. As much as y'all's judge talks about wokeness, he sure does love some cancel culture. He wants to cancel public comments and did. He wants to cancel policy discussions by commissioners. It seems the only thing he hasn't tried to cancel yet is our county debt and problems."
Penelope Rivera is KERA's Tarrant County Accountability Reporter. Got a tip? Email Penelope Rivera at privera@kera.org.
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