After a week of public controversy over the hiring process to replace outgoing City Manager David Cooke, City Council members voted 9-1 to hire former Deputy City Manager Jay Chapa to the city’s top post, with council member Jared Williams abstaining and council member Chris Nettles voting against.
Chapa’s resume includes more than 25 years of experience in supervisory and management positions, including nearly seven years in Fort Worth’s city manager’s office. He will be the first Hispanic city manager in Fort Worth history.
“Jay Chapa has been interviewing to be the city manager of this city for 25 years,” Mayor Mattie Parker said. “He probably can’t count how many hours he spent away from his family and committed to this city. I’m so proud that tonight, we will appoint Jay as our city manager.”
Chapa initially declined to comment to the Report after the vote, noting that he was not going to take any interviews until he got closer to taking the job. Later, he addressed several members of the media before leaving City Hall.
“Hopefully I was chosen because I was the best candidate, and I just happen to be Hispanic,” Chapa said. “Of course, it’s a lot of pride. I’m the sixth kid of a single mom from a border town in South Texas. So there’s a lot of pride, and I think there’s a lot of pride in the Hispanic community overall.”
Chapa will receive a $435,000 annual salary and a $7,200 annual car allowance, according to a tentative offer letter Parker sent last week. His starting salary is $23,000 higher than what Cooke currently earns.
Nettles and Williams were the only council members who did not vote to hire Chapa during a Dec. 10 council meeting. The pair have been outspoken critics of the hiring process, describing it as “baked and unfair.” They hosted a press conference the day before the meeting to call on their colleagues to delay the vote and restart the hiring process.
Before the vote, Parker, Mayor Pro Tem Gyna Bivens, and council members Carlos Flores, Michael Crain, Charlie Lauersdorf, Macy Hill, Alan Blaylock and Jeanette Martinez published a joint statement voicing their support for Chapa’s hire.
“Robust debate is the sign of a healthy government body, and this council is no different, especially as we considered 14 top candidates out of 150 nationwide, narrowed to five semi-finalists, and one finalist,” the statement said. “Jay’s leadership experience, including over 25 years serving the city of Fort Worth and work in every council district, along with his integrity and perseverance, quickly set him apart. Ultimately, we believe Jay Chapa is the best person for the job, and Fort Worth should celebrate his historic appointment as our city’s first Hispanic city manager.”
Jay Chapa, right, listens to speakers discuss his candidacy for the city manager position during a City Council meeting on Dec. 10, 2024. (Camilo Diaz | Fort Worth Report) The Dec. 10 vote was punctuated by comments from opposing council members as well as about 20 Fort Worth business leaders and community members. Representatives of the Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Latino community center Artes de la Rosa and a former city manager were outspoken supporters of Chapa’s appointment.
Others, including faith leaders and representatives of the Fort Worth Metropolitan Black Chamber of Commerce, said their problem was not with Chapa himself, but with a hiring process they criticized for not providing opportunities for public input.
Monthslong process to find new city manager ends with contentious week
Cooke, Fort Worth’s longest-serving city manager, announced this summer that he would end his 10-year run in February 2025. Cooke’s retirement came as a surprise to many council members; only one member, Bivens, was on council before Cooke started with the city.
Cooke’s record tenure, combined with the council’s relative inexperience hiring city executives, meant council members were breaking a new path in the search for his replacement. Disagreements over that process became apparent early on when the city opted to use its internal human resources department to conduct a national search for candidates rather than tapping an outside firm. Nettles publicly criticized that decision.
In early December, council members canceled scheduled public meetings and instead hosted a closed-door meeting to interview city manager candidates. Chapa was one of five semi-finalists interviewed by council during the nearly eight-hour meeting. The city has not released the names of the other four candidates, setting it apart from its counterpart in Dallas, which has publicly named four finalists in its city manager search.
That same week, the city announced its intention to hire Chapa for the role, sparking fresh disagreement over the process. Nettles has expressed several times that he believes Chapa was cherry-picked by his colleagues for the role of city manager, rendering the process unfair to other candidates. After candidate interviews last week, he told the Report he believed one candidate, now known to be Chapa, for weeks had been telling people around the community that he had secured the position.
Other members of council, including Parker and Bivens, adamantly defended the process. Parker described the path to Chapa’s selection as “flawless,” and Bivens said her colleagues’ discontent came from their inexperience in hiring “C-suite level talent.”
Bivens told the Report before the vote that the time to advocate for public engagement efforts was before the hiring process started. She said she doesn’t recall Nettles or Williams raising such concerns in September when the hiring process was initiated. She echoed that sentiment in her comments during the Dec. 10 meeting. Nettles and Williams maintain that they raised such concerns before and during the hiring process.
Their efforts to derail or delay the hire lasted up until the final vote was cast. During the council meeting, their staff distributed handouts on the city manager process to members of the media.
In the handout, Nettles and Williams claim that the city’s recruitment plan, which they received via email Sept. 6, included a “stakeholder meet and greet” to be held in December. That meet and greet, where attendees would be able to submit feedback on each city manager candidate through a voluntary survey, has not taken place.
“So for this council to say, all willy-nilly, we didn't have a process, and late in the game you want to make a new process? No, ma'am, no, sir. We have a process,” Nettles said. “Not only do we have a process, but we violated our own process.”
During the meeting, Flores acknowledged what he described as a racial divide between supporters and detractors of Chapa’s hire. Hispanic leaders have been vocal supporters of Chapa’s hire, while Black faith and business leaders have called for more transparency in the process. Nettles and Williams are the only Black men on City Council.
“That pains me to say. It does, because Fort Worth is better than that,” Flores said. “We still have work to do, but come on, we have come much further than that. … We’re going to get through this, and the way we’re going to get through it is by understanding our differences enough to move forward to do what is best for the city.”
Rosa Navejar, a former president of the Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and current president of civil engineering firm The Rios Group, spoke in support of Chapa’s hire during the council meeting. She highlighted several of Chapa’s accomplishments and expressed confidence in his ability to lead the city.
“Jay is a respected leader in our community and our city. He has earned that respect by demonstrating his commitment to finding solutions,” Navejar said. “One of Jay’s strengths is listening to all voices. While we may not always agree, finding compromise to move forward is the key to success of any task. Jay brings that experience.”
Bishop Mark Kirkland of Greater St. Mark Church, a Black faith leader, expressed concerns about the hiring process and called on City Council members to restart the process with the inclusion of community members and faith leaders.
“I am appalled. I am appealing to your sense of consciousness,” Kirkland said. “We’re asking for a thorough, vetted process — no backdoor deals, no good ol’ boy handshakes on the 13th hole at the country club, no 7th Street influence, no secret society hooded meetings. … Let’s have an open, righteous due process. Let’s do the right thing.”
Before the vote, Williams made an unsuccessful motion to delay the vote and establish a transparent process inclusive of community input and stakeholder collaboration, which he said was missing in the current process. He acknowledged that it wouldn’t be supported by the majority of his colleagues, but said he felt obligated to uphold a moral commitment to his constituents and their input.
“I urge you, my friends on this council, to support this motion in the best interest of the city,” Williams said.
When that motion failed 8-3, he presented a second motion to delay the vote until January. That motion also failed, with only Williams and Nettles voting in favor of the proposal.
Council members split on city manager hiring process, lack of transparency
During the meeting, Nettles reiterated his concern that the hiring process was flawed. He emphasized his confidence in Chapa’s capability to perform the job of city manager well, calling any doubt in that confidence “nasty.”
“I believe Jay Chapa can do the job from day one,” Nettles said. “I’m just not happy with the process. … I’ve been so disappointed in this process that I have asked the city attorney for an opinion.”
Nettles emailed city attorney Leann Guzman on Dec. 9 to request a formal opinion on Chapa’s possible conflicts of interest regarding his private consulting contracts, including his work on the downtown Texas A&M campus. During the Dec. 10 meeting, he suggested seeking a legal opinion from the attorney general’s office.
Had there been a “fair process,” Nettles said, he could have sought these legal opinions privately.
>> Letter to Leann City Attorney on City Manager HireDownload
Bivens, who represents District 5, told the Report before the vote that she would not entertain Nettles and Williams’ push to delay the hire.
“It is not important to me that we have a unanimous vote on topics because one thing I’ve learned (is) as councils change people have different points of view,” Bivens said. “When you have people who, for whatever reason, don’t buy into compromise, you just have to take the vote. You take the vote on any given Tuesday … and at the end of the day, we’re supposed to be here for the good of the city. I believe my vote in supporting the hiring of Jay Chapa is for the good of the city.”
Bivens is the only sitting council member who has been involved in the hiring of a Fort Worth city manager. City Council is responsible for hiring four staff positions: city attorney, city auditor, city secretary and city manager.
Beck, the District 9 council member, said during the meeting that she does not agree with how the hiring process played out, but she does agree with the outcome. She said that regardless of how people feel about the process, it’s important that everyone rally around the new city manager to set him up for success in leading the city.
“Jay Chapa is the victim of people not trusting the process,” she said. “So therefore, there is some consternation about the product. I want to say that Jay did not craft this process.”
Flores, the District 2 council member, told the Report before the vote that the controversy over the hiring process is a matter of public perception, adding that the public hasn’t seen all that went into that process. Aside from Nettles and Williams, city leadership has not released several details of the hiring process. The Report exclusively confirmed that candidate interviews took place last week after Report journalists stood outside City Hall for nine hours while city marshals refused to allow reporters inside the building.
“The process for selecting the next city manager has been one that has been structured, and it has integrity,” Flores said. “I’m a very process-oriented guy. I’d be the first to say if there was an issue with it, and from my view, there is not.”
During the meeting, he said the perception that there was a lack of transparency is “totally false and factually inaccurate.”
He read from the city charter, saying “Council shall appoint the city manager, who shall be the chief administrative and executive officer of the city. He shall be chosen solely on the basis of executive administration training, experience, ability, and without regard to political consideration.” Flores maintains that’s exactly what the council has done.
He said he respects public input but pointed back to the city charter’s clear statement that the city manager hire is the council’s responsibility.
Lauersdorf, the District 4 council member, said community members should trust the elected officials they voted for to act in their best interest.
“If I wanted to be involved in every single process that every single elected representative made, then why are we voting for them? Why are we here in the first place?” Lauersdorf said. “So to those community leaders who feel that they were left out in the process or who feel like your voice is not heard, perhaps with the person you voted for, perhaps run for that seat yourself.”
Hill, the District 7 council member, said in a statement to the Report that she believes Fort Worth conducted a “very fair and exhaustive” search that drew candidates from across the country.
“In the end, I am very pleased with the process and have confidence that Jay Chapa is the best candidate due to his extensive experience with the city of Fort Worth and his background in public safety, economic development and city planning,” Hill said.
Last week, District 3 council member Crain told the Report he is proud of how the hiring process played out, emphasizing that Fort Worth received more than three times the number of candidates the city of Dallas did for its city manager search. He declined to comment further Dec. 10, deferring to the statement he published with his colleagues.
Fort Worth received 154 applications for the city manager position, according to data provided by the city. Aside from Chapa, three of the candidates interviewed last week were male, and one was female. Two of the candidates were Black, and two were white.
Cecilia Lenzen and Emily Wolf are government accountability reporters for the Fort Worth Report. Contact them at cecilia.lenzen@fortworthreport.org and emily.wolf@fortworthreport.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.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
