Fort Worth City Council member Chris Nettles said Monday he believes a social media video revealing that he called Mayor Mattie Parker and other City Council members racist in 2022 was posted in a deliberate attempt to tarnish his name.
The six-minute video, posted Dec. 16 by Fort Worth activist Payton Jackson on TikTok, includes audio clips and video footage of Nettles. Jackson did not return a request for comment by the time of publication.
One clip shows Nettles speaking with Jackson in December 2022, shortly after City Council members voted 5-4 against forming a community police advisory board. Nettles had championed the proposal, saying it was needed for Fort Worth’s Black and brown communities. In the audio clip, Nettles is heard calling “all Republicans” — including Donald Trump, Mayor Mattie Parker and council members Michael Crain and Carlos Flores — racists.
In a statement Dec. 16, Nettles said that he made the comments during a private conversation and that he wasn’t aware was being recorded. He added that he made the comments during a “deeply emotional time.”
“While I may have expressed frustration in that moment, I want to be clear: I do not believe my fellow council members are racist,” Nettles said in the statement. “I do, however, feel that there are systemic processes in our city that can and should be improved to ensure fairness, equity and balance for all residents.”
When reached by email Dec. 16, Parker’s spokesperson did not address specific questions but shared a statement from the mayor’s office.
“Leadership means you attack problems, not people. Fort Worth deserves better,” Parker said. “As for the rest of the video, questions need to be directed to council member Nettles.”
Nettles said he has not spoken with Parker about the video as of 5:45 p.m. Dec. 16.
News of the audio recordings first appeared Dec. 16 in an article in The Dallas Express, a conservative news site funded by billionaire and major Republican donor Monty Bennett and run by CEO Chris Putnam, a former Colleyville City Council member and Republican congressional candidate. The article’s author, Carlos Turcios, is a former director of the political organization Texas Latinos United for Conservative Action. Turcios did not return a request for comment by the time of publication.
In October, Turcios was the first to report on two Fort Worth ISD coaches writing a letter to Parker alleging that council member Elizabeth Beck mistreated them and threatened their jobs. At the time, Beck said the incident, and its subsequent appearance in The Dallas Express, “reek(ed) of a politically motivated stunt.”
Nettles, a Democrat, said the similarity between the two incidents is noteworthy.
“Carlos (Turcios) is a staunch right-wing Republican, and he has run multiple stories on council people and others, who do not lean in the same direction,” Nettles said. “So, of course, he was the first one who reported (on the video) and the one who sent it to the entire council today. So there is a takeaway from that.”
Nettles said he believes the video is part of a smear campaign against him but declined to say who he thinks is leading that campaign.
“This recording appears to be a deliberate attempt to damage my reputation, but I remain committed to serving the people of Fort Worth and working toward meaningful change,” he said in the statement. “My focus has always been and will continue to be on creating a more accountable, equitable and transparent city for all.”
The allegations against Nettles come one week after he clashed with fellow council members over the process used to hire Fort Worth’s next city manager. Nettles has been an outspoken critic of the hiring process, claiming that other council members rushed the process, which he described as “baked and unfair,” to hire a cherry-picked candidate. He was the lone council member to vote against hiring former Deputy City Manager Jay Chapa for the role, with council member Jared Williams choosing to abstain from the vote.
Cecilia Lenzen is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at cecilia.lenzen@fortworthreport.org or @bycecilialenzen.
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This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
