Fort Worth city manager's recent trip with billionaire friends raising ethics questions
FORT WORTH, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) - A decision over the ethics of Fort Worth's city manager traveling on a private plane with billionaire friends didn't come from the city's ethics commission, because Fort Worth hasn't had one meet regularly for years.
A member of the last ethics board the city had said Monday he sees a benefit to returning to regular meetings though, if only to add some guidance to a city of Fort Worth's size.
Chris Garcia started serving on the five-person Ethics Review Commission in 2012, handling questions about potential conflicts when elected officials were married to city employees, and tightening up language on ethics policies.
He was still on the board in 2019, although his term was expired, when the council voted to change who would handle ethics issues, pulling members from the zoning, planning and board of adjustment, only when there was a valid complaint or when asked to convene by the city manager or council. Once finished with an issue, the members would disband.
That approach may not be the most efficient Garcia suggested, when dealing with difficult ethical questions.
"Sometimes when you're just first meeting with people on different boards, it's a little more awkward, a little more reserved," he said. "Sometimes you can really get into the meat of things if you have some kind of continuity from beforehand."
Other large cities in Texas have ethics boards with standing members, although they don't all meet regularly. A board in Dallas has met twice this year, and in Houston, once. Austin has an ethics commission that meets monthly.
Regular meetings were something former city council member Ann Zadeh suggested in 2019, as the only council member oppose the change in handling complaints.
"I think that an ethics commission could meet quarterly to discuss ethics issues throughout the community and throughout the country to bring those ideas back to our city," she said when council was voting on the change.
Carlos Flores, who was on the council when the change was made, said he was open to having a discussion of reviewing the policy, because the council has new members since that time.
The Fort Worth Report reported Council member Gyna Bivens is also open to a review of all policies related to ethics.