Saving Fort Worth

Kudos to Jim Ashford and  Louis McBee for sounding the alarm - again.  Read about the Ethics (or lack thereof) at Fort Worth City Hall in the FW Weekly.  Kudos to the Weekly for telling you what others don't!

Keep making noise boys! We hear ya!

The committee was created 20 years ago to review complaints, issue opinions, and advise city officials on ethical and moral quandaries. But in the past decade the panel has met only a handful of times, despite a city ordinance that calls for quarterly sessions. Two members dropped out of the committee years ago. Nobody replaced them.

For years residents have criticized Mayor Mike Moncrief and the Fort Worth City Council for allowing gas company employees to dominate task forces, committees, and conversations on drilling oversight. City officials have shrugged off the complaints.

Scarth votes on issues involving Chesapeake even though he has leased his property’s mineral rights to the company. Several other council members earn money from gas leases, and Moncrief earns hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from the energy industry, including Barnett Shale drillers.

The ethics ordinance prohibits officials from taking part in issues involving companies in which they hold a substantial interest. However, defining “substantial interest” can be subjective. To determine whether the mayor or council members should recuse themselves from voting on gas issues, City Attorney David Yett applies an income test to see if their gas revenues exceed 10 percent of their gross incomes.

“When your only business is oil and gas like the mayor, everything you do that benefits that industry is going to benefit you,” he said.

Residents aren’t exactly comforted by promises. Moncrief refused to breathe new life into the ethics panel after he was elected as mayor in 2003, despite pressure from former council members Clyde Picht and Chuck Silcox. Three years later, Moncrief finally sent a one-page memo to neighborhood groups seeking nominations for the committee. Moncrief ended the letter by thanking everyone for helping in “this important process.”

Four years later, no appointments have been made.