Culture of Corruption Weekly Update

Hats off to the FW Weekly for telling it as it is, not spinning the Fort Worth Way.

If you live in Fort Worth, or know someone who does, DO NOT miss their latest ethics article.  Good quotes from THE PEOPLE. 

Without rules, the victors always get the spoils, might and money are always right, and ethical lines fade.

A resident complained about the city council putting gas industry executives on an air-quality task force. Allowing drillers to make crucial decisions on how the city’s air quality is tested at drill sites appeared to be a conflict of interest clearly forbidden by the city’s ethics code. The independent ethics panel agreed.

So how did the Fort Worth City Council, led by Mayor Mike Moncrief, respond?

They killed the messengers, scorned the resident who made the complaint, and fired the ethics panelists.

City leaders thanked the gas execs for serving on the task force and vowed to change the ethics code to allow industry insiders to participate as voting members on future boards. Then Moncrief appointed new members, including a couple of his friends, as the new ethics committee — possibly in violation of the current rules on how the committee is to be chosen.

Contrast that with what happened when the son of a city council member violated conflict-of-interest rules set by the federal government. In essence, Daniel Payton Scarth, 23, son of council member Danny Scarth, applied for and received financial help from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development — routed through Fort Worth city government — to cover the down payment and closing costs on a home, under a program intended to help low-income citizens.

Scarth has faced his own ethical controversies. Before being elected to the council, he served on the city’s first gas drilling task force, which advised the city council on how to regulate urban drilling. Then Scarth accepted thousands of dollars from the gas industry to fund his city council campaign and rode to victory with the help of a Moncrief endorsement.

In general, however, the picks appear to have been made by Moncrief with little input from others. Newly appointed members describe being recruited by personal calls from Moncrief or an assistant. Among the new members are two attorneys the mayor has known for years, including former city councilman Jim Lane.

“My son Payton indeed owns the house and has been paying the mortgage since the sale,” Danny Scarth wrote in an e-mail.

However, neither Payton Scarth nor his mortgage company has been paying property taxes on it, according to Tarrant Appraisal District records. The reason, at least in part, appears to be a name change by the church, which caused a mix-up in TAD records.

She and the other former committee members are familiar with at least one of those chosen to replace them. Former city council member Jim Lane was accused along with Moncrief of unethical behavior six years ago. Eastside activist Louis McBee (who has run against both Scarth and Moncrief) filed that complaint against Moncrief, Lane, and then city-councilwoman Wendy Davis in 2004. The city leaders accepted a ride in a jet and minor swag (hats and t-shirts) when a sporting goods company was seeking — and ultimately received — millions in tax relief in exchange for building a store here.

Lane now serves on the Tarrant Regional Water District board, as well as continuing to practice law. “I thought what Mike — or Mayor Moncrief— was trying to accomplish was some fresh minds to look at the ordinance and see if it’s clear and if the conduct is exact as far as written,” Lane said. “We’ve got to do a review of the code. It may be expanded, reduced, supplemented, amended — I don’t know.”

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.

Someone's listening?!

Finally.  Congratulations to Jim Ashford!  Read the article about ethics in Fort Worth, in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

It may be an inherent conflict of interest to allow gas company employees to serve on committees that oversee their industry, the city's Ethics Review Committee ruled Thursday.


The panel made the ruling in a case about the makeup of the city's Air Quality Study Committee, which was formed to examine potentially toxic emissions at natural gas sites.

If upheld, the ruling could have far-reaching ramifications because most of the city's regulations on gas drilling were written by committees that included representatives from the gas industry. At least one of the companies plans to appeal the ruling to the full Fort Worth City Council.

The council appointed the air quality committee in March to find a way to determine the level of toxic emissions around gas sites, and its findings could lead to new gas drilling regulations in the city.

The 10-member committee includes three representatives from major drilling companies: Devon Energy, XTO Energy and Chesapeake Energy.

Chesapeake Vice President Julie Wilson said the company will vigorously appeal.

Jim Ashford, an east Fort Worth resident who is suing Chesapeake over noise and air pollution from a compressor station near his house, filed the ethics complaint in the spring. He said it was improper for the gas companies to have representatives on a committee that is studying pollution potentially caused by their industry.