For The Record

Some of it looked like the Court at its best. Employees recognized for good work. A retiree honored. A woman in her eighties given more time than the three minute limit allows, and then no answer to a single thing she came to ask.

Then the arithmetic. The Court sat in open session for 56 minutes before the door closed behind it. The closed session ran 2 hours and 22 minutes, and the Court came back out explaining none of it. In those 56 open minutes, not one Commissioner asked one question about one item of county business. Three contracts worth $450,778 moved with no dollar figure spoken. So did a jail pharmacy amendment at $16,000 a month and a mosquito contract expected to pass $100,000. The consent agenda was voted before anybody said what was in it.

None of it broke the law. That's the problem. A closed door belongs to the narrow case where talking in public would actually cost the county something, like taking legal advice on a live lawsuit. Two of the three items behind that door were appointments to advisory boards. Nobody's position gets weaker because residents hear why a Commissioner picked somebody.

The caption says the money moves "to correct capital items and spend categories." That is accounting language for fixing something that got coded wrong. Nothing in the meeting explains what went wrong, who caught it, or whether it happens often.

The packet was supposed to answer that. Three pages of line item detail sit behind this item, and all three publish as unreadable garbled characters. A resident cannot see which capital purchases lost their funding to pay for the cameras.

I am not against the cameras. In car video protects deputies as much as it protects the public, and I would fund it. But $102,992 was the biggest number the Court touched that morning, it moved in under a minute with no question asked, and the backup that would explain it cannot be read. Saying a number out loud is not the same as explaining it.

Fire Marshal Brad Sebastian called his team forward and tied the award straight back to the Court: the budgets they funded, the 2021 fire code they adopted, the people they paid for. "There's no way this could happen without you."

Item 2A was an "Order Making Appointments." The packet says they were posted, advertised, and interviewed for. It does not say who, to what board, or for how long. Three pages, one a reprint of the caption and one a blank signature form. No names anywhere.

Item 2C moved $726 for a fingerprint development system. The reason, a shipping charge left out of the original quote, publishes as unreadable garbled text.

Item 2B was the November road report. 56 straight pages of this 280 page packet are scanned images with no text layer. A fifth of the county's own record can't be searched, copied, or used by anyone using a screen reader. A blind resident of Denton County cannot read the road report their taxes paid for.

A consent agenda is where the public's business moves fast and quiet. Read the items, then vote. And post a packet people can actually read.

Three items went in. One was an economic development negotiation, and it came back with no action. That one belongs back there. Naming your ceiling in public makes the county's position worse, and that is money out of your pocket.

The other two were board appointments, and here is what the door hid. Commissioner Falconer reappointed one man to the City of Corinth Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone No. 2 board. In the very next motion, Commissioner Edmondson reappointed that same man to the Denton County MHMR Board of Trustees, where he serves as vice chair. Two county seats, one person, back to back, and nobody said a word.

The packet for both items runs three pages each, and the only names printed on them are the five members of this Court on a blank court order. No appointee, no term, no seat. Residents saw names read and hands go up. They never learned who else applied, or that one person was filling two of the county's seats.

Nobody's position gets weaker because a Commissioner explains a pick out loud. That is the whole fix.

It ran 993 words, 12.8% of everything said at this meeting. Four purchases worth more than $450,000 got about 185 words between them. This Court spent five times longer praying than explaining what it was buying with your money.

The prayer closed in Jesus' name. Along the way it asked God to "go up there in Washington" and to reach "all in these eastern countries" and "straighten them out." County Judge Andy Eads thanked Commissioner Mitchell for "your inspirational prayer" and said he couldn't think of a better way to start the year. I can. How about announcing county wide voting for election day.

This was a choice, not a requirement, and once county business begins the government should stay neutral so every resident feels equally represented. A moment of silence does that. I'd move to one and let every resident fill it however their conscience tells them to.

They read the full resolution anyway, and County Judge Andy Eads noted he and Eoff came to the county the same year and worked together at Road and Bridge West. Commissioner Edmondson thanked him for the crews that fix the potholes.

The bidding exemption is legal and the broker was competitively picked last fall. That part is clean. The paperwork is not.

The packet sells an "8.2% reduction in premium." The old policy ran 14 months, the new one runs 12, and the packet compares the totals as if they matched. Annualize them and the county went from $167,143 to $181,001. That is $13,858 more a year, sold as a saving.

The packet's quote table lists 10 competing carriers and gives the current one no number at all, just the words “Incumbent, presented within.” The number is one page later: $195,000 expiring, $181,001 renewing, against a cheapest competitor at $194,500. The county did take the low offer. A resident reading the table would have no way to know that.

The approval chain cleared in one day, signed off by the purchasing director who wrote the memo. No auditor, no budget office, no risk management.

The policy took effect January 1. The Court voted January 6, five days after coverage started.

It sits in a 280 page PDF nobody read out loud. I'd have staff give a two sentence summary on the record for any purchase over a set threshold: what it is, what it costs, what changed since last year.

The report discloses $151,312 of equipment and software the county bought outside the approved budget process. Its own language: these items "were not originally included in the approved budget," so they are "presented to the Commissioners Court for recording purposes."

Two things stand out. $139,077 of that total is a single software subscription, carried with no vendor selection, no quote, no bid, and no cooperative contract behind it. That is more than two thirds of the money, with no procurement trail shown to anyone.

And a $4,195 treadmill for the jail gym carries the budget office's own note: "Not recommended in the FY 2026 Budget." It was recommended against, purchased anyway, and then disclosed in a report the Court does not vote on.

Departments need room to move. Equipment breaks and you cannot wait a year for the next budget. But "recording purposes only" should not be the place a rejected purchase goes to become permanent. If it was worth buying after the budget office said no, it is worth 30 seconds of explanation out loud.

County Judge Andy Eads gave her extra time past the three minute limit. Credit for that.

Then nothing. Fire Marshal Sebastian was in the room. He had just led the pledges and would accept an award at that same podium minutes later. She addressed her request to him twice, once by name. He never answered, and nobody asked him to. The Court's one commitment was to learn more about the meadow's public dedication, which is the only thing she wasn't asking for.

The fix was 10 feet away. Turn to your Fire Marshal and ask him if 19 feet works. One sentence, in open session, on the record. Instead a Friday deadline got "we'll be in touch."