For The Record

Start with the credit, because it's earned. This Court said its numbers out loud. $196,760 for asbestos abatement at Briarwood. $427,083 for courthouse glass doors. $102,566.92 for a chiller. $11,197,515 in rollover funds. That's the fix I've asked for since January 6, and it happened on nearly every item that carried a price.

Now the gap. Reading a number is not explaining one. 44 motions carried. 36 of them drew no discussion at all. About $12.8 million moved, and exactly one figure drew a question.

Three of five members sat on the dais. County Judge Andy Eads was out after a fall during the winter storm. County Commissioner Precinct 3 Bobbie J. Mitchell presided. County Commissioner Precinct 4 Dianne Edmondson was on the video call the whole time and never got let in, so she cast no votes, and nobody told the public until after the closed session.

And a $4,000,000 road transfer was pulled in three words. The public still doesn't know what it was.

The Court approved county participation in a Pilot Point tax increment reinvestment zone for a Hillwood development, and it was explained thoroughly. A senior vice president from Hillwood Communities described the 600 acres and roughly 2,000 homes. Williams explained why pushing development into city limits gets residents better services. The Pilot Point City Manager confirmed the partnership. Whatever residents think of that deal, they heard what it is.

20 minutes later the Court approved a Chapter 312 tax abatement with MP 10X Development LLC in a single breath. Motion, second, aye, carried.

The packet had everything they didn't say. 50% of county property taxes abated for 10 years, capped at $9,300,000, against company commitments of $301,500,000 in construction, $867,650,000 in equipment, and 1,000 jobs averaging $74,315 a year. 73 of that item's 78 pages publish as scanned images.

Both items hand tax treatment to private development. One got the full public case. One got a caption and a voice vote.

Brian Nelson retired from the Sheriff's Office after 29 years, part of it working the jail. County Commissioner Precinct 1 Ryan Williams named what that costs past the physical: “there's things that you never get to forget and that people don't understand that are not in law enforcement.” A proclamation honored Tracy Eubanks for more than a decade leading Metrocrest Services.

Then the Budget Office collected a national award for the 34th year running, and Mitchell would not let the managers accept it alone. “Would you introduce these ladies that helped make this possible?” When they hesitated, she pushed: “Don't be bashful.”

So Kerensa Cummings, Rena Wilhelm, LaDawn Fitzgearld and Nicole Stephens said their own names into the permanent record of Denton County, because the presiding officer made room for it.

Most of the people who actually run a county government never appear in its record by name. This Court put four of them in it on purpose, on a morning it was two members short and two days late.

$196,760 for asbestos abatement at Briarwood. $427,083 for courthouse glass doors. $102,566.92 for a chiller replacement. $253,245 for a drug treatment court grant, though that vote never actually closed. $11,197,515 rolled over from last year's committed funds, with the budget officer confirming on the record what it was.

January 6 approved a $190,144 insurance policy in silence. January 13 moved $870,796 in contracts without one figure read aloud. Two weeks later the numbers got spoken. The record should say so.

Now the limit. Saying a number is not explaining it. 44 motions carried this morning and 36 drew no discussion at all. Of roughly $12.8 million read into the record, exactly one figure drew a question, and it was answered in a single sentence.

Two amounts never got said at all. The county payroll, and the $9.3 million tax abatement.

Reading a number out loud is the floor, not the finish. Now say what they buy.

Four votes still did not close, and two of them moved real money.

A $253,245 grant application got this, in full: “All in favor? Aye. A motion? All in favor say aye. Aye.” Nobody was asked to oppose. No motion was declared carried. The Court moved on.

A petition to create a public improvement district got “Opposed? Aye. Motion carries.” Nobody was ever asked to vote in favor.

Twice her colleagues had to stop the meeting to fix it. “I think we have a vote still.” Then, on a plat approval, “If you'll go back to 10C so we can approve that, all of us.”

They caught every one. That is decent men paying attention, and it is not a substitute for a process.

Give whoever presides a written script for calling a vote. A vote is the one thing a court cannot get approximately right.

Staff had to interrupt to save the payroll vote. “Let the record show that 2B was approval of payroll, and then we did need a vote on that as well.” The entire county payroll then passed with no dollar amount spoken, on a three word caption, with no pay period, no headcount, and nothing attached to it anywhere in 696 pages of packet.

The appointments item is worse. The Court approved an “Order Making Appointments” and the order is not in the packet. No names, no positions, no departments, no salaries.

Then $68,350 in Facilities transfers. The captions the public heard say the money will “fund utilities” and “allocate additional funding.” The internal records behind those same items say “cover overage” and “cover negative amount.” Those lines were already in the red. Money already spent, read aloud as money about to be spent.

Approve first, describe second. That was the whole block.

Here is what it was. Denton County is widening Bonnie Brae Road with the City of Denton. The amendment raises the county's share from $2,851,785 to as much as $6,851,785. That is $4 million more.

The project did get more expensive, by $2,388,363. The county's share rises 140% to cover a cost increase of 5.9%, which means putting in $1.6 million more than the entire overrun. Nothing in the packet explains why.

The money comes from a line called Judge Discretionary. The only description of it sits in a City of Denton ordinance, printed as a scanned image: “the County Judge has been allocated Twenty Five Million and 00/100 Dollars ($25,000,000.00) in TRIP 2022 funds for Project #12-Strategic Projects.”

No county document mentions it. The Auditor's certificate confirming the money exists is blank and unsigned.

Denton's city council passed their side 7 to 0 on September 30. This Court had not taken it up four months later.

Pulling an item is fine. Pulling it without telling anyone what it was is a choice.

Judge Eads was out injured and cast no vote on this item. Nobody's vote got bought here and I'm not going to suggest otherwise. The explanation was still the best one the Court gave all day.

But it should have been said out loud. This Court knows how. Earlier that same morning it recognized Bob's House of Hope, and Denton County Sheriff Tracy Murphree told the room, unprompted, “first of all, I'm very proud to be on the board of directors for this organization,” before anybody mentioned the $1 million the county sent it last year. That is how it is done.

Denton County has a standard for disclosing connections. It just doesn't apply it to campaign money.

As County Judge I would. If a party with business in front of this Court has given to your campaign, you say so before the vote. Every time.

Two things were better. Coming back into open court, Williams made the nomination out loud and by name, Rich Olson. And Mitchell would not let the rest of the field disappear: “We have a gentleman from Carrollton who would also like to be on this board. So we have to make sure that we are inviting of everyone that want to be a part of the board.” Williams added that Carrollton had nominated the man anyway.

That is a crack of daylight, and it is a new one. January 13 read out five reappointments after the deciding was done and never mentioned whether anyone else applied. This time the Court said so on the record.

Credit one more call. The Fire Marshal item was posted for closed session and Mitchell held it: “we're gonna hold off on this one till we have a full court.” A personnel decision about a department head should not get made by three of five.

They said who got the seat and who else wanted it. They still didn't say why.

Then Williams used the moment for this: “I will say, whether you agree with our president or not, what he's done at the border has significantly decreased the human trafficking that goes on within the borders.”

He knew. “Whether you agree with our president or not” is a man telling you he understands the room isn't unanimous, and saying it anyway.

Whatever you believe about that claim, it had no business in a county proclamation about protecting exploited kids. Every person in that room already agreed on the mission. The organization's director was standing at the podium waiting for his turn to speak.

The proclamation stood on its own. It didn't need a campaign message stapled to it, and the kids it's about deserve better than being a segue.

January 13 came from outside the government. A volunteer chaplain from the community gave 42 words. Not a county official, and not from the government's own bench.

This one slid back. The county's Director of Public Health, a man on the county payroll, prayed for 410 words from the front of the courtroom. The presiding Commissioner called him up as "our own health director." It closed in the name of Jesus Christ. It asked God to give the members of this Court an extra measure of wisdom and humility. That is not the county's to ask for.

No moment of silence was offered. No alternative was announced. Nobody said participation was optional.

The fix has not changed since January 6 and it still costs nothing. A moment of silence holds everybody. A prayer picks a side.

I understand why site deals stay quiet while they are being negotiated. Companies do walk when a location leaks, and that is a real cost to a county competing for jobs.

But look at what was actually withheld. The packet named the location, Harmonson Road and Farm Road 156 in Northlake. It named the price, up to $9.3 million. It said the Town of Northlake had approved its own agreement seven days earlier. The one thing a resident could not search for was who. The name is in there. Page 605 is an economic incentive application that prints Project Forge/Force, MP 10X Development LLC, and its parent company, MP Materials Corp. That page is a photograph. Type any of those names into the packet and you get nothing back.

So this Court committed $9.3 million with the company's name buried on a page no search can reach, said none of it out loud, and then stayed silent for a month after the reason for the secrecy expired.

Confidentiality during a negotiation is defensible. Silence after it isn't.

As County Judge that is the floor. No tax deal moves without its terms said out loud, and when it goes public, the county's accounting goes public the same week.

$291,557 went to county jail overtime, moved “outside of the Budget Amendment and Human Resources Policy.” Nobody asked which policies were being set aside.

The reason is in the packet, printed sideways. The page is rotated 90 degrees and no search can read it, and on it the county's own budget office writes: “Our staff are still working 12-hour days due to the staff shortage. We are at 74% staffing while our daily inmate population continues to increase.”

On January 13 I said this Court has to publish packets people can actually read. Two meetings later, the document explaining a jail in trouble is turned on its side.

The money covers pay periods ending December 5, December 19 and January 2. Every hour was worked before the vote. This Court wasn't deciding whether to spend it. It was settling up.

The other $95,000 went to a Workday subscription this Court approved 20 minutes earlier with no dollar amount attached.

Nowhere in 696 pages does the packet say what is left in contingency.

A jail at 74% staffing is not a budget line. It is a warning.

Denton County mailed those letters for Copper Creek Estates Phase III. The letter is dated January 27, 2026. It tells them the hearing “will be held in the Commissioners Courtroom ... on January 13, 2026 at 9:00 AM.” It announces a hearing two weeks before the letter was written.

The agenda, the court order and the staff memo all say March 3. Then Mitchell read it from the bench as March 30th, and read the same wrong date again for the second replat.

Nobody has lost their say yet. The hearing is still coming. But a neighbor who opened that envelope had every reason to think they had already missed it, and no reason to call and check.

The other letter puts Bois D'Arc Acres in Precinct 1. It's in Precinct 4.

Staff wrote the letters. This Court approved both without a word.

Three dates for one hearing, and the people who needed the right one got the wrong one. Notice isn't paperwork. It's the only reason a neighbor knows to come.

She was on the video call the whole time and never got admitted. The public found out near the end of the morning, on the way back from executive session, when Mitchell said it out loud: “she's tried to get in to show her face, but we were not able to get her in. But she is on and she's listening.”

A Commissioner listened to the entire meeting and took no part in a single vote.

While she sat outside the room, this Court approved her continuing education certificate. She got credit for the training and not for the meeting.

It also set two public hearings on property in her precinct, and another member read her community announcements for her.

Quorum was met and every vote was valid. That is not the point. A quarter of this county had a representative who could hear the meeting and could not speak in it, and the people she represents heard about it after the closed door.

Somebody has to let a person in. Nobody did.

Test the connection before the gavel. If a member can't get in, say so at the top.

Nobody in that room was asked whether they wanted to speak. The presiding officer checked the stack of cards and moved on. If you walked in without knowing there was a form, or where the side table was, your morning was over before it started.

Then three public hearings, all on the same 1.78 acre tract, all with nobody there to speak. That happens. What matters is what the Court told the room before voting, which was nothing.

After all three were opened, closed and approved, Williams offered the one fact that would have helped: “4A, 4B and 4C, all those were unanimously approved from the Lake Ray Roberts P&Z. So I just want to make that clear to the public.”

He was right to say it. He said it after the votes.

Ask the room out loud, every time. And say what the item is before the hearing closes, not after.