For The Record

The page the presiding officer signs on the Lake Dallas road agreement describes the wrong road. The scope covers “the widening of Memorial Drive as a six-lane roadway between Standridge Drive and the eastern City limits.” Memorial Drive is in The Colony, Precinct 2. This one is Lake Dallas, Precinct 3.

Same agreement raised the county’s share from $1,000,000 to $11,110,000. County Judge Andy Eads read every dollar and auditor line item out loud first. Nobody said why the number moved.

Page 324 says the county intends to reach $17,060,000 once more bonds issue. It appears once in 365 pages, unspoken.

One County Auditor’s certificate in 365 pages. Unsigned.

The county cancelled its elections moving contract and put the reasons in writing first. Credit. It never says what got damaged.

106 of the 365 pages cannot be searched. The biggest is a 77 page road report on the consent agenda, photographed. The same morning the Court bought accounting software with ADA compliance in the bundle.

The Chair moved it himself. Commissioner Precinct 2 Falconer seconded. Unanimous, no discussion. Then the Judge called it “a neat innovative program.”

Seven days earlier this Court came out of a closed session and hired outside counsel on the NCTCOG matter, with no rate, no cap and no total named.

The signature page of this agreement carries two names. Todd Little, Executive Director of NCTCOG. And Andy Eads, County Judge.

Taking $1,500,000 from an organization is not wrong. Neither is litigating with one. Doing both inside a week, without a word connecting them in open session, is how a public record stops making sense to the people it belongs to.

Say what the lawyer is for.

The county’s HR assistant director gave this one, her second of the year. She opened with Philippians 4, asked for peace and for the health and safety of the community, and asked that “your love would unite us rather than divide us.” She said “we cannot abide in you if we have hate in our hearts or our minds.”

It is the 10th straight from one faith. Nine of the 10 came from somebody on the county payroll or on this dais. A commissioner, department heads, the Sheriff, his chaplain, and HR twice.

A county employee at a government podium asking a room of taxpayers to bow their heads is the county talking, whatever the words are.

February’s moment of silence worked fine. Nobody had to sit that one out.

Fourth meeting running. March 3, March 10, March 17, and this one.

Item 2.A isn’t a one week problem. It has come in identical at all 10 meetings this year. Three pages: a routing form, the caption again, and an unexecuted court order. That order names all five people who get to vote on the appointment. It names nobody being appointed.

The road report is this packet’s biggest block. It runs 80 pages and 77 of them are photographs with no searchable text. It came in the same way on January 6 (56 pages), January 29 (52) and February 24 (46). Every month it appears, it appears as pictures.

Put the names in 2.A, send the road report as text, and take the vote after the reading.

Page 5 of 7 is the approval instrument, the one the presiding officer signs. It says the scope “shall continue to include engineering, right-of-way acquisition, utility relocations, inspections, and construction for the widening of Memorial Drive as a six-lane roadway between Standridge Drive and the eastern City limits.”

Memorial Drive is not in Lake Dallas. On the county’s own 2022 road bond list it is project 57, Precinct 2, The Colony, from the east city limit to Standridge Drive. Hundley Drive and Shady Shores Road are projects 72 and 71, Precinct 3, Lake Dallas. The Colony approved its own Amendment No. 1 with this county on October 8, 2025.

Somebody pasted another city’s project into the document that commits $11,110,000. Five people voted on it anyway.

Read the instrument before the presiding officer signs it.

Nobody said it out loud. The Judge read the caption, and the caption stops at $11,110,000. So the number this county intends to reach sits in the packet exactly once, in a paragraph about a future amendment, and the room heard the smaller one.

Behind all of it sits a single County Auditor’s certificate, page 326, the only one in this packet. It reads: “I hereby certify funds are available to accomplish and pay the obligation of Denton County, Texas, under this Agreement.” There is no line for an amount. The signature line is blank.

$11,110,000 committed now, $17,060,000 intended, and one unsigned sentence standing behind both.

Say the ceiling out loud, and get the certificate signed before the vote.

What it never says is what got damaged. Not which equipment, not how much of it, not what replacing it costs. Financial impact: N/A.

Item 6.C then handed the work to Duryea Moving and Storage, the second lowest bidder, at the price Duryea quoted the first time.

10 weeks ago this Court gave that contract to Suddath on a purchasing memo calling it the lowest and best bid. The bid tabulation attached to that memo had Duryea cheaper on emergency moves, $225 against $300, and the memo’s own estimate ran $60,750 above what Suddath actually bid. Nobody asked about either one.

Say what got damaged and what it cost.

On the way out it read its decisions item by item. Government Code 551.102 requires the final action be taken in the open, so that is the floor.

Here is what five hours produced. A nomination, Weldon Huffman Bonner to Place 4 on the Denton Central Appraisal District board, moved by Commissioner Precinct 3 Mitchell and carried unanimously. Outside counsel hired for a federal lawsuit. Two settlements accepted, one of them for $524.22.

And on the two personnel items, the Director of Community Relations and the Director of Purchasing, no action at all. The Chair’s words: “We did have great visits with both of them and it’s good to have those dialogues there.”

Personnel and litigation belong behind that door. I have said so since January and I still mean it. But the public got 54 minutes, the closed door got five hours and 18 minutes, and the two items that took the longest to talk about ended with nothing decided.

Publish how long the door stays closed, and on what.

The quote sits at page 164. Year 1 is $59,197, year 2 is $87,030, year 3 is $76,167. Those add to $222,394. The grand total printed at the bottom of the county’s own copy of that quote says $59,197.

Item 7.C then moved exactly $59,197 out of unappropriated contingency. So the Court committed to $222,394 and funded the first six months of it.

Now read what is in the bundle. “ADA Compliance - Software.” And in the implementation line, “ADA Compliance - Setup Support.” The county is paying a vendor to make the Auditor’s financial reporting readable to people with disabilities.

The same morning, this Court approved a 365 page packet in which 106 pages carry no text at all. No search, no copy, no screen reader. Including the 77 page road report it voted on before anybody described it.

Buy the ADA compliance. Then point it at the packet.