For The Record

Two residents came to the podium about a subdivision this Court accepted seven weeks ago. One of them drew the drainage plans the county originally approved. She told the Court the built version routes stormwater onto private land with no easement, and that a retention pond at the development’s entrance is 15 to 20 feet deep with steep clay walls, slick when wet, no steps and no ledges to climb out on. She said she has raised it here before.

The answer was that it is not on the agenda.

The one number said out loud was $220,722, moved into jail overtime outside the county’s own budget and personnel policy. That is the third such transfer this year. Together they come to $748,169, and not one of the three has drawn a single question.

The Court awarded the owner’s representative contract for its largest capital project with no fee named, no memo, and no list of who else bid.

It approved two inmate communications items without saying what either one does to what a family pays to talk to somebody in that jail.

And it appointed a member of a tax increment zone board behind a closed door, then came out and read the name.

Item 6.A renewed the county’s employee appreciation event contract. No amount read.

Item 6.B awarded printer supplies for election supply carriers to a primary and a secondary vendor. No amount read.

Item 6.D awarded RFP #25-2891, Owner’s Representative Services for the Denton County Civil and Courts Buildings. No amount read, and this one is worse than that. The item runs three pages: a routing form, the caption printed again, and a blank court order. There is no memo. There is no fee. There is no evaluation summary and no list of who else responded.

The caption carries the note “CONFIDENTIAL UNTIL AFTER AWARD.” That protection ends at the award. The award happened at that meeting. The packet still holds nothing.

An owner’s representative is the county’s own watchdog over a construction project, the person who tells this Court whether the contractor is on schedule and on budget. This Court hired one for a building it has already spent a year of agenda time on, and the public record of that decision is a caption and a blank form.

On March 3 the same thing happened with an architecture firm ranked most qualified with no scoring sheet and no list of bidders. Two months later, same gap, bigger project.

Publish the fee, the responder list, and the score. Read the number before the vote.

The first identified himself as half owner of the remaining family owned portion of the Red Bird Ridge development, in the county’s extraterritorial jurisdiction east of the Argyle line. He said his family sold the residential portion about 15 months ago, that the construction drawings were fully approved and recorded in February of last year, and that the buyer did not build to them.

The second is the person who drew those approved plans. An architect and environmental designer with 60 years of practice, who told the Court she taught hydrology for 10 years.

Her account, from the record: the drainage was redesigned after the fact to route stormwater through a culvert placed on her family’s private property by way of a road easement, with no drainage easement to discharge there, changing the direction of the watershed runoff and putting water onto neighboring land during and after heavy rain. Her words: “You don’t flood your neighbor’s property with water.”

Then the second thing, which is not about property lines at all. A retention pond at the entrance of the development, roughly 15 to 20 feet deep, steep clay sidewalls, slippery when it rains, and by her account no steps, no ledges and no other aid to climb out.

She asked this Court for one thing: an independent review of the drainage in that addition.

She also said something the county should take seriously on its own terms. She said the Court has not given county development services the tools to do a real review, that staff have been left able only to approve a stamped and sealed engineer’s design, and that the design can be changed by whoever is paying the engineer.

Now the part the record supplies. On March 3, 2026, this Court approved the preliminary road acceptance of Red Bird Ridge Phase 1. The staff memo behind it says the subdivision “was constructed in accordance with the Denton County Subdivision Rules and Regulations,” and that Development Services and Transportation and Engineering “have reviewed the project and deemed it acceptable.” The two year maintenance bond period started that day. The vote took about 15 seconds. There was no discussion. The Chair’s only remark was, “that’s been a long time in the making.”

Seven weeks later the person who drew the approved plans stood in that room and said the built drainage does not match them.

The presiding officer’s answer was correct as far as it went. Under the Open Meetings Act this Court cannot deliberate an item that is not posted. He said staff would follow up.

But posting an item is entirely within this Court’s control. Red Bird Ridge appears in exactly one Commissioners Court packet this year, and that is the March 3 acceptance. A resident telling this county that a subdivision it just certified has a drainage failure and an open pit at its entrance should not have to hope somebody calls her back.

Put it on the agenda. Have Development Services present the as built drainage against the approved drawings, in open session, with the pond’s dimensions and whatever the county requires for escape from it. The maintenance bond has 22 months left to run, which is exactly the window where the county still has leverage.

That phrase should stop a room. The county has a written policy for moving money and for paying overtime, and this transfer went around both of them. The Chair read the amount and the exception out loud. Motion, second, unanimous, no discussion.

It is the third time this year.

January 29: $291,557 into jail overtime, moved outside the same two policies. Nobody asked which policies were being set aside.

March 17: $235,890 into jail overtime, outside the same two policies, for hours already worked. Motion, second, silence.

April 21: $220,722, same route, same silence.

$748,169 in three transfers, each one going around the county’s own rules, and across all three meetings not one member of this Court has asked a single question about it.

A policy that gets suspended every eight weeks is not a policy. Either the jail’s staffing budget is wrong and this Court should fix it in the budget where residents can see it, or the overtime policy is wrong and this Court should amend it. Doing it a third time by exception is a choice to keep the problem off the record.

Item 15.A was an economic development negotiation over an incentive to a business prospect in Precinct 4. No action.

Item 15.B was a settlement offer in the county’s own suit, cause 24-2705-481, Denton County, Texas v. The O’Haver Company LTD, in the 481st District Court. The presiding officer said, “we pulled item 15B.” That is the whole account. Pulled, with no reason given, and never mentioned again.

Item 15.C was the one with a result, and it is the same thing this Court did on January 6. The posted subject was personnel matters affecting a county advisory body, closed session, to deliberate the appointment of a member of the Little Elm Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone #3 board. The Court deliberated it behind the door, came back out, and named a replacement for the sitting member.

Item 13.A, the public half of that same appointment, is three pages. A routing form, the caption printed again, and a blank court order. No name of the person leaving. No name of the person arriving. No term, no seat, no list of anybody else considered.

A tax increment reinvestment zone board decides how tax increment gets spent inside a zone. It is a body that moves public money. The public learned who sits on it because the presiding officer read a name from a motion after the door opened.

Nobody’s position gets weaker because a Commissioners Court explains a board pick in the open. I said that on January 6 about two appointments this Court hid the same way. 13 meetings later, the packet is still three pages of nothing.

Put the names, the terms, and the seats in the packet. Take the vote in front of people.

Item 12.C amended the county’s master agreement with the video visitation vendor. Here is the entire substance of the amendment: “At no cost to the County, HomeWAV shall provide free calls to County-approved clergy members, parole and probation officers.”

Free calls for clergy, parole officers and probation officers. Nothing in it for a mother, a wife, or a child. That is not an argument against the amendment. Clergy and supervision officers should be able to reach people in custody. It is an observation about what this Court asked for when it had the contract open.

Item 12.D is the one that matters more, and it went by in 11 seconds. The Court formally acknowledged and made an election under an FCC regulatory transition covering the county’s inmate telephone and video visitation service.

The memo says the changes “went into effect on April 6, 2026.” The Court signed off on April 21. 15 days after the fact.

Under financial impact the memo says: N/A.

Something changed on April 6 about what it costs a family in this county to talk to somebody in that jail, or about how the vendor is allowed to charge for it, and the public record of this county contains a caption, an acknowledgment, and the letters N/A.

Say what the rate was. Say what the rate is now. Say what the county’s cut is, if it has one. Those three sentences belong in the memo, and they belong out loud, before the vote and not two weeks after it took effect.

12 of the 14 this year have come from a member of this Court, a county department head, the Sheriff, or his chaplain.

The Judge was in another courtroom on county legal business, so Commissioner Precinct 2 Falconer presided. Different chair, same slot, same direction.

That is what makes this a county practice rather than one man’s habit. 14 for 14, across three different people holding the gavel.

A moment of silence takes the same minute and nobody has to sit it out.