For The Record

The Court came in on a Wednesday morning for two closed session items and nothing else. 10 pages of packet. 499 spoken words. One vote.

It appointed Trevor Krueger Constable of Precinct 1, effective May 29. The interviews happened behind the door. Nobody outside that room learned how many applied, what the Court was looking for, or why this one.

The other item was the county’s own lawsuit against members of the North Central Texas Council of Governments executive board. That makes three closed sessions on that case in nine days, three times coming back with no action, and still not one word about it in open session.

Nobody had signed up for public input. At 10:01 the Court went behind the door.

It came back and appointed Trevor Krueger Constable of Precinct 1. Commissioner Precinct 1 Williams moved it, Commissioner Precinct 4 Edmondson seconded, unanimous.

Then the discussion, all of it. Williams thanked the applicants: “it wasn’t that not one person wasn’t qualified. I think we just made one choice.” Edmondson said she enjoyed meeting people she did not know. The Judge echoed both. Adjourned.

Nobody said how many people applied. Nobody said what the Court was measuring. Nobody said what made this candidate the one.

A constable carries a badge and a gun, serves this county’s civil process, and runs an office funded by county taxpayers. The entire public account of how that job was filled is “we just made one choice.”

Personnel deliberation belongs behind that door. I have said so every time it has come up this year and I say it here. But the number of applicants does not belong back there, and neither does the standard the Court used. Three sentences in open session would have covered both, and this Court did not spend them.

There is one more thing, and it comes from the Judge himself. He said many of the applicants “are choosing to pursue this office through the political process as well and not just the appointment process.”

So this Court knew it was choosing among people who will be on a ballot for that same seat, and it handed one of them the office first. That is the Court’s call to make under state law and I am not disputing that it had the authority. I am saying that when the appointment doubles as a head start in an election, the standard behind it belongs in public, out loud, before the vote.

April 28: behind the door, no action. May 5: behind the door, no action. May 6: behind the door, no action.

Coming out, the Judge said it plainly: “there will be no action today on item 2A.”

Litigation moves in its own time and closed session is where a party plans it. That is not the complaint. The complaint is that this Court hired counsel for that case on March 17 with no rate, no cap and no total, filed a 376 page suit 20 days later, and in every open session since has said nothing about it at all.

The documentary record of this special meeting is six pages behind two items. For 2.A: a routing form, the caption printed a second time, a blank court order, and a memo from the Assistant District Attorney that is a subject line with no body. For 2.B: the same, plus a memo whose “FROM” line reads “Denton County Commissioners Court,” addressed to nobody, also a subject line with no body.

That is the complete paper trail of a meeting that filled a law enforcement office and touched a lawsuit this county is paying outside lawyers to run.

Say what the lawyers cost. Say where the case stands. And when a special meeting is called to fill a job, put the process on the record before you fill it.