Tarrant residents form their own court to deal with commissioners’ reduced schedule

In response to the Tarrant County Commissioners Court deciding to only meet once a month, local residents decided to start their own version of commissioners court “where the voices of the people will be privileged,” according to an Instagram post.

The inaugural People’s Commissioners Court was hosted on Tuesday evening at Blanc Co-Work & Studios by Tarrant4Change, an advocacy organization, and co-founder Alex Montalvo. About 30 people came to take part. Many of those were familiar faces from the county commissioners meetings, but there were new faces as well.

Much of the meeting was used as a listening session through public comment and small groups to find out how it can best serve the participants. Attendees were given 3 minutes to speak, same as in the commissioners court, and primarily spoke about jail deaths and the freedom of speech being eroded.

Montalvo said the meeting will be recurring on the third Tuesday of each month — a week after the county commissioners have their meeting — and always at 6 p.m., with a potluck. This week’s offerings included a fan-favorite frito pie, tortilla soup, Hawaiian roll sandwiches and an array of desserts.

Among the crowd was Commissioner Alisa Simmons, a Democrat from Arlington, and two of her staff members. Jamal Williams, the chief of Commissioner Roderick Miles’s staff, was also present.

Williams said People’s Commissioners Court gives the citizens a place to formalize their ideas and solutions to county issues that they can then present to the commissioners for action.

“My linear mind wants to put this in a box and structure it, but I thought Dr. (Harriet) Harral made a really good point earlier today: It’s about the people, and allowing the people to lead the effort, and seeing what this looked like and seeing where it goes,” Williams said.

After the meeting, Simmons said the fact that the citizens feel the need to create their own version of the commissioners court tells her that they are not being properly served by the people in charge.

“We’ve disrespected them so much that they’ve had to pivot and come up with new strategy for getting their concerns heard and addressed,” Simmons said. “And I think the People’s Commissioners Court is their effort to strategize differently and become more cohesive, so that when they do show up at commissioners once a month, their presentations are titled, their messages are communicated.”

Simmons said she will be receptive to the ideas the People’s Commissioners Court brings her, whether it be putting something on the agenda for more information or a possible solution to an issue at the county.

Through small group brainstorming, the People’s Commissioners Court heard from attendees who said they would like to see the meetings be a place for delving deeper into county issues, breaking down what all is on the agendas and coordinating what they will speak out about in the county’s public comment section.

Zoe Wilkerson, who uses they/them pronouns, said their full-time jobs means attending the 10 a.m. commissioners court meeting isn’t possible without taking time off. Getting to the 6 p.m. People’s Commissioners Court meeting on the third Tuesday of each month is much more doable for them.

“This is an opportunity for me to be involved and figure out those times that it is important for me to take that time off without necessarily having to be constantly on top of what’s happening in the Commissioners Court,” Wilkerson said. “What’s happening is important, but it also can be exhausting for those of us that are doing a million other things.”

Joe Palmer, who is a regular at the county commissioners meetings, said he wasn’t surprised to be the only Republican in the group, but he hopes more people from the right or middle will join him next month. He said it would bring more attention to the issues that really do affect everyone in the county, indiscriminate of their party affiliation.

“If I can bring in people from the right or people from the middle, it would add legitimacy to anything that comes out of this group,” Palmer said, “because, you know, it’s going to be bashed as ‘Oh, it’s just another leftist activist group, and shocker, they’re complaining about stuff we’re doing.’ But if somebody goes to the meeting and says, ‘I’m a Republican voter, I went to that meeting, and here’s a new idea or a new understanding that I have on this agenda item,’ that’s powerful.”