Fort Worth has a new generation of leaders. May they guide our future well
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Leading Fort Worth’s future
Fort Worth voters have spoken, electing the youngest City Council in memory. With youth comes energy, new ideas, innovation and determination. Today is the next generation’s launch pad.
The city is at a crossroads. Crime, mobility and transportation, education, population growth, homelessness and race relations are complicated. Add the need for our community to raise the entrepreneurial focus that the new economy demands, and the council will have its hands full.
Fortunately, youth brings a fresh lens to view creative solutions. With their intelligence and life experience, these council members can be true leaders. They can turbocharge opportunities for east and southeast Fort Worth. They can ensure our neighborhoods, businesses and visitors are safe.
Of course, they won’t have to start from scratch. Our business community offers a helping hand. Our higher education institutions think outside the box. Our social and community organizations led amazing efforts to help tens of thousands during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mayor Mattie Parker, Mayor Pro Tempore Gyna Bivens and council members: We wish you and your colleagues luck. The reins of our city are in your hands. Lead us.
- Mike and Rosie Moncrief, Fort Worth
Mike Moncrief is former mayor of Fort Worth.
Find freedom within us all
July 4, 1776, was a remarkable day in history, a significant shift in consciousness to the need for freedom. Many people see the Fourth of July simply as a day off from work for barbecues and fireworks.
But considering its formal name, Independence Day, I must ask myself: Am I truly free? I lose my independence when I hold on to resentments or judgments toward others. I can be free only if I work through those issues.
Join me in looking at the ties that bind us, because independence and freedom, just like peace, begin with each of us.
- Leonard Ellis, Arlington
Devote space to real news
The only news we want to see about Donald Trump is that he has been sent to prison for a long time. His visit to the border was not news and did not belong in the paper, much less on the front page above the fold. (July 1, 1A, “Trump visits border, assails Biden on immigration”)
- Margaret Pennington, Benbrook
Officials need to get results
Your editorial Thursday shows what happens when voters are not aware. (9A, “Effort to pay Tarrant water chief $300,000 for leave sign of cronyism, need for change”) Tarrant Regional Water District officials have been responsible for spending millions of taxpayer dollars and need to be held accountable to the voters.
Tarrant Appraisal District leaders should be elected, too. For years they have abused their power to raise property values and need to be held accountable by the voters. Homeowners are being taxed out of our homes.
Maybe if jobs were on the line every two to four years, someone would think twice.
- Paul Kennedy, Arlington
School police do good work
When I read my former co-worker Adam Werner’s comments that police officers in the Castleberry school district “seem to escalate situations once they are called in,” I wondered, What is he talking about? (June 27, 1A, “Fort Worth school board grapples with role of campus police”)
I’ve worked at Castleberry ISD since January 2009, at all seven campuses as a substitute teacher and as a teacher’s aide. The police get involved with disciplining students only when an administrator asks for help — for example, when a student has become agitated and irrational, assaulted someone, made credible threats of violence or has something illegal.
I don’t know what incidents Werner is referring to. I have a good working relationship with the school district police. They don’t escalate situations. They know the students and have spent years with them. Most important, they have the proper temperament to work with youths.
- Ben Swallow, Fort Worth
Everyone should be equal
A letter writer Thursday contended there is nothing wrong with teaching critical race theory because it is teaching history. (9A) But I am concerned about lessons that may teach children that Black children are victims and white children are the oppressors. Is that not racism? Children do not see color — they see friends. What a shame that our whole society doesn’t have those same eyes.
- Sandra Lewis, Joshua
