Election Day is May 6 and the Fort Worth Report is committed to keeping you informed through our Election Central.
To help voters make informed decisions at the ballot box, we asked every candidate to respond to a candidate questionnaire intended to touch on the most pressing issues candidates may face while serving in elected office.
The candidate’s responses may be edited for grammar.
The Mayor represents the entirety of Fort Worth. To find out what city council district you live in, input your address here.
Municipal elections are coming up. Here are some key dates:
April 24: Early voting begins
May 2: Early voting ends
May 6: Election Day
Candidate survey
Name: Mattie Parker
Age: 39
Occupation: Mayor of Fort Worth/Attorney
What are your qualifications to serve on Fort Worth’s City Council?
Fort Worth is a remarkable city that I am proud to call home. I’m running for a second term as Fort Worth Mayor because I am prepared to lead with principle, bring our community together and tackle the tough issues head on. As Fort Worth is soon to be the 12th largest city in the US, our leaders must be prepared to take our city forward while also maintaining the integrity of what makes Fort Worth the community where we all want to raise our families. I will continue to lead with a listening ear and a united voice that speaks for neighborhoods in every part of Fort Worth. I know it takes principled leaders, not politicians, to provide a safer and stronger Fort Worth. I have spent my entire career solving problems and finding solutions. Whether as a CEO of an educational non-profit, Chief of Staff for Mayor Price and City Council, or as a mother of three children, I know that solutions can only result from bringing people together to improve our city. I’ve clearly demonstrated in the past 22 months I have the leadership acumen, vision and drive to lead this city into the future and I look forward to the opportunity to continue our work for another two years.
What are your top two priorities if elected to City Council? Describe briefly how you would approach these priorities.
Maintaining a clean, safe city: Our neighborhoods are the heartbeat of Fort Worth and protecting and supporting them will be a top priority. This starts with public safety, and I will always be a voice for strong police and fire services and ensure we are making smart investments to support our first responders.
We will also continue the opportunity to continue our work in neighborhood revitalization with investment in critical city infrastructure including streets, mobility, street lights and stormwater. Additionally, we will prioritize our city parks and greenspace for Fort Worth families today for generations to come.
Economic development & workforce: We must focus our economic development efforts on competing in a global economy, aggressively pursuing the next corporate relocation opportunity for Fort Worth. Simultaneously, we must embrace and support entrepreneurs to help grow our economy and develop new, high-paying jobs. Together, we can make Fort Worth the next great American success story using a shared vision of prosperity to shape our economic future.
Last but certainly not least, even as Fort Worth brings in new citizens and new businesses from around the globe, we must never stop trying to create opportunities for those who already live right here. We must open partnership opportunities with our nonprofits and education leaders to ensure more students have the job training they need to succeed in today’s workforce – giving young adults real-world skills and hope for a brighter future.
How would you characterize the performance of city management over the past five years?
From 2018 to 2023, Fort Worth’s management team has done an excellent job managing one of the fastest-growing cities in the US. Additionally, we weathered unprecedented times during the pandemic better than most large cities, bouncing back financially, and maintaining city services while also focusing on the needs of our residents and businesses. City Manager David Cooke has worked with the current council to prioritize city services to make Fort Worth a clean and safe city. He has assembled an excellent group of assistant city managers and department heads to lead Fort Worth into the future, managing a $1.6 billion city enterprise and leading our 6,600 city employees.
What is the single biggest issue your particular district faces?
My number one priority is optimal quality of life for all of the residents in our city, and it starts with being one of the safest and cleanest cities in our country. That is why I am proud that at a time when too many other big cities are cutting or reallocating funding for public safety, we have made it clear that Fort Worth is 100% committed to supporting our first responders. The costs to fund public safety departments and programs represent nearly 54% of the city’s general fund.
How will you balance the concerns of your district vs. the city as a whole?
Every leader has the duty to leave their community better than they found it and prepare it for the next generation of leadership. We also have a duty always to focus on moving our city forward on the issues that matter the most, like quality of life, planning growth, and attracting businesses.
Smart long-term planning is essential to manage Fort Worth’s booming growth. That’s why from 2018 to 2026, we are investing more than 3.5 billion dollars in mobility infrastructure projects, laying the groundwork for the future.
To fuel our growth and alleviate the burden of property taxes, we must continue to attract both brick-and-mortar businesses and regional sources of revenue. A perfect recent example of the latter is our collaboration in bringing the FIFA World Cup to the metroplex, which will bring an economic impact of nearly $400 million and as many as 3,000 new jobs created.
How can city leadership work to ensure all Fort Worth residents have equal access to city services regardless of race, ethnicity, gender and income?
As a city we must ensure that regardless of zip code every family should have the same opportunity for prosperity and safety. This will require focus on not just new development but ensuring that we continue to boost our aging neighborhoods with more jobs, improved infrastructure, and access to quality healthcare, education, and career training to help the next generation thrive.
Fort Worth’s annual general budget is currently around $915 million; do you feel this budget is appropriate, too large, or too small? If too large or too small, briefly describe how you would propose amending the budget.
I’m proud that in Fort Worth’s most recent budget, we cut the property tax rate yet again, providing much-needed relief for homeowners and renters alike at a time when the cost of housing is rising swiftly and unsustainably. We are also supporting efforts in the Texas Legislature that would bring meaningful property tax relief for our residents. On average, 26 percent of your property tax bill goes to the City of Fort Worth and we have an obligation to provide an excellent return on that investment while also maintaining fiscally conservative budget principles. In the coming years, we can continue to reduce our tax burden by continuing to expand and diversify the city’s revenue streams. We have successfully encouraged tourism, boosting sales tax revenues, and we attracted high-quality businesses to expand our commercial tax base. But we must do more: I firmly believe that when our city is growing is when we need to be more disciplined than ever. We must find ways to streamline the delivery of services and more efficiently deploy the resources that we have so that we can provide even more relief from the burden of property taxes.
In 2023 the city will levy a tax rate of $0.7125 per $100 of assessed evaluation. If you would advocate for decreasing/increasing the tax rate what would you cut/add?
I’m proud that in Fort Worth’s most recent budget, we cut the property tax rate yet again, providing much-needed relief for homeowners and renters alike at a time when the cost of housing is rising swiftly and unsustainably. We are also supporting efforts in the Texas Legislature that would bring meaningful property tax relief for our residents. On average, 26 percent of your property tax bill goes to the City of Fort Worth and we have an obligation to provide an excellent return on that investment while also maintaining fiscally conservative budget principles. In the coming years, we can continue to reduce our tax burden by continuing to expand and diversify the city’s revenue streams. We have successfully encouraged tourism, boosting sales tax revenues, and we attracted high-quality businesses to expand our commercial tax base. But we must do more: I firmly believe that when our city is growing is when we need to be more disciplined than ever. We must find ways to streamline the delivery of services and more efficiently deploy the resources that we have so that we can provide even more relief from the burden of property taxes.
As Fort Worth grows, how can the city ensure it keeps up with the pace of development?
First, we have to accept that we need both short- and long-term strategies to manage growth because our quality of life is so high that growth is not stopping any time soon.
Second, we need to pay attention to the small details that make a big difference for established neighborhoods and growth areas alike. Our city covers 8,129 lane miles of street surface, 64,944 street lights, and 925 signalized intersections, and these are just some numbers to give you an idea. That is why for the 2023 city budget we have allocated $2.9 million dollars to fix street lights. Over 60% of the last $560 million bond is dedicated to mobility and streets. Additionally, one-half cent of our Paygo funds will go to our ongoing capital projects.
Third, we need to invest smart and learn from the lessons of the past. The growth that has already successfully occurred in North Fort Worth provided a lot of lessons for policymakers, and homeowners. We must apply the lessons we’ve learned there about what works to prepare for a similar explosion of growth in West Fort Worth.
Finally, we have to take a long view and invest on a timeline of decades, not yearly or quarterly: from 2018 to 2026, we are investing more than 3.5 billion dollars in mobility infrastructure projects. They will pay dividends and bring mobility solutions across the region. You will see significant ROI in those investments and it’s thanks to the partnerships we have with Trinity Metro, North Central Texas Council of Governments, TXDOT, and Tarrant County that make those projects possible.
In the last year, the city council has limited opportunities for public comment and changed meeting schedules. How would you approach community engagement as a council member?
The Fort Worth council has not limited public comment but instead created two specific meetings just for open public comment and ensured our public council meetings with heavy agendas stay organized and allow constituents the ability to speak on these items. With four meetings per month and public comments are welcome at each of these meetings.
Community engagement is much more than just public comment. As Mayor, I’ve enjoyed being out in the community, taking constituent meetings along with my staff to solve problems on behalf of our residents. We also conduct numerous public meetings with important opportunities, such as during the budget process, the Fort Worth City Council redistricting process, and the 2022 bond election.
What role does the City Council have in policing? Please describe how city council members should work to ensure the safety of their constituents.
Our commitment to public safety has enabled us to fund police and fire at a time when other cities are cutting or reallocating their budgets. This has helped us avoid, at least for a time, the hiring crisis we’re seeing in so many departments around the country; it has also helped bring down 911 response times.
Our current public safety challenges are: 1) providing high-quality training and equipment for all of these officers to ensure that they can respond appropriately and swiftly to each situation, and 2) improving the relations between FWPD and all of our communities.
The answer to the first problem is simple: keep funding FWPD and Fort Worth Fire aggressively, and facilitate partnerships with state and federal programs to ensure they have access to the best tools and training. The answer to the second problem has to do with leadership: in too many cities around the US, council members and elected officials at every level of the ballot have turned on public safety, attacking police to score partisan points. We need a City Council that sends a clear message that supporting public safety is not a left issue or a right issue: it’s the bedrock of Fort Worth’s enduring happiness and prosperity.
Have you ever filed for bankruptcy? If so, when.
No.
Have you ever been convicted of a crime, in Texas or another state? If so, what crime and when.
No.
You can find other candidates’ responses by reading our voter guide here. The candidate’s responses may be edited for grammar.
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