Did you know there’s an election going on? Here’s what’s on your ballot in Fort Worth

Two-term incumbent Bill Greenhill is fighting to keep his Tarrant County College Board seat after coming in second in the District 4 race in the May 6 election.

He’s running against sales account executive Laura Forkner Pritchett who got 42.3% compared to 30.5% for Greenhill.

Theirs is among the races voters will decide in the June 10 runoff election. Others include a Fort Worth school board seat and a newly created seat on the Fort Worth City Council. Early voting began May 30 and runs through June 6.

Greenhill is running on a platform of transparency, fiscal responsibility, and maintaining the college district as a resource for workforce training.

Forkner Pritchett’s platform also puts an emphasis on workforce training while calling for lower taxes and an end to so-called “race based hiring.”

Tarrant County College should be hiring instructors and professors based on merit rather than the color of a person’s skin, Forker Pritchett said at a recent candidate forum.

Greenhill responded this was a non-issue given the recent passage of Texas Senate Bill 17, which bans state colleges and universities from allowing race, sex, color, or ethnicity to influence hiring decisions, according to the bill’s text.

Forkner Pritchett also criticized Greenhill for voting to maintain the college district’s property tax rate, which effectively increased taxes given rising home values.

The college district has had to make up for a decrease in funding from the state, Greenhill said at the same candidate forum. He pointed to figures showing the tax on an average homestead for Tarrant County College increased by $37.44 between 2021 and 2022.

Fort Worth City Council District 11

Jeanette Martinez, an executive administrator for Tarrant County Commissioner Roy Brooks, faces Rick Herring, a neighborhood activist and ERISA consultant. The pair emerged from a five-person field on May 6 with Martinez getting 36.3% to Herring’s 34.1%.

District 11 is one of two districts created after voters narrowly approved a charter amendment in 2016 to expand the city council. It had the lowest voter turnout of the eight contested races.

Herring faced criticism from Fort Worth Democratic State Rep. Ramon Romero for his record of voting in Republican party primaries. A mailer sent out by Romero’s campaign tried to paint Herring as a “MAGA Republican.”

Herring said he has been supportive of politicians from both parties and argued that partisanship has no role in Fort Worth city politics.

Martinez faced criticism from some of Herring’s supporters for saying she’ll keep her job with Tarrant County if elected to the Fort Worth City Council. They’ve argued her county job represents a conflict of interest that will force her to recuse herself during important votes.

Martinez is in charge of constituent services for Brooks. Her job is to help people get what they need from the county when they reach out with an issue or problem.

She doesn’t serve in a policy making role, which means keeping her county job wouldn’t violate Texas State laws prohibiting dual office holding. The only potential for conflict would be inter-local agreements when the city and county are collaborating on a project, she said, vowing to recuse herself from those votes and discussions if elected to the City Council.

Martinez will be allowed to keep her county job is elected, a spokesperson for Tarrant County wrote in an email to the Star-Telegram.

Fort Worth School Board District 5

Incumbent Carin “C.J.” Evans hopes for a better showing after getting 31.6% of the vote compared to 45.5% for challenger Kevin Lynch on May 6.

Lynch is running on a platform of empowering parents, keeping political agendas out of schools, and fiscal responsibility.

Evans is running on a similar platform, but has argued her experience makes her the best candidate to actually get those things done.

Lynch pointed to public dissatisfaction with the district as one of the reasons he performed so well in the May 6 election, speaking at a recent candidate forum. He argued more needs to be done to help students meet grade level reading standards, and more needs to be done to improve transparency on the budget.

The Fort Worth school district’s problems are complex and issues with reading won’t be solved overnight, Evans said speaking at the same candidate forum. She pointed to the district’s improvement from a D+ to a B- rating during her time on the board.

“We still have miles to go before we can become an A+ district, but we can get there,” she said.