What happened
FACT: On election day, May 2, pastry boxes carrying campaign flyers were delivered to voters’ homes around the village. The flyers supported challengers Darla Thornton, Michael Bachand, and Brad Turner, and criticized the mayor’s support of the Kite Farm rezoning.
FACT: How the investigation started, by Mayor L. Kelly Jones’s own account: he received reports from residents, then personally followed Council Member Halden Griffith and collected evidence on him, and then turned that evidence over to the police. The police department referred the matter to the Tarrant County District Attorney, and around May 15 and 16 Griffith was arrested on a felony bribery allegation, the theory being that pastries worth more than $20, paired with campaign flyers, amounted to a bribe for votes. Bond was $10,000.
FACT: This was covered by the Fort Worth Report, KERA, WFAA, and CBS Texas. Griffith’s attorney’s response, in one line: “Bringing pastries with a campaign flyer is called campaigning, not bribery.”
FACT: The Fort Worth Star-Telegram subsequently reported that the Tarrant County DA will not pursue charges in the case. We’ve seen the headline but not yet obtained the full article or a statement from the DA’s office; a records request for the referral and the DA’s response is in the works, and both will be posted here.
What hasn’t happened
FACT: We are aware of no public retraction, correction, or apology from City Hall regarding the accusation. If one exists, send it to us and it goes at the top of this page.
UNVERIFIED: We understand two related cases remain open. Until we have filings in hand, that stays labeled exactly like this.
What we think
OPINION: A sitting council member, one who weeks later voted against spending city money on a colleague’s election-contest defense, was arrested over pastries and campaign flyers on evidence the mayor says he collected personally, after following him. The mayor’s favored rezoning was the very thing those flyers criticized. The DA reportedly wanted no part of it. When an accusation is made that loudly and collapses that completely, the decent thing is to say so as publicly as the accusation was made.
OPINION: And if the record shows we have any of the above wrong, we’ll correct this page just as publicly. That’s the standard we’re asking City Hall to meet, so it’s the standard we hold ourselves to.
(Editors: nothing goes on this page as FACT without a document, recording, or news report behind it. Names of private individuals stay off this page entirely unless they ask to be named.)