What P&Z does, and who controls it
FACT: The Planning & Zoning Commission reviews every rezoning request in Westworth Village before it reaches the council. Under the city’s own code, members are nominated and approved by a simple majority of the council, serve two-year terms ending in May, and the council may remove or replace any member at any time by simple majority.
FACT: So let’s be clear about something up front: the council has broad power over who sits on the commission. The question this page raises isn’t whether the council can change the commission. It’s whether it did so the way the law requires: in front of the public, on an agenda that says what’s actually being decided.
Your rights when a rezoning comes (worth knowing before you need them)
FACT: Texas law gives neighbors real leverage over zoning changes, and it applies by default. Under Local Government Code § 211.0061, if the owners of at least 20 percent of the land within 200 feet of a property proposed for rezoning sign a written protest, the change can only pass with a three-fourths supermajority of the full council, not a simple majority. Rights-of-way count in the 200-foot area. And under § 211.0065, a lawsuit challenging a residential rezoning ordinance must generally be filed within 60 days of its effective date, so the clock matters. If a rezoning ever comes to your street, the protest petition is the tool the Legislature built for you.
One month, two meetings, six seats
FACT: On June 18, at a special session, the council made its board appointments: Michael Bachand, Brad Turner, and Anita Gray came off the commission, replaced by Aaron Feldman, Russell Laughlin, and Gary Fitzjarrell (terms to May 2028), 4 to 0 with Fitzgerald abstaining, per the official minutes. Turner had just won a council seat, a natural reason to leave. Bachand had just lost his council race by 2 votes and filed the lawsuit contesting it, the same lawsuit the council voted, minutes earlier that night, to fund the other side of. Our notes on June 18.
FACT: Then on July 14, with the slate settled just four weeks, three more sitting commissioners were removed mid-term: Riley Swanston, Darla Thornton, and Jordon Collis, each with a term running to May 2027. Thornton was the commission’s chair, and had just lost the Place 2 council race by 15 votes. Per the official minutes, a motion by Griffith and Turner to make no changes failed 2 to 3; the removal motion then passed 3 to 2, with Turner and Griffith opposed. Russell Laughlin, who the minutes say resigned, was replaced by Carl Greer. No cause for any removal appears anywhere in the minutes. Our notes on July 14, and one week earlier at P&Z, where Thornton was chairing routine unanimous votes with the mayor in the room.
FACT: Add it up: between mid-June and mid-July, six of the commission’s seven seats changed hands, five by removal or replacement and one by resignation. One member, Dani Briones, kept a seat throughout.
The demand to cure
FACT: On August 4, a formal demand letter was delivered to the mayor, council, city attorney, city administrator, and city secretary: read it in full. Its case is built on the city’s own records. The July 14 agenda never used the word removal (only “appointments”), and in response to a public information request the City Administrator confirmed in writing that “no notices were provided” to any sitting commissioner. Under the Texas Open Meetings Act, an action taken without adequate notice of its subject is voidable, and the Texas Supreme Court has held that matters of special public interest require more specific notice than routine items.
FACT: The letter, joined by all three removed commissioners, demands that the council rescind the July 14 action, and that any second attempt be noticed honestly as a removal and conducted entirely in open session: the removed commissioners have formally invoked their statutory right (Gov’t Code § 551.074(b)) to have any deliberation about them held in public. It asked for a response within ten business days, by August 18. Nothing on the council’s August 11 agenda responded to it.
The first test of the new commission
FACT: The reconstituted commission held its first meeting on August 4: new members introduced, a new chair elected mid-cycle, and its first rezoning heard, an application from Shaddock Homes for 220 Redbird Lane (called “The Gates at Westworth Village” in the application materials), converting single-family SF-A zoning to a gated Planned Development. The commission recommended approval that night, and the council approved the rezoning on August 11, seven days after the first public hearing.
FACT: 220 Redbird Lane is not the Kite Farm / Trinity Terrace project; no application under that name has appeared on any posted agenda. We flag the difference because both things can be true: this commission’s first act was to advance a conversion of single-family zoning, and the biggest such conversion is still waiting in the wings.
SPECULATION: Rebuilding nearly an entire commission in a month, including removing its chair mid-term weeks after she ran against an incumbent, changes who takes the first vote on every rezoning that follows. Whether that was the point is our speculation. The council could answer “why these members, why then, and why did no agenda say removal” in two minutes at any open meeting. It still hasn’t.
OPINION: Having the power to do something quietly is not the same as being right to do it quietly.