Citing health reasons, Derald Cooper turned in his letter of resignation from the Forney City Council this morning. Cooper was first appointed to the vacant Place 5 spot in 2019 and then ran for election in 2020, beating DeCarlo Coleman by more than a 2-1 vote. The Forney City Council will now be left to fill yet another open spot within it’s city leadership. Currently, the City of Forney is without a permanent City Manager, Police Chief, the City Attorney recently announced his departure to the city of Fate, and now they will need to fill a vacant spot on the Council.
Earlier this year the City Council appointed Cecil Chambers to the open Place 2 spot. The City Council elected to take applications from the public for that open spot. Once all applications were received they debated their top candidates behind closed doors, in Executive Session. Citing transparency, the City Council chose to spend extra taxpayer money to hire a subcontractor to film and produce videos highlighting their hand-picked candidates even though the City of Forney has a taxpayer funded Communications Department who films and produces videos regularly posted to social media to this day, all while City Council would pick the winner, not the citizens of Forney. Lastly, the City Council debated who their pick would be, again behind closed doors in Executive Session, announcing their choice shortly after. It will be interesting to see if they choose the same process to fill Place 5.
Stay tuned for future updates.
What?! Why is the City Council picking replacements? So they’re won’t be disagreements amongst them? This is wrong in so many ways!
The Forney City Charter allows for the City Council to appoint a replacement for a vacant spot once a council-person vacates their spot. The appointee will only serve the remainder of the term for the spot that has been vacated. In this case the replacement will serve until May of next year unless they file for election and win the spot. What’s ridiculous is the City Council trying to claim transparency while wasting taxpayer money on a subcontractor to create candidate videos for the citizens to view, when the City Council picks who they want behind closed doors in Executive Session.
Why not appoint DeCarlo Coleman since he ran for the Council. Obviously he wanted to help improve Forney.