In response to the Tarrant County Commissioners Court deciding to only meet once a month, local residents decided to start their own version of commissioners court “where the voices of the people will be privileged,” according to an Instagram post.
The inaugural People’s Commissioners Court was hosted on Tuesday evening at Blanc Co-Work & Studios by Tarrant4Change, an advocacy organization, and co-founder Alex Montalvo. About 30 people came to take part. Many of those were familiar faces from the county commissioners meetings, but there were new faces as well.
Much of the meeting was used as a listening session through public comment and small groups to find out how it can best serve the participants. Attendees were given 3 minutes to speak, same as in the commissioners court, and primarily spoke about jail deaths and the freedom of speech being eroded…