Mattie Parker, former Fort Worth mayors share secrets to success in shifting landscape
March 13,2025
See full Fort Worth Report article by Cecilia Lenzen here.
Alongside current Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker, the three most recent politicians to hold the city’s top job — Betsy Price, Mike Moncrief and Kenneth Barr — shared what they consider the core ingredients to the city’s success as the population multiplied and the political climate shifted over the last quarter-century.
The recipe for each mayor’s tenure included a variety of people and roles, but they all agreed on a base element: a shared, unshakable commitment to making Fort Worth the best place it can be.
During a March 13 panel discussion hosted by development program Leadership Fort Worth, the group of mayors praised elected officials, including each other, for navigating the city’s changing landscape during often unpredictable times. Through it all, city leaders have committed to helping each other push the city forward regardless of whether or not they’re still in office, Price said.
“The beauty of Fort Worth is that you’ve had great leaders — the councils, the mayors, the staff members — who weren’t interested in just their next reelection or the next office,” Price, who was mayor from 2011 to 2021, said. “They really were there to listen to you and to serve.”
Parker, who served as Price’s chief of staff before becoming mayor in 2021, cited a number of challenges Fort Worth currently faces. Those include “pervasive” political partisanship in an era of social media vitriol and online misinformation; a rising maternal mortality rate in Fort Worth and Tarrant County, particularly among Black women; the ongoing discussion surrounding private school vouchers as Texas lawmakers remain divided over the hot-button issue; and the legal battle surrounding a proposal to split Keller ISD in two.
Throughout these challenges, Parker said she and her 10 colleagues on City Council weigh the best available options with the information and resources they have. Although they don’t all always agree, she believes they’re each committed to doing what’s best for the city.
“There are plenty of times when an 11-0 vote is not possible, and that’s OK,” Parker, who is seeking a third term in May, said. “It has been very important to me as mayor to not dictate what I think needs to happen.”
Fort Worth is in the midst of some good changes, too, Parker said. She cited her Good Natured initiative, a priority of her office that aims to preserve at least 10,000 acres of green space by 2028. She emphasized that the city deserves to have the best parks and green space system in the country — it currently ranks 91st out of the nation’s 100 largest cities, according to the Trust for Public Land’s 2024 ParkScore Index.
Price, Moncrief and Barr each had their own mountains to climb.
Price led the city through a turbulent pension system reform, the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement. Moncrief, who was mayor from 2003 to 2011 and led Fort Worth through the Great Recession, cited as a top accomplishment balancing the needs of individual neighborhoods with the economic development needed to keep up with the city’s then-rapidly growing population. He was also at the helm during the Barnett Shale boom, which prompted public debate over natural gas drilling and its consequences for the city.
Barr, who was mayor from 1996 to 2003, oversaw the revitalization of central Fort Worth with the opening of cultural monuments like Bass Performance Hall and a new location for the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. His service continued after his mayoral role. This spring, he will step down as a trustee for Tarrant County College after a six-year tenure.
Moncrief noted that the group on stage Thursday has been able to rely on each other and past mayors to share knowledge and insight on the highs and lows they’ve faced.
“Fort Worth does not treat former mayors the way other cities do,” Moncrief said. “Here, they are considered to be valuable resources, and we find ourselves at that same table during the good times when something big and good is happening, and during the bad times, when other challenges face us.”
The group of mayors challenged those in attendance and residents across the city to use their individual talents for the betterment of their communities and the success of Fort Worth. For some, that might mean seeking elected office — although the panel emphasized that holding it isn’t for the faint of heart.
Fort Worth is blessed with a wealth of civically engaged citizens, Price said, but more are needed. To her, civic engagement can be as simple as voting in local elections or participating in a neighborhood trash cleanup.
“If you’re not engaged, if voter turnout is low — and it is and it continues to be, but it’s coming up — you’re going to lose what your city is,” Price, who oversaw the creation of what is now the civic engagement group SteerFW, said. “You’ll lose the backbone of who that city is and what they are.”
Fort Worth mayor and all City Council seats, plus various other local races, will be on the ballot May 3, 2025. For more information, visit the Fort Worth Report’s Election Central.
Cecilia Lenzen is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at cecilia.lenzen@fortworthreport.org or @bycecilialenzen.
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This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.