Speakers face ‘disrespect’ during Tarrant County Comissioners polling meeting

“I should have guessed this would happen,” Lon Burnam said. “It’s going to be interesting.”

That’s what was going through the former state representative’s mind as four Tarrant County Sheriff’s deputies carried him out of the courtroom Tuesday, he said. Burnam, 73, was arrested after being removed from a contentious session of the Tarrant County Commissioners Court. 

The longtime Fort Worth resident served in the Texas House of Representatives from 1997-2015. Burnam is not inexperienced with handling microphones, and that day, it sent him to Tarrant County Jail.

He and dozens of other Tarrant County residents attended the meeting to speak out against a proposed reduction of the county’s polling locations from 316 to 176 ahead of what are expected to be highly contested midterm elections in November. Tarrant County, once a conservative stronghold, is now a crucial battleground as its population has exploded to become the third most populous county in Texas. While Republican officials argue the proposal will save money, residents said the move unfairly targets minority and low-income communities, with many likening the proposal to voter suppression.

Tuesday

After hours of fiery public comment, Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare, a Republican, said he did not agree with the extent of the cuts. The commissioners ultimately voted to table the agenda item, although, by that point, O’Hare’s treatment of public speakers had drawn significant focus. His office did not respond to a request for comment.

“He doesn’t want people to be able to lay out the problem. Here’s the thing: people don’t just come to complain,” Burnam said. “People come with suggestions, and they don’t even want to listen to the suggestions.”

As residents held signs with messages such as “Vote them out,” each speaker was restricted to a tight, one-minute window. O’Hare quickly told residents — and Democratic attorney general candidate Nathan Johnson — to step away from the microphone almost immediately after their time expired. Several deputies stood toward the back of the courtroom to enforce the limits.

Local radio personality EJ Carryon was thrown out after calling the court’s actions “bullshit.” The judge called a recess soon after and ordered deputies to remove Carryon. Shortly after, residents giggled and waved signs of support when another speaker said “You keep Russia my Texas,” in reference to the common “Don’t California my Texas” slogan. O’Hare ordered the courtroom cleared as residents chanted “shame,” with the remaining speakers forced to wait in overflow rooms before giving their comment to a significantly reduced crowd mostly made up of those who preceded them at the microphone.

Following the clearance, Base Mego picked up the microphone during his allotted time, something which he did without issue at a July 14 meeting and told The Dallas Morning News he had been given an ADA exemption because he has autism. O’Hare said, “I don’t know what you’re referring to,” as Mego refused his demands to set the microphone down, and quickly had a deputy escort him from the room. The court’s publicly posted rules of decorum do not appear to reference restrictions on how residents handle the microphone.

Burnam, who wore a souvenir shirt commemorating the 1960 civil rights sit-in at the F.W. Woolworth store in Greensboro, North Carolina, said he did not arrive at the courthouse that day intending to engage in civil disobedience. But after seeing Mego denied his apparent exemption, he used his minute to also pick up the microphone and chide the commissioners for ejecting his friend. The judge ordered him removed as well. As deputies approached to remove Burnham, the former state representative lay on the ground until he was carried out on all four limbs.

“It’s one of those things where you can more easily tolerate being treated badly yourself than you can watch somebody else,” he said. “He’s on the spectrum; it takes a lot for him to get up and speak in public.”

He was arrested soon after and taken to the Tarrant County Jail on a charge of disrupting a public meeting, in addition to receiving a six-month ban from meetings. After being released late that night, Burnam said he plans to pursue legal action against O’Hare and has no regrets about his show of defiance. He added that he had attended meetings prior to O’Hare’s tenure, but that things have since changed.

“As soon as O’Hare is in there, he starts cutting the meeting agenda from once a week to once a month, and he’s cut down the speaking time,” Burnam said. “[On Tuesday] we were only allowed one minute. Well, what can you get said in one minute?”

Recurring issue

Comments at meetings have become increasingly volatile in North Texas. The Frisco City Council is considering loosening restrictions put in place two months ago after months of outbursts directed at Muslim and South Asian communities, while Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson had former council member Bob Stimson escorted from chambers after going over his allotment by a few seconds in June. A meeting in McKinney earlier this week also grew heated as speakers made inflammatory remarks about Muslims in Collin County.

Public comment on agenda items is protected under the Texas Open Meetings Act, although officials have a large degree of autonomy in setting guidelines for speakers.

The Tarrant County Commissioners Court has adopted restrictive rules of decorum for public comment in recent years, with tension often following. In February, commissioners approved new rules that restrict time allotments by a 3-2 vote split along party lines. Residents could previously spend three minutes on each agenda item they signed up to speak on, but now they have only three minutes for the entirety of the agenda. The rules also give O’Hare the ability to restrict time allotments to one minute if more than 50 residents have signed up to speak at a meeting.

He defended the rules in February as necessary for the court’s functioning.

“What we’ve seen in commissioners court lately is not fair to all the people who are interested in the issues,” O’Hare said. “The more civility and order we have, the better this court can serve all Tarrant County residents and every person in this courtroom right now.” 

In 2025, commissioners also moved to reduce meeting frequency to once-monthly, further restricting opportunity for comment. Previously, they met weekly until December 2023, when meetings began to be held on the first and third Tuesday of each month. Of the five most populous counties in Texas, the Tarrant County Commissioners Court is the only one that currently meets monthly.

Sabrina Ball, a Fort Worth resident and activist, is an organizer for the People’s Commissioners Court. The organization assists residents unfamiliar with meeting rules and online sign-up requirements for public comment, which she said older residents can struggle with. Many residents are first-time speakers, which may contribute to outbursts or unintended rule violations in the courtroom, she said, adding that the court’s restrictions exacerbate the issue.

“It’s intimidating,” Ball said. “And then it got worse. Before, you could politely clap. You could snap your fingers, and that made it less intimidating. This has just made it more [intimidating].”

She said the intimidating atmosphere of the meetings has gotten worse since O’Hare took office in 2023. 

“It’s cordial in City Council and Fort Worth ISD,” Ball said. “The atmosphere is positive, and even if we disagree with people or in a crowd, it’s not explosive. His rules at commissioners court make it hostile.”

In 2024, Fort Worth resident and frequent meeting attendee Jackee Cox told KERA that she felt unable to speak freely “when under the sword of a possible ban and arrest.” A few weeks prior, the judge notably removed progressive Fort Worth pastor Ryon Price from a meeting for contempt and banned the clergyman from meetings for six months after he went over his allotment by eight seconds. Burnam was also kicked out of the meeting and received a similar ban. Both were slapped with a trespass warning.

‘Poor leadership’

The court previously assessed public comment guidelines after changes to the Texas Open Meetings Act in 2019. While there may have been some concerns over commissioners’ handling of resident speakers during her tenure, former commissioner Devan Allen said what’s happening now feels different.

“With the previous court, I think the motive was based in maybe misunderstanding, like the court misunderstanding to some degree what it is that people needed to feel heard and to be seen… Now it feels restrictive, dismissive,” Allen said. “It does not at all reflect democracy.”

She also said that she was “disgusted” with Tuesday’s events and called it a display of “poor leadership.”

Glen Whitley, Allen’s former colleague and O’Hare’s immediate predecessor as county judge, said he was “disappointed” with what he saw while watching the meeting, and that while there were rules in place during his time on the court, the atmosphere in the courthouse has grown worse since. 

“We had rules of decorum,” Whitley said. “People would clap, and I would ask them to please not do that. Let’s show respect to all, and they would stop. And rarely did we have just the show of defiance. But I think when they’re treated with disrespect, then they lose respect.”

He added that the issues at court go back to growing political polarization nationwide. Whitley, a Republican, endorsed Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico in Arlington Tuesday evening, only hours after the meeting’s conclusion.

On the agenda item addressing polling places, he said that there is “no way this should have come to the court for the first time and asked for a vote” as it likely further inflamed public opinion in the absence of workshops under the current once-monthly schedule. O’Hare said he himself had only found out about the number of eliminated polling places the Thursday before the vote.

While the court now meets monthly in most instances, multiple meetings are held in August to accommodate budget discussions. The next meeting is scheduled for Aug. 13.

Whitley said the best way for Tarrant County residents to make their voices heard may be at the ballot box. O’Hare is currently up for reelection and is set to face off against Democratic Commissioner Alisa Simmons in November. District 4 Commissioner Manny Ramirez has also announced his reelection campaign, while two-term Fort Worth City Council member Jared Williams is running to replace Simmons as a Democrat.

“I think we have to elect people who are not so anal about the parties that they represent, but more about getting the issues, getting things done to help the citizens that they represent throughout the county,” he said.