Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker is set to run again: ‘She would be pretty hard to beat’ | Opinion

Mattie Parker is running for Fort Worth mayor again, and any day now, she’ll make it official.

With an emotional police trial in the news before Christmas and a TCU Horned Frogs whirlwind since, there hasn’t been time to roll out a campaign, though she’s said for months that one is coming.

There are exactly three days between TCU’s national championship game Monday and the start of the city’s annual rodeo Friday. That’s when I expect to see Parker and other candidates for Fort Worth mayor and the new 11-member council announce their campaigns for the May 6 elections.

“My intent is to not take any attention away from TCU,” she said Friday, although all that’s left is the speech, balloons and brass band.

Parker, 39 and a parent of three, hinted during her first term that she was unhappy with every child’s game or bedtime kiss missed.

But not unhappy enough to leave after one term when the second-largest Texas A&M System campus, a newly energized Panther Island development and a striking new City Hall are on their way to downtown.

“This job is intense,” she said by phone.

The new council will be at least one-third rookies. It will “have some unfinished work ahead,” Parker said, “but a lot of excitement about the future.”

Whenever she announces for re-election, she’ll talk about the issue that propelled her into public service — education and getting Fort Worth children into good jobs.

And she’ll talk about “quality of life.”

In Fort Worth, that basically means holding wildly to the reins as the city’s runaway population climbs past 1 million by the next election in 2025.

Voters passed a bond program last year to add more police patrols, fix street lights faster and add outlying park land.

Past candidates have talked about luring corporate relocations.

But that’s not as widely discussed now that employees can work from anywhere virtually.

Parker said that what matters now is “how we build momentum” and whether the city is a good place to live.

It is not clear whether she will face a high-profile opponent.

Ken Bowens Jr., an occasional speaker during public comment at council meetings, has filed paperwork to raise money for a campaign. So has Chris Rector, who finished ninth in a field of 10 candidates in 2021.

One of the most mentioned potential candidates, state Rep. Ramon Romero, said he won’t oppose Parker and hasn’t heard of anyone running from the Democratic side.

“I don’t know really who would want to run,” he said Friday, preparing for the start Tuesday of the Texas Legislature.

“I think it’d be really hard to see someone running against Mattie, even from the left,” he said. “She has not made everyone 100 percent happy, but she’s done a pretty good job.”

Romero went on: “God knows she puts her heart into it, and what more can you ask from a mayor right now? ... She would be pretty hard to beat.”

It all starts next week.