Meet the man spending over $250,000 to unseat two Fort Worth city council incumbents

Don Woodard Jr. has been fighting for limited government since he was a teenager.

His 1979 dispute with the U.S. Department of Labor was immortalized in former President Ronald Reagan’s weekly radio program.

Now he’s bringing that philosophy Fort Worth’s City Council race by donating over $250,000 to challengers Italia De La Cruz, who faces Jared Williams in District 6 and Pamela Boggess, who is running against Elizabeth Beck in District 9.

Woodard Jr. donated $240,000 to the Fort Worth Excellence PAC, a group dedicated to unseating Beck and Williams, according to a Star-Telegram review of campaign finance records. The group has paid for consultants, mailers, door knockers and television ads for Boggess and De La Cruz. Woodard has accounted for 90% of the PAC’s funding.

Woodard Jr. also donated $25,000 to Boggess directly, but hasn’t done the same for De La Cruz, according to campaign finance records.

He wants the city of Fort Worth to get back to basics with a focus is on affordability, safety and infrastructure.

Who is he?

Woodard is the founder of business services firm Western Companies Inc., based in Fort Worth. The company helps puts deals together and advises on mergers and acquisitions, he said.

Woodard was born in Fort Worth in 1961 and started his own ad sales company with his brother Blake at the age of 15. He grew up in Overton Park and still lives in the city.

Blake now sits on the JPS board of managers.

The pair sold ad space for the now defunct Fort Worth News-Tribune before getting flagged by the Labor Department for a potential violation of child labor laws.

The Labor Department said the News-Tribune should have limited the number of hours he worked and paid him a minimum wage, but Woodard pushed back, saying he was an independent contractor and got paid on commission, according to the Reagan broadcast.

“Do you think I’d get paid for something I didn’t do,” Reagan said, quoting Woodard’s response to the government official.

Freedom of thought is one of Woodard most important values.

He said we live in a time with increased pressures to conform and a person shouldn’t be confined to what everyone else thinks.

His time selling ads for the News-Tribune shaped him as well, teaching him right from wrong, and teaching him the importance of being skeptical of the government, he said.

What does he want?

He said Fort Worth politicians have been too focused on imposing their own personal agendas instead of making sure the basics of city government are operating properly.

He accused former mayor and avid cyclist Betsy Price of imposing her personal agenda to promote bike lanes across the city without making sure it was something residents wanted.

He donated $286,000 to Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare’s 2022 primary campaign, according to a Star-Telegram review of campaign finance records. O’Hare beat Price by 11% in the 2022 Republican primary.

Bike lanes were part of the city’s initiative to promote healthy living and active lifestyles, Price said, adding the city wouldn’t have added them without citizen support.

She acknowledged new lanes along West Seventh Street haven’t got much use, but said lanes connecting cyclists to the Trinity Trail have seen a lot of traffic.

Affordability

The increases to the cost of living and property taxes are making it harder to afford a home and forcing people into apartments, he said.

“Apartments are the No. 1 thing that causes people not to want to have children,” he said, adding that the lack of people having children is contributing to lower enrollments in local school districts.

There have been 38,304 multifamily units built in the city of Fort Worth in the last decade compared to 54,003 single family units, according to a city report. Multifamily units include apartments, duplexes and townhomes.

Fort Worth’s school district enrollment declined by roughly 9% between the 2018-19 school year to the 2021-22 school years, although officials ascribed that to a number of factors including the pandemic and increased enrollment in charter schools.

Public safety

Public safety is the main reason Woodard is supporting former Tarrant County prosecutor Pamela Boggess over incumbent Elizabeth Beck in the District 9 race.

He accused Beck of berating Fort Worth police chief Neil Noakes and bringing a “virulent anti-police ideology to the city council,” which he said has been detrimental to recruiting new police and public safety.

“I’m not pro-police. I’m pro-safety,” he said.

Beck pushed back on the anti-police characterization, and pointed to to her support of the West 7th open container ordinance at the request of the police department as well as her support of officer wellness and safety programs.

She did get into a public dispute with the Fort Worth police officers association over a March 2022 vote against accepting federal money for a new armored vehicle, and was one of four city council members who voted in favor of a police oversight board.

“Advocating for transparency and accountability is not hostility. That’s good governance, whether it’s the police department, the fire department, TPW or code,” she said Wednesday.

Buying elections

Woodard acknowledged the perception that he’s “buying the election” by contributing so much money to Boggess and De La Cruz, however, he questioned how much influence his dollars would actually have.

“I don’t need anything. I do no real estate development here. I do no business here. I’ve never asked anything of any politician,” he said.

He framed his donations as leveling the playing field between the challengers and well-trenched incumbents.

He pointed to the District 3 race where incumbent council member Michael Crain has raised over $200,000 despite not having an opponent.

“Whatever I’m contributing at least there’s a contest,” he said, adding that people in Fort Worth don’t contribute to contested races.

He’s said he’s helping Boggess and De La Cruz to get started. If they win, they’ll have an easier time raising money next time, he said.

Woodard said several times that he didn’t see his contributions as partisan or personal attacks.

His only goal is to keep Fort Worth an affordable place where people can raise families.

While he had a lot of criticisms of Beck, he didn’t have the same level of detail for Williams.

“I hear lots of good things about Jared. I’ve never met the man,” he said, but added that he’s surrounded by the wrong people.

When asked to elaborate, he said he didn’t know enough about Williams to speak about it with authority.

Election day is May 6 with a runoff scheduled for June 10 if no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote.