Abby Church

Elections administrator Heider Garcia has resigned from his position, according to a letter obtained by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. In the letter, dated April 16 and addressed to County Judge Tim O’Hare and County Administrator G.K. Maenius, Garcia cites a meeting with O’Hare and differing ideas for running transparent elections as the reason for his departure.

A Fort Worth woman who once sued the outgoing Tarrant County elections administrator is a finalist for his position, according to a source with firsthand knowledge of the interviews.

It was around six months ago when all the trees came down and the lot appeared. Brush and wood piled up in stacks that towered over houses on a piece of land that used to be grass and trees as far as the eye could see off Eden Road South in unincorporated southern Tarrant County. Construction workers burned the piles to the ground, sending the smoke rolling across the rural neighborhood for days. Then the 18-wheelers rolled in.

There are few protections for those living in the unincorporated areas of the county with its loose zoning laws and fireworks regulations. Neighbors started looking for loopholes.

On the floor in Charlotte Smith’s hotel room are terracotta pots of cactus near the door. More plants fill the top of the dresser by the TV. When her Fort Worth apartment evicted her last year, these were the only plants from her vast collection she could bring to her new home, the Red Roof Inn in White Settlement. She cried while dumping the others in the trash. These days, though, it’s not her plants that keep her up at night. Smith worries most about being robbed, shot or worse by criminals who menace the hotel property.