Fort Worth city council approves additional $1.1M in legal fees for ex-police chief's lawsuit

FORT WORTH, Texas - The City of Fort Worth voted to provide an additional $1.1 million for the city's ongoing battle against a wrongful termination lawsuit by former police chief Joel Fitzgerald.

Fort Worth city councilman Chris Nettles cast the lone opposing vote on Tuesday.

"I think the city should have made some concessions very early on in this lawsuit," said Nettles. "I think we’re spending too much of our dollars on this issue."

Fitzgerald was fired in 2019 after 4 years at the helm of the Fort Worth Police Department.

READ MORE: City of Fort Worth fires Joel Fitzgerald as police chief

His superiors, city manager David Cooke and then-mayor Betsy Price cited among the reasons, an "increasing lack of good judgement."

Fitzgerald has maintained, throughout a series of court appeals, that he was fired for his attempt to expose corruption.

The former chief asserted that he was days away from a meeting with the FBI involving an alleged security breach by some city employees with a database that required federal approved-only access to sensitive police department information.

The city opened the floor to a brief public comment at the meeting.

"I guess you all do not care about spending money in litigation that you’re going to lose," said one citizen.

The council voted to approve the additional funding, bringing to date a total of $2 million for attorney fees to continue the city's legal defense.

"The bill is just getting higher and higher and higher," said Fort Worth resident and public advocate Cory Session.

Session says it is far from money well spent and the city's taxpayers deserve a resolution to the now 5-year dispute with the former chief.

"Just because the money’s there doesn’t mean you spend it. What is the risk? Somebody’s saying, well justifies it. It’s a low risk. No, this is a high risk. You’ve lost every single appeal," he said.

There was no council discussion before the Tuesday night vote and Mayor Mattie Parker's office declined to comment Wednesday.

A jury trial in Fitzgerald's case against the city is set for October. 

"I’ve made some comments before about why can’t we settle," said Councilman Nettles. "We have things we need to be doing now and I don’t think one of those is spending two million dollars on legal to fight a police chief who felt he shouldn’t have lost his job."

Fitzgerald is fighting to be reinstated as police chief. He also is seeking back pay.