Benbrook council waives privilege so legal opinion on Trinity Estates Phase 3 can be released

Mayor Jason Ward presided as the council voted unanimously to waive attorney–client privilege and authorize release (via public-records request) of the city attorney’s legal opinion regarding Trinity Estates Phase 3. Assistant City Manager Ethan Cox told the council the opinion answered recurring questions about platting and floodplain requirements and confirmed staff’s interpretation of applicable ordinances.

Cox said staff sought the opinion after “a number of interactions with members of the community” and social-media discussion. He summarized staff’s position: “the city attorney did conclude the staff acted within its authority and that the city was legally required to approve” the plat, and recommended the council waive privilege so the opinion can be obtained through an open-records request. Councilmember Tyner made the motion to waive privilege; Councilmember Moore seconded and the motion carried unanimously.

Council members pressed staff and the attorney for the scope of the review. The city attorney (identified in the meeting record as Henderacker) said the review was limited to legal process and whether the city followed the statutory and ordinance procedures that govern plats; he explicitly said he did not conduct a technical engineering review of floodplain specifications and relied on city engineers and other technical staff for those points. Assistant City Manager Cox and City Planner Doug Howard traced the application timeline to recent work beginning in 2021 and earlier plats from the 1980s and 1990s.

Floodplain and access issues were central to council and resident questions. Floodplain Administrator Bennett Howell told the council the development “did not have an adverse impact” and that the project reduced the mapped floodplain by about 15.9 acres, which staff said brought roughly 50 homes out of the floodplain. The floodplain administrator also described the area’s dominant risk as slow “backwater” flooding from the Clearfork River, and said the city would have options to close roads or order evacuations if necessary.

The council did not publish the attorney opinion at the meeting; staff said the opinion would be available to anyone who files an open-records (FOIA) request with the city secretary. City Secretary Beth Fisher reminded the public that records requests must be submitted in writing through the city’s portal.

What happens next: residents or media seeking the opinion can request it through the city’s public-records process; council members who dissented on legal conclusions may still comment publicly but the formal action taken was only to waive privilege so the document may be obtained.