Grapevine Mayor William D. Tate is pushing back against claims he threatened Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District (GCISD) Board President Shannon Braun — but in doing so, he has drawn renewed scrutiny over an email in which he admitted he “tried to intimidate” her.
In an October 9 message to The Dallas Express, Tate denied ever threatening Braun or her family, saying he “never said I would run her out of town or that I would destroy her.” However, Tate did not dispute the authenticity of the email he sent to Braun last month in which he wrote, “I tried to reason, I tried to offend you and I tried to intimidate you to get your attention.”
The mayor also accused DX of failing to reach out to him before publishing its October 8 story, but email timestamps show that he did reply to the inquiry, providing part of his statement the following day. In short, Tate responded to the very message he now claims he never received.
Tate’s latest statement came as district and city leadership continue to trade accusations over finances, school closures, and the composition of the Education Master Planning Committee (EMPC), which will recommend which school campuses may be consolidated.
In his Thursday email, Tate said he was “analyzing the response from the school,” and complained that Braun’s statements contained “inflammatory and inaccurate remarks.” He further claimed that GCISD had wrongly accused the city of misinformation over state funding figures, saying, “If their budget is wrong [sic], they need to amend it. We had every right to rely on their financial documents.”
Tate attached a copy of an email from Grapevine Mayor Pro Tem Paul Slechta, who disputed some of Braun’s characterizations of their tense September 18 meeting.
“I do think that some of your accusations in regards to the mayor’s comments are false,” Slechta wrote. “I do not remember the mayor ever threatening you or your family, or that he was going to destroy you, or that he was going to see that you were run out of town.”
Still, Slechta acknowledged that the meeting “did not go as I thought it would” and that tensions ran high over the prospect of closing schools.
Braun, in a telephone interview with The Dallas Express, said Slechta’s description does not square with Tate’s own written admission that he tried to intimidate her.
She also rejected Tate’s assertion that Grapevine was denied representation on the EMPC. Braun said the city’s manager had been offered a seat but declined, forcing the district to retract a similar invitation to Colleyville’s city manager.
“Mayor Tate is dishonest because … he says that they weren’t offered a seat. Well, they were. They declined it because it was ‘political suicide,’” Braun said. “Interesting how he’ll play politics when it serves him.”
The dispute over committee representation has underscored broader strains between the city and the district as GCISD confronts declining enrollment and a potential need to shutter schools. Braun said Tate is fueling unnecessary political conflict at a time when the district faces unavoidable financial realities.
“Schools have got to close,” Braun said. “We wouldn’t be doing this if it were not what we have to do.”
Later, she added, “He [Tate] wants to make himself look good, that he’s fighting for his town. Is he or is he destroying?”
Tate, for his part, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, “We really didn’t want to get involved, but we felt like we had to, to give a voice to the people.”
In Wednesday’s statement, GCISD leadership accused the mayor and city council of spreading “factually incorrect” information about district finances, including a false claim that GCISD paid off unused bonds. The district clarified it had refinanced existing debt to save taxpayers more than $12 million in interest.
The October 6 letter from Tate and six council members also raised possible compliance questions under the Texas Open Meetings Act. The law prohibits a quorum of elected officials from jointly approving a public letter without a properly posted meeting. No such meeting appeared on the city’s calendar before the letter was sent, The Dallas Express reported.
For now, Tate maintains that his exchanges with Braun were merely blunt expressions of political disagreement, not threats. But as both sides accuse each other of spreading misinformation, the rift between Grapevine’s City Hall and GCISD shows no sign of closing, even as the district insists some of its schools must.