What happened
Tarrant County commissioners voted unanimously to rename the courthouse after Fickes during their regular meeting Oct. 1.
At the ceremony, County Judge Tim O’Hare praised Fickes for his leadership, especially when it came to the many transportation projects that he influenced during his years serving on the commissioners court.
“He truly is the ultimate transportation guru amongst elected officials in North Texas, if not all of Texas,” O’Hare said. “He’s an old-school elected official, someone you can count on, someone you know you can trust, and [is] a good man.”
Fickes said he couldn’t have accomplished everything alone, and he recognized several of the officials at the ceremony who had helped get many projects—especially transportation projects—completed over the years.
“It takes a team, you can’t do it by yourself,” Fickes said. “It’s been a really fulfilling time for me and, I hope, for the taxpayers. That’s who we work for and that’s something we can’t ever forget.”
The backstory
Fickes is retiring Dec. 31 after 18 years of service as the Tarrant County Precinct 3 Commissioner, according to court documents. The position now will be held by Matt Krause, who defeated Laura Leeman for the role in the Nov. 5 election.
Before serving as county commissioner, Fickes was the mayor of Southlake from 1989-96.
Fickes said his biggest accomplishment during his tenure was the DFW Connector project, according to previous Community Impact reporting.
“When I became a commissioner, we started working on the money part of it with [the Texas Department of Transportation] and the federal government,” Fickes said. “Putting this in a time perspective, when President [Barack] Obama established what they called stimulus money, we were able to secure about a half a billion dollars of stimulus money. As a matter of fact, I was told our project, the DFW Connector, was the largest project funded in the United States.”
