When Precinct 3 Commissioner Andy Meyers tried to pull three law-enforcement contracts off the Fort Bend County Commissioners Court agenda last week, Precinct 4 Commissioner Dexter McCoy refused to let him. Two lawyers then agreed McCoy had the procedure right: one from the County Attorney’s Office and the outside attorney that Meyers and two colleagues hired.
The contracts would let three municipal utility districts keep paying Precinct 4 Constable Patrick Quincy’s office for contract deputies. The districts were moved from Precinct 4 into Meyers’ Precinct 3 in the 2025 mid-decade redistricting. After nearly 15 minutes of debate on Sept. 24, the court voted unanimously to table the items. Quincy said patrols will continue month to month in the meantime.
The exchange also produced a rare moment. Precinct 1 Commissioner Vincent Morales told fellow Republican Commissioner Andy Meyers to go talk to his constituents.
“We’ve crossed this bridge before”
The dispute started before the items were called. Meyers objected that the contracts, which cover MUDs 155, 5 and 162, were listed under the Precinct 4 constable.
“All three of these MUDs are in Precinct 3, not Precinct 4,” Meyers said.
McCoy said he had told court services the items were to stay on the agenda. The agreements had already been signed by the utility districts, he said.
“And I’m requesting it be pulled,” Meyers said.
McCoy told Meyers he was free to vote against the contracts. “However, as a member of this court with equal voting power of anybody on this, I have asked that it remain on the agenda,” he said.
Interim County Judge Daniel Wong then announced the items had been pulled.
“You do not have the authority to do that,” McCoy said. “I have the authority to ask that anything be on the agenda for consideration. And if the majority would like to vote against it, by all means. … That is the law.”
Wong repeated that the items had been pulled and asked for a motion. McCoy objected again, saying it is a courtesy for one member to request that an item be pulled, but “that does not mean that that item is unilaterally pulled.”
Meyers argued that the contracts themselves broke with past practice.
“In the 30 years I’ve been doing this, we’ve never done that,” Meyers said. “We have never had one commissioner in one precinct enter into agreements with entities in another precinct.”
McCoy replied that the contracts were with the constable, not a commissioner’s office. He added that the court had discussed the same agreements a year earlier.
“Commissioner, you are not the presiding officer,” Wong told McCoy.
McCoy asked the county attorney to weigh in. The court had “crossed this bridge before” with former County Judge KP George, he said.
The lawyers agree?!
Michelle Turner of the County Attorney’s Office said that under Texas attorney general opinions, any member of the court may place an item on the agenda. When Wong said the court had already pulled the items, Turner told him the opinion she had in hand “does not say that.”
Grady Randle, the outside attorney hired by Wong, Morales and Meyers, agreed.
“I mean, anybody can put something on the agenda,” Randle said. He added that a member could move an item from the consent agenda to discussion, and the court could then vote to table it.
“Okay. I think we agree,” Turner said.
Randle said that without its own procedural rules, the court follows attorney general opinions, “and then anybody can put anything on the agenda, like the commissioner said.” Moving an item from consent to discussion is called “tagging,” he said, and any member can do it.
Turner said that was a separate question from whether an item “can just be unilaterally taken off.”
The agreement stood out. A day earlier, Turner and Randle were on opposite sides in state District Judge Mark Hanna’s 502nd District Court. County Attorney Bridgette Smith-Lawson is suing the Commissioners Court over the majority’s decision to create its own legal department.
The three items were moved to the regular agenda.
“Bad precedent”
When the contracts came up for discussion, McCoy moved to approve them. Precinct 2 Commissioner Grady Prestage seconded and asked for an explanation.
Quincy said his office already serves the three districts and they want to keep that arrangement.
“I’ve been getting calls about it all week that they wish to continue service with Precinct 4, so that’s why they executed those contracts on the other side,” Quincy said.
Meyers said he had heard nothing.
“Those are all in my precinct,” he said. “I got no phone calls from anybody.” Meyers said he had not been contacted by Quincy’s office, McCoy’s office or any of the districts.
Meyers said the contracts had been allowed to continue last year as a transition period after redistricting. He warned that approving them now would let officials work across precinct lines.
“Frankly, I think that that is a terrible way of doing it,” Meyers said. “It’s not the way we’ve done it at all in the past.”
Quincy said the decision belongs to the districts. “They decide who they want to use,” he said. “We don’t get to tell them who they contract with.”
McCoy noted that constables are independently elected and that no commissioner was operating in another’s precinct. Quincy said his office had served the neighborhoods since before he took office. He added that it had also served one of them years earlier, when it was in Precinct 2.
Prestage disputed that the arrangement was new, pointing to cross-precinct service in Sienna. He also asked whether Meyers had spoken with the Precinct 3 constable’s office.
“Not directly with them on all these issues,” Meyers said. “Why are you picking a fight? I don’t get this.”
Assistant Chief Veronica Martin of the Precinct 3 constable’s office said the offices had traded contracts without trouble after the 2021 redistricting. She said her office had reached out to MUDs 155, 162 and 5 without success, and had given up MUD 119 in Woodbridge, and parts of Aliana, to Precinct 4.
Quincy disputed that account. “They didn’t give up anything to Precinct 4,” he said. “Their MUD boards made a decision to change services.”
The traffic has gone both ways, and in both directions the districts have picked Precinct 4.
The 2025 redistricting moved neighborhoods out of Precinct 4 and into Precinct 3, and moved others from Precinct 3 into Precinct 4. The three districts on last week’s agenda, MUDs 155, 5 and 162, moved into Precinct 3 and chose to stay with Quincy’s office.
The districts that moved the other way chose Quincy too. Woodbridge’s MUD 119 has signed a contract with Precinct 4, and its agreement was on the same agenda. Of the three districts that cover Aliana, one has signed with Precinct 4, and Quincy said the other two have told his office they want to switch.
Quincy said the boards that moved into Precinct 4 asked to meet with him, and he attended those meetings in person.
Meyers accused constables of courting business outside their precincts.
“We didn’t have the individual constables go out and basically sell their services,” he said.
“We’re not selling our services to anybody,” Quincy said. “These are communities that we’ve already been servicing.”
In an interview Wednesday, Quincy said Meyers had it backward. “If you want to phrase it that way, it’s Precinct 3 that’s trying to sell their services to contracts that I’m currently serving already,” he said.
Martin acknowledged that the Precinct 3 office itself holds a contract in Precinct 2, because Precinct 2 Constable Darryl Smith does not do patrol contracts. Meyers called that a special circumstance.
“Constables don’t make contracts,” Meyers said. “The commissioners court does.”
“I had no opportunity to do that. Period,” Meyers said.
Quincy said the court’s role is narrower than Meyers suggested. “It’s not a commissioner issue,” he said Wednesday. “The only reason the commissioners are involved is because they approve the contract in Commissioners Court.”
Morales weighs in
Morales suggested Meyers meet with the utility district boards, noting that “technically, they don’t have to go with any Fort Bend County agency.”
“They may just say no,” Morales said.
“Well, then that’s their choice,” Meyers shot back.
Morales recalled that in 2017, his first year in office, Teal Run in the Fresno area was being served by the Precinct 2 constable although it sat in Precinct 1. The board wanted to keep that office, and he went along. “I didn’t want to make the community upset,” he said.
“I would just have that conversation with your constituents,” Morales told Meyers. “I’m just giving advice. I don’t want to get in the middle of this.”
“Obviously, I’ve got a keen interest in making sure that they’re happy,” Meyers said.
Prestage asked Meyers, “Why don’t you just get involved in the process and talk to the community and talk to Precinct 3 constable?”
Meyers then moved to table the items. Before the vote, McCoy asked what tabling would mean for service, since the contracts were set to expire Sept. 30.
“It’ll just go month to month until the new one,” Quincy said. “So it doesn’t change anything for now.”
The motion passed unanimously.
“Vote them out”
Meyers’ case rests on the Precinct 3 constable’s office taking over the patrols. That office’s elected leader, Constable Ali Sheikhani, did not attend the meeting. Martin, his assistant chief, oversees the office’s civil process, court security, internal affairs and patrol divisions, and she spoke for the office.
Building access records obtained by the Fort Bend Falcon show Sheikhani’s credential was used to enter county buildings on 20 days between Jan. 1 and May 29, when the report was printed. That period included 107 weekdays. The records show no entries before Jan. 28 and none after May 12. After a single visit on Jan. 28, his credential did not register again until Feb. 17, then went unused for three more weeks until March 9.
By comparison, Precinct 1 Constable Chad Norvell’s credential was used on 72 days over the same period, according to county records.
Sheikhani’s own verified Facebook account places him in Pakistan during those gaps. On Jan. 25, three days before his first recorded entry of the year, he posted about visiting the Sheikhani Group’s corporate office in Karachi. On Feb. 24, a week after his Feb. 17 visit, he posted from a Ramadan event in Karachi. On May 21 and May 24, after his last recorded entry, he posted about visiting Karachi for Qurbani, the Eid al-Adha sacrifice.
No law requires elected constables to keep regular office hours.
Sheikhani did not respond to a request for comment.
The districts have already made their choice. All three signed contracts to stay with Quincy’s office, and those contracts were on last week’s agenda. Quincy said the MUD boards told him they want to remain with Precinct 4. Even Martin acknowledged that when her office reached out, the districts “were not hearing us.” Quincy said MUD 5’s board wanted to speak at the Sept. 24 meeting, but its own meeting was scheduled at the same time.
LaToya “Hunny” Phillips, vice president of the MUD 5 board, said representatives from the Precinct 3 constable’s office came to her board after redistricting. The district already had a contract with Precinct 4.
“During the discussions, we were told that because we were now located within Precinct 3, we needed to use Precinct 3’s constable services,” Phillips said.
She said the Precinct 3 representatives told the board that Meyers supported that position, though she did not hear him say it herself.
The discussions became tense, Phillips said.
“There is a difference between someone offering services to the district and someone telling the district that it is required to use those services,” she said.
“I felt considerable pressure was being placed on the district to change providers,” she said.
Speaking for herself and not the full board, Phillips said Precinct 4 has an established working relationship and service history with the district.
“I do not believe redistricting alone should automatically mean that the district abandons an existing service relationship,” she said.
Quincy said he heard Meyers’ “that’s their choice” remark as an ultimatum. “So you’d rather tell them that they can’t contract with anybody if they don’t contract with your precinct,” he said.
Meyers said residents have another option.
“If the constable in Precinct 3 is doing a lousy job, those people can vote them out of office,” he said.
The Precinct 3 Constable position is next on the ballot in 2028.
Quincy noted that the residents he’s standing up for can’t vote for him.
“Those aren’t my voters. That’s not even in my precinct,” he said. “If they expressed that they wanted to switch to Precinct 3, and Precinct 3 wanted to service them, you wouldn’t hear from me.”