Houblog

Note: due to an editing error, a comment of mine appeared to have been a part of KHOU’s article. The quote has been corrected. I apologize for the error to KHOU and anyone who may have been confused.

Well, it took some fighting, but White finally got his way on the red lights and the illegal alien work center. The day labor center turned into a fight though, and it looked like it might not pass.

“The responsibility is on the employers as to whether they’re hiring somebody that’s illegal or not,� said Houston City Councilmember Sue Lovell. “I would like the city to help employers not break the law.�

Boy, SEIU isn’t going to be happy about that return on their investment.

So councilmembers on White’s side pushed an amendment that could have delayed a vote. “It’s clear what’s being done here,� said Houston City Councilmember Addie Wiseman. “And there is political posturing behind this,� Councilmember Pam Holm said.

Heh. No kidding. “political posturing” is a neat name for “noticing the voters in your district are against this.”

In fact, so many amendments went on the table that even the mayor got mixed up. “It turns out to be a little more complicated than I thought,� said Mayor Bill White.

“We have all kind of debates going on,� said Councilmember M.J. Khan. In the end, M.J. Khan, a Republican immigrant, became the swing vote.

That’s RINO immigrant, thank you. About what we expect. Oh, wait, why am I worried about it?

“Let’s just vote on it and stop with the political games,� said Wiseman. And the day labor site won a renewed a contract.

Houston to White and council: It’s not a game, or if it is, a lot more people than usual are keeping score… I suspect some of you are going to discover that come 2007.

. . . .Carol Alvarado proves me wrong. (Tip of the hat to BlogHouston.)

Several Houston City Hall employees are upset after receiving fundraising e-mails for City Council member Carol Alvarado, KPRC Local 2 reported Wednesday.

The employees said they got the fundraiser invitations in their work e-mail asking them to donate money to help Alvarado pay her legal expenses.

Supposedly this isn’t illegal because the emails weren’t sent from a city computer e-mail address or on city time. (Really?) But frankly, this has got to be in the poorest taste and is the single hugest lapse of ethics on Alvarado’s part since the beginning of this sordid affair. “Advising” clients on “how to get city contracts” is garden variety corruption. I’m not pulling any punches here: This borders on being a shakedown of city employees. The very appearance of it should be enough for Alvarado to resign. I’ve shied away from making such an outright call before, due to my position, but this takes the cake: Avarado has to go, if for no othe reason than to maintain the appearance (note I do not say the reality) of honest government in Houston.

Especially given the already shaky history of city hall politics in this regard.

Alvarado denied any wrongdoing and said she did not mean for the fundraising e-mails to upset anyone.

If she’s really that damned clueless, she has no business in politics. Look, we have enough corruption already. Is it too much to ask that we not import even more? What is this, Chicago? Looks like some folks want it to be Tammany Hall. . . .

Update: Notice the hair-splitting on the computer it was sent from — I didn’t catch that at first. It could be sent from a city computer, but not a city e-mail by the simple expedient of accessing webmail. Also, city employees have definate job shifts, with starting and stopping times. What’s the shift of a city council member? How are we to say it wasn’t on “city time”

(To my knowledge, no news media has posted the e-mail itself, yet. Any city employee who received the email and reads this, please forward it to [ubu at houblog dot com] {–(spam guard, don’t forget to change it to “@” and “.” I’d like to put it on the site. That email cannot be accessed from a city computer [barring IT efforts], so it will appear no earlier than this evening. Your name will be withheld, of course.)

Well, despite zip77077’s grousing, he is not the last local blogger to weigh in on the subject of Mayor White’s new energy plan. It’s probably me. Y’see, everyone else has already had plenty to say about the political background of this plan (hat tip to Kevin over at BlogHouston) –

Zilkha’s close friend and weekly bicycling companion, Bill White, CEO of energy investment firm Wedge Management, is quick to point out that Zilkha and his management team are “not running a charity.” Indeed, the Zilkhas, he says, were “making more money than anyone else” with their technology-oriented oil and gas business in the 1990s.

White, a former deputy secretary of energy at the U.S. Department of Energy, met Zilkha a decade ago through common interests in the environment and the energy business. Zilkha now serves on the campaign finance committee for White, who is running for mayor of Houston.

White, who was responsible for oversight of federal research and development of wind energy in the 1990s, says he has long known that “wind energy can be a very competitive form of electricity” and that Texas “has some of the best wind in the country.”

– but my inner geek wanted to look at the actual feasibility of the whole idea. Would it work? The problem is, I’m no engineer, and I just don’t have the knowledge.

Fortunately, I know of someone who is, and does. Steven DenBeste wrote two years ago about wind: (more…)

The dumbest power grab has to be Governor Perry’s. I can sort of understand it; anything that’s going to involve a lot of state committment, he wants control of. But to turn over total authority for calling evacuations to bureaucrats who are not from and have no experience in coastal conditions is rank stupidity. (more…)

I heard it on the radio this morning but only now had the chance to find an online source: Metro has let $40 million in contracts for the new light rail expansion– even though it doesn’t know where the rail’s going to go yet.

Supposedly, anyway.

Plans for a light rail line at the center of a debate over its route — whether it should run on Richmond or Westpark, or both — began to take shape Thursday with the approval of nearly $40 million in contracts.

The firms and their corridors are: Dannenbaum Engineering (North), Huitt-Zollars Inc. (Uptown), LAN (Southeast), Omega Engineers Inc. (Harrisburg) and TCB Transit (University).

The board also awarded a $3 million contract to prepare an environmental impact study for the University line to Carter & Burgess Inc. The study and findings , which will include a recommended route, are required by federal funding rules.

The allocation of any money to study a Richmond route is a waste, but a firm indicator that the Metro board intends to run roughshod over the wishes of Richmond Ave. businesses and residences, not to mention a public referendum that approved sending the tracks down Westpark.

Further, the nature (and resolve) of the Metro board is quite obvious from the unanimity of the votes:

Board member Rafael Ortega abstained from votes on both the environmental and engineering contracts, as well as from discussion of both issues. Ortega is an engineer and vice president of Houston-based LAN (Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam Inc.). He said he owns no part of the company.

Metro Vice President John Sedlak said there is no ethical conflict in awarding a contract to the company, since Ortega abstained from the votes, which were otherwise unanimous.

Ortega said he was careful to follow state law and Metro’s code of ethics. He said he abstained from the environmental item because of having partnered with Carter & Burgess on other projects.

It’s good that Metro has professional engineers on the board, but you think that would be balanced out by “ordinary joes.” (Hahahahahahahahahaha! Just kidding, who’d do a crazy thing like appoint ordinary citizens with no political connections to a board with the power to hand out billions in public contracts? Man, I kill me…)

Anyway I think we can see where this is going. Metro wil run a special bus lane down Westpark, claim to have fulfilled the voter’s mandate, but then build the rail down Richmond Avenue.

Metro: “Well, golly, it didn’t say we can’t do both!”
Citizens: “But it said the rail had to go down Westpark.”
Metro: “Oh that. Well it didn’t really mean that, and anyway it wasn’t binding!”
Citizens: “Yes it did, and it was!”
Metro: “No, no, no, you just don’t understand the law. And if you disagree, we’ve got millions more to spend on lawyers than you do. So we’re right, right? Of course we are!”

Metro spokesman George Smalley said the five companies agreed to hire 49 subcontractors, with each company exceeding Metro’s goal of 35 percent participation by small and disadvantaged businesses based on contract dollars. Omega is classified as a disadvantaged business, he said.

I wonder how many of those subcontractors were advised on how to get City/Metro business by Ms. Alvarado?

Prediction: Mayor White will continue to back Alvarado to the hilt and a few bones will get thrown to the Fifth Ward, as he will need the black and Hispanic votes to offset massive voter defections down the central-west corridor caused by Metro.

Apparently the City of Houston has realized its position in attempting to withold data used in the Civil Service hearings was untenable, as KHOU has obtained a copy of the files entered into evidence:

There were 264 pages in the document, and that wasn’t even the report. It was a compilation of documents reviewed by the inspector general (OIG).

What blockbuster revalations await the intrepid reporters digging into the file? Well,

For the first time, it was revealed that a warning from the Finance and Administration Department had been sent to the mayor pro tem’s office, with a copy sent directly to Councilmember Carol Alvarado via e-mail.

It said the office was going over budget and specifically mentioned the bonuses Alvarado said she knew nothing about

Uh, actually, it’s not the first time. That was mentioned weeks ago. But you know how it is, everything old is new again….

While the Enron trial has captured most of the headlines, a story far more important to the governance of the Bayou City has continued to rumble away just beneath the surface. More about the marathon hearing held Tuesday has come out in the local press. As everyone knows, the Civil Service Commission upheld the firings of all four employees in the Mayor Pro Tem’s office, despite finding that there was no evidence that two of them were invovled in a conspiricy to obtain illegal raises and bonuses.

Commission Chairman Scott Lemond, a labor lawyer, said his group recognized that Mays and Orta were not as culpable as their supervisors, Hernandez and Watkins, who each received about $50,000 in extra pay.

“There was some evidence that (Mays and Orta) may not have understood completely what was going on, that they may have been duped, but nevertheless, they received some benefits that they were not entitled to, and they knew or they should’ve known that they weren’t entitled to those benefits,” Lemond said.

Regardless, Mays and Orta signed government documents they were not authorized to sign, he said, which was cause for termination.

But the questions not answered here are: were they truly not authorized to sign the documents, were the documents in question of any real importance, and would such have normally resulted in their being fired? Remember, it’s Watkins and Hernandez that got the big bucks and signed all the memos necessary to pass out the pay raises, not these two. (more…)

After a marathon of over sixteen hours, the Bonusgate hearings finally ended at 12:45 AM this morning with all four firings being upheld. No one was surprised at the outcome. Several new tidbits did come out though:

• The commission did not find enough evidence to support that Christopher Mays and Theresa Orta were involved in a conspiracy, but that leaves me confused. If they weren’t part of a conspiricy to to receive the raises, then they were recieving raises/bonuses that they thought to be legitimate. Anything else would be a conspiricy. So remind me, if they were receiving what they thought was legitimate pay, what were they fired for again?
• During the meeting on the bonuses Tuesday night, Alvarado said that Rosie Hernandez was ordered to give yearly pay raises to the staff in her District I office. Instead, Hernandez reportedly gave the total yearly raises on every bi-weekly pay check. (Note: I originally thought the article meant % of raise; apparently they mean $$$ amount.) But if the raises went through as they did originally, this means that Alvarado did delegate that authority to Hernandez, because if not, Alvarado should have caught it when presented the papers to sign.
• A memo was entered into evidence in which Alvarado delegated authority in financial matters to Rosie Hernandez. Like I said. . . .
• The FBI sent observers to the hearing.
• An attorney for one of the employees said their client would testify that the bonuses were paid in part as compensation for campaign work done on city time. I don’t see where that testimony was given, but maybe the hearing was cut short?
• What’s this all about? “Watkins’ attorney pushed to have a gift basket as evidence but said Watkins may need it again if there are criminal charges.” I missed something. . .

(more…)

Well, the hearings have started. It’s going to be interesting to see what gets said now that the words will be part of the official record. Any backtracking from this point, and it’s possible perjury or obstruction of justice charges, after all.

The hearing was scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m., but the first witness, an investigator with the Inspector General’s Office, was not brought before the Civil Service Commission until about 10:45 a.m.

Mays, one of the first of the fired employees to arrive at City Hall, told KPRC Local 2 that he felt good about his case.

Hernandez, the former manager of the Mayor Pro Tem’s Office, and her attorney, Walter Boyd were the last to arrive at the hearing. Boyd was vocal before the proceedings began.

“I’m in the position of being declared guilty until I’ve proven myself innocent and having the opportunity of never responding to them,” Boyd said.

Uh, don’t you mean, your client? who mis-spoke, Boyd, or the reporter? (more…)

Meh. I was, at best, a lukewarm defender; it was more that I hated Ronnie Earle’s prosecutorial misconduct than liked DeLay. Because I didn’t. I’ve disliked him since he got neck-deep into screwing over Metro for about three years; I consider him one of the main reasons that the train is an inner-city boondoggle instead of a commuter rail line like we need. Or does anyone else remember how DeLay blocked federal funding for years in order to prevent Metro from running a line out to his Missouri City base?

Anyway, when I saw that one of his aides had pled guilty, I figured, “Well, maybe there’s some fire behind Ronnie’s smoke after all.” (Remember, those are the trumped-up state charges that I still expect him to beat because they’re essentially ex post facto; it’s the fed charges that nailed his aides.) Evidently, the Feds had a whole lot more on him, and his buddy may roll over and testify against him for a lighter sentence.

See ya later. Ain’t gonna miss ya, Tommy boy.

KPRC informs us that, as of 3 p.m., civil service hearings were underway downtown, which may determine if Mayor White and Council Member Alvarado will have to take the stand. Anyone betting the answer is “no?”

A civil service hearing commission, scheduled to take place Friday at 3 p.m., could decide whether or not Mayor Bill White could be summoned to testify in some of the termination hearings and if a continuance would be granted to two of the four fired employees who said they need more time to fight their terminations.

I’m thinking the answer may be no to the second request as well, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it went the other way. If it does not, it will be a clear signal that the hearings are not being taken seriously, but are being forced through as fast as possible to minimize the impact. Although Mayor White’s probably breathing a sigh of relief that the reconquistas have taken the spotlight off the Bonusgate affair, if the appeals drag out and they are forced to testify, it would turn into a media circus again.

The Harris County District Attorney’s Office is expected to receive details Friday of the city’s employee incentive pay and bonus plan. On Wednesday, subpoenas requesting the documents were issued to every council member and department head.

But is all the information being turned over to those who request it?

Watkins told KPRC Local 2 on Thursday that the city is refusing to hand over documents to her that would prove her innocence.

And of course the FBI is collecting Ms. Alvarado’s bank records. However, these are probably the words that make people feel the most uneasy this afternoon:

Watkins, who is currently writing a book about the bonus scandal, said she feels she is being singled out for talking about the investigation.

My suggested title: It Takes a Thief.

Although with a title like that, this post should belong over at TBIFOC, I simply couldn’t resist. No sooner than I take my eye off of the Bonusgate scandal than the other shoe drops. The FBI has requested Alvarado’s bank records.

The FBI request is for all of Alvarado’s bank accounts, open or closed. It went out Wednesday to major banks across the country through what’s known as the loss avoidance alert system, which is an electronic network connecting banks with law enforcement.

The FBI would not comment on the investigation. But Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal confirmed for KPRC that the federal request was made.

Her attorney Rusty Hardin and spokesman Joe “Butter Wouldn’t Melt In My Mouth” Householder immediately spun it into no big deal, just an example of how cooperative the council member was being with law enforcement, and how anxious happy she was to show that she was a virgin had done nothing wrong.

Her attorney, Rusty Hardin, told KPRC that the FBI’s involvement was expected because Alvarado is a public official.

Her spokesman, Joe Householder, said her account numbers have now been forwarded to the district attorney’s office.

“So they can get a hold of it as quickly as they can,” Householder said. “That actually happened this afternoon. We had reached out to them earlier and said, ‘If you want this material, you can have it.’ And, just as an extra step, we e-mailed those numbers to them.”

Hardin said he contacted the FBI several weeks ago offering to make Alvarado’s or any records available. He said he has not yet heard from the agency. Hardin said this is a natural progression in the investigation and not an indication that Alvarado has done anything wrong.

Yeah……nothing wrong. That’s the ticket. Counting down the seconds until someone claims she’s being persecuted because of backlash against illegal immigrants undocumented workers persons of Hispanic descent.

Hat tip to Bloghouston.

The Chronicle does a nice bit of reporting on council member Carol Alvarado, detailing her beginning in politics, her longtime political alliances, and her history of misteps. I’m not certain how to characterize this article. It’s either fairly balanced, or somewhat negative towards Ms. Alvarado. It could be that after so much of Ms. White’s whitewashing its favorite people, we just can’t recongize balanced reporting about them. To figure out which it was, I compared it to articles written about Tom DeLay or Dan Patrick.

Ok, it’s balanced. Doesn’t hold a candle to Chronically Biased coverage of either of those guys.

While it discusses her early achievements as a UH student, and words of praise from Gene Green, it doesn’t hesitate to include an opposing viewpoint from fellow Hispanic Gabriel Vasquez:

But former Councilman Gabriel Vasquez, who represented the adjoining District H, believes Alvarado is not up to higher and more demanding public office.

“She’s good at relationships and constituent services,” Vasquez says. “But in terms of the functional responsibility of managing the budget, preparing the budget and understanding the whole function of being a mayor-in-training, she’s not so good.”

While on council, Vasquez sparred publicly and privately with Alvarado, one of a group of politicians born of Houston’s historical Hispanic leadership. Vasquez calls their style of politics the “Chicago ward-boss model.”

“It’s about power, authority and control,” he says.
(Emphasis added.)

We know about politicians and their penchant for control around here, don’t we? But the finishing touch for me was this:

Alvarado has taken well to the more rewarding side of public service. Beyond her $50,000-plus annual council salary, she supplements her income with consulting fees primarily for advising out-of-town Hispanic-owned businesses on the how-tos of seeking public contracts.

She lives in a chic apartment in Post Rice Lofts downtown, and is often spotted dining at see-and-be-seen La Griglia and other stylish eateries.

Consulting fees, eh? A girl’s got to have her priorities, after all.

Edit: I think I need to make that clearer: She’s accepting fees for advising businesses on the how-tos of seeking public contracts in Houston. Contracts on which she will later be voting. Nice business…. if you can get elected to it.

Oh, ye of little faith! I said I’d be back with the local happenings, didn’t I? City Controller Annise Parker has spoken out to answer some questions about the Bonusgate scandals. Hat tip to Insite. Although he states there is more on the City of Houston website, he didn’t directly link his source. After searching the site, I cannot locate the article he’s referencing. (Maybe he got an advance copy?) But what he does have quoted on his site has a few items of note.

How do council budgets differ?
Council members have control over their individual budgets and are expected to keep them in balance. But for reporting purposes all 14 offices, plus the Mayor Pro Tem Office, are shown in the aggregate. A council office might be under or (temporarily) over budget, but the total remains in balance.F&A monitors each office and keeps the council member or designee informed, providing a monthly record of available funds, amount spent to date, and amounts remaining by spending category. Problems seldom occur except when a council member leaves office at the end of a term, which falls in the middle of the fiscal year, and unexpected bills surface.

Like bills for I-love-me publications? And from a question about council office budgets:

Each council member is, in effect, director of a small city department, and the bonuses they grant are co-signed by the mayor pro tem.

I think we see now why the DA widened the investigation. Rosie, et.al. could have been signing for anyone to get bonuses. (more…)

Well, it’s a good thing BlogHouston is on the job, becasue I’ve been a little busy with the cheesecake the last couple of nights. A guy’s gotta have his priorities, you know. Anyhoo, the city’s finally gotten with the program and released the names of all the appointees. There were a few small surprises in there, things that I predicted differently or missed..

(more…)