One of the more alarming facts that came out of Thursday’s City Council meeting is that Houston’s Housing and Community Development is spending far more on disaster relief than it gets back in reimbursements. In the case of one program, Economic Development, the ratio between costs and reimbursements to date was actually 1100 to 1, even higher than the headline indicates ($3,596,821 spent vs. $3,260 reimbursed).
The program’s purpose: to help small businesses damaged by Harvey. But the City launched the program just this year. And four years after the storm, those who needed assistance the most have already gone out of business. Most small businesses can’t survive that long after losing essential equipment. Is this program chasing business applicants that no longer exist? It’s hard to tell without more information. (The City’s most recent pipeline report, published just yesterday, doesn’t even mention the Economic Development Program.)
Regardless, the Economic Development Program isn’t the only area where expenses seem out of whack. This raises the questions, “Should the City even be in the disaster-relief business?” And “Can others do it better?”
Disaster Relief Costs Exceed Reimbursements and Budgets in Multiple Areas
Temika Jones, the Department’s new Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Director showed the chart below as part of her presentation. She has one year on the job. Before that, she served as an auditor for a major accounting firm. Her presentation spotlighted two giant problems: Costs exceed reimbursements. And costs exceed budgets – so some may never be reimbursed.
In the chart above, focus on the last two columns in the Total row. They show that the City is incurring disaster relief costs that average 2.3X higher than reimbursements – across the board.
Also focus on the big red numbers at the bottom of the slide. They show budgets that have already been exceeded.
Now compare Columns 3 and 6 in Line 1. The City has already overspent its four-year budget for administration in the first year of its contract with the GLO by $1+ million. Oops. The budget was $15 million. But the City already spent $16 million and has only had draws approved for $1.2 million.
Finally, compare Columns 3 and 5 on Line 4: The Homeowner Assistance Program. The department budgeted only $8.2 million for project delivery, but has already spent $30.6 million – almost quadruple. That means they have no budget remaining to finish the program. Worse, reimbursement for $22.3 million could be in jeopardy.
City Operating Outside of Its Core Competencies
There are several reasons for the problems discussed above:
HUD and the GLO operate on a reimbursement basis. The City can give money to flood victims and expect reimbursement, but then have the victim’s application refused for some reason – often missing forms or incomplete data.
The City’s accounting systems don’t handle disaster relief programs well, so the problems lack visibility.
Disaster relief just doesn’t seem to be one of the City’s core competencies.
The City is operating waaaaay outside of its areas of expertise. Police. Fire. Water. Streets. Trash. Those are the things people expect from the City and what the City should focus on. In business, any time you tread outside of your core competencies, your costs and risks escalate exponentially. That takes money away from flood victims.
It appears that the City was so eager to get its hands on hundreds of millions of dollars in disaster relief money that no one asked whether the City even should be in that business. Or whether the City should just have let the GLO handle disaster relief – as it did so well in 48 other counties.
As of the end of last year, the GLO had reimbursed 2961 homeowners; Houston reimbursed 119.
And while the GLO reconstructed 2500 homes, the City reconstructed only 117.
Increasing the Pace, But Falling Father Behind
The City has accelerated its pace this year, but Jones’ presentation also shows that the City is still sitting on top of applications worth $114 million that have yet to be filed. That’s almost triple the previous year’s number. Meanwhile, expenses have more than tripled.
That brings us full circle. The City’s Economic Development Program has spent more than $3 million to get $3 thousand approved. It makes one wonder whether the purpose of pursuing HUD money was to create employment in Housing and Community Development or to help flood victims.
Turfing this to the GLO could have helped many more flood victims much faster at a lower cost.
The City put a third bureaucracy between money in Washington and the flood victims who need it. Two could have done the job faster, easier, and better.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/9/2021
1502 Days since Hurricane Harvey
The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screen-Shot-2021-10-09-at-12.45.15-PM.png?fit=1918%2C1448&ssl=114481918adminadmin2021-10-09 18:49:242021-10-10 10:10:47Should City Be in Disaster Relief? For One Program, It Spent $3 Million to Get $3 Thousand
Since Harvey, Houston’s Housing and Community Development Department has been criticized severely by HUD, the GLO, media, and flood victims alike for poor performance and non-performance in flood assistance efforts. Thursday, Keith Bynam, the Interim Director of the Department, and Temika Jones, the Department’s Assistant Director and Chief Financial Officer, informed city council members about other issues: severe and repeated budget overages in their department.
Their explosive testimony drew sharp questions and raised many more about the department’s management and oversight by the City.
Eight Main Recommendation to Improve Disaster Assistance
Bynam and Jones made eight recommendations as part of their Corrective Action Plan for flood assistance.
Reduce future Admin spending and forecast Admin dollars needed to execute programs.
Restructure reporting lines to other city departments in consultation with Central HR.
Re-evaluate all staffing decisions approved by the former director, Tom McCasland.
Align future expenditures with program spending.
Implement strike teams to focus on GLO submissions
Timely submission of draw requests to GLO (within 90 business days)
Continue operating successful programs (such as Multifamily, Public Services)
Ensure new CDBG-DR 2017 (Harvey) programs are implemented successfully (Economic Development, Small Rental, Single Family)
Flood Assistance: A Multi-level Problem
The meeting yesterday focused on fixing the negative financial impact to the City. But the impact to flood victims caught up in this bureaucratic miasma needs to be considered simultaneously.
During my business career, I found it hard to go wrong if you structured your organization around clients’ needs. In this case, there are two sets of clients: the GLO and HUD on one hand. And flood victims on the other. Both have one primary need: speed.
Some victims are still struggling to fix their homes or recover from the financial devastation caused by Harvey.
The GLO needs to use the money appropriated by Congress and HUD or lose it when program deadlines expire.
One program (Home Repair) has already expired. And 1501 days out from Hurricane Harvey, hundreds of millions in funds remain to be distributed – despite overspending on administrative expenses, such as employee salaries and computer expenses, by 400% last year.
City Council needs to look at the flood assistance from their clients’ perspectives and start there. How can they speed up the assistance?
Insights from Former Employees, the GLO, and Flood Victims
Not wanting to rely solely on Bynam and Jones recommendations, I also talked to former employees of the department, the GLO, as well as flood victims who described several problems:
An accounting system that can’t recognize liabilities incurred on behalf of the federal government in reimbursement programs
Featherbedding (keeping and protecting political friends on a payroll, often by stretching out work)
Personnel with lack of experience who don’t know what to do
Inadequate management and training
Refusing help from the GLO
Turnover in managerial ranks (five managers in the Home Repair program alone since Harvey, according to Bynam)
No one from the Mayor on down ever asking the questions, such as “Why are we in this business? Do we want to stay in it?”
It’s amazing how closely these comments map back to the recommendations made by Bynam and Jones. The two lists closely parallel each other, though they are not identical.
Ten People to Pay Two Bills?
In her testimony yesterday, Ms. Jones, who joined the department a year ago, said that, shortly after arriving, she discovered that, “We had 10 people paying bills in accounts payable and two people requesting reimbursements. That change was made immediately.” She said, “The GLO compliments us at least weekly on the progress we are making, but we have a long way to go.”
Friends in the media who have covered the department for decades describe persistent problems that previous mayors and city councils found convenient to ignore.
I applaud Jones and Bynam for having the courage to air dirty laundry in public. That is the only way these problems will ever get fixed. Departments like Housing and Community Development cannot become fiefdoms for featherbedding, or as one former employee put it “a receptacle for misfits and castoffs from other departments.”
Some Unsolicited Advice: Restructure Around “The Right Five”
I had a highly successful information technology (IT) client for 30 years that did government as well as private-sector work. They believed that for their clients to be successful, IT systems had to deliver the “right five”:
The right information
In the right form
For the right people
In the right place
At the right time
Example: a successful airline must juggle equipment availability, maintenance, reservations, pricing, baggage, seating, staffing, gate availability, check-in, air traffic control, weather, seating and other variables…for each flight, thousands of times a day.
For the system to work efficiently, customers, employees, and vendors see only what they need, when they need it, where they need it, in a form that lets them do the task at hand. Software guides them through each step.
It’s safe to say that Houston’s Housing and Community Development Department does not have “the right five.” I say that based on the testimony we heard yesterday, from City Council reactions, from former employees, and from the persistent criticisms offered by HUD, the GLO, and flood victims.
Checking the “Flight Status” of Flood Applications
And part of the fix will require managing the information so that low-wage employees can perform their individual roles in a very complex process.
The whole notion of “trying” to file paperwork within 90 business days feels repugnant to me. But with the “right five,” filing those applications in real time with a fraction of the people could happen automatically.
If the City were a private business, it would not be trying to figure out how to timely file flood assistance applications right now. It would be filing for bankruptcy. We seriously need to fix this.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/8/2021
1501 days since Hurricane Harvey
The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_3456.jpg?fit=640%2C480&ssl=1480640adminadmin2021-10-08 21:28:242021-10-08 21:38:27How to Speed Up Flood Assistance
Weeks ago, Mayor Sylvester Turner said he would provide a complete explanation for allegations of interference in a $15 million contract that would have benefitted his former business partner. Many people thought that would happen today at a joint meeting between the Budget & Fiscal Affairs and Housing & Community Development Committees. But it didn’t.
The Mayor didn’t appear. His representative didn’t speak. And Tom McCasland, the fired director of Housing & Community Development wasn’t even invited. Instead of explanations, we got more bombshells and even bigger, more troubling questions that pointed to what Mayor Pro Tem Dave Martin called “a train wreck” that was years in the making.
The Longest Three Hours Ever
Keith Bynam, the department’s Interim Director, and Temika Jones, Assistant Director and Chief Financial Officer (also a former auditor) sat in the hot seats for three hours. They gave a presentation about the department’s finances.
The meeting almost ended before it started. Council members received the presentation from Bynam and Jones less than an hour before the start of the meeting. The members had so little time to prepare that several wanted to postpone. Based on their initial review, some also called the presentation a “diversion.” The acrimonious discussion about whether to adjourn the meeting consumed the first 33 minutes and set the tone for the rest of the day. One council member, Mike Knox, walked out.
While the presentation was certainly not what council members expected, it also wasn’t a “diversion.” It more closely resembled open heart surgery on an entire city department in front of live TV…using hand grenades instead of scalpels.
Most of the presentation focused on budget shortfalls in the department, and who knew what about those shortfalls when.
Sadly, Bynam and Jones had planned to talk about a “corrective action plan” for the department, but never got to their recommendations because of persistent interruptions from council members whose jaws were scraping the floor.
At the end of the meeting, the City Attorney said the internal investigation that the Mayor assigned to him had been turfed to outside counsel – former US attorneys. He knows a hot potato when he sees one!
If this presentation was an attempt to support the mayor (who was reportedly at an Astros game), it backfired. Bynam and Jones spent half their time fielding questions from council members about why they didn’t turn whistleblower years ago. They claimed: 1) that they repeatedly raised spending issues with McCasland, 2) that McCasland supposedly discussed them with the Mayor, and 3) that they weren’t really sure if he ever did.
Bombshell Revelations
Among the bombshells:
The department’s annual administrative budget for ongoing HUD Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) programs (separate from Harvey programs) went over budget during the last fiscal year by 175%. It budgeted $3,987,480 and spent $11,084,775.
TIRZ (tax increment reinvestment zone) money made up the difference, but by law TIRZ money is supposed to be spent within the zone where the tax increment is collected.
During the last 5 fiscal years combined, the department overspent its admin budget by 143%. It budgeted $21,088,015 and spent $51,322,491 on admin.
Admin expenses for the Harvey CDBG fund exceeded the four-year budget of the program by 14% in the first year of the program.
For the department’s Homeowner Assistance Program (HoAP), the department incurred $70 million in expenses as of the end of the third quarter, but has only had reimbursements approved and/or paid that totaled $12,475,085. They missed that one by almost 6X. As a result, they are now $22 million short in their project delivery funds.
Only one of nine programs in the Harvey fund is on track to meet its performance benchmarks by the end of the year.
The former director’s wife owns a company that was doing business with the department to reduce “duplication of benefit” (DOB) gaps for HoAP applicants. But the company actually increased the gap for each applicant, according to the GLO. To cover the difference, the department will have to reduce each homeowner reimbursement request.
The GLO capped Relocation Assistance at $6,000 per applicant, but the department is spending $8 to 10K.
Change orders were not accounted for properly.
Virtually all city council members appeared to be surprised by the revelations.
12 Bigger Questions Remain
Compared to his role in one dubious financial transaction, Mayor Turner now has many bigger questions to answer.
Did the Mayor provide proper oversight to the Housing and Community Development Department?
Why did he continue to back McCasland when management issues arose years ago? HUD and the GLO had warned him. The problems were widely reported in the media.
Are the numbers reported today accurate and complete, or are there more surprises waiting?
How could admin expenses swell so much? Previous GLO and HUD audits suggested that the department was understaffed. And McCasland claims he held admin expenses below 13%. And typically, first-year admin startup costs for a new program run about 20-30% of the total allocated for the entire program. They don’t consume 4+ years of budget in one year.
Does the City’s accounting software need improvement? The City doesn’t even recognize liabilities incurred to HUD and the GLO. It only covers the general fund.
Were these numbers being timely reported to the Mayor? Bynam and Jones say they reported them to McCasland every month, and that McCasland supposedly discussed them with the Mayor. But Bynam and Jones claim McCasland kept them out of meetings with the Mayor. So they don’t know what McCasland told the Mayor.
Did McCasland make the Mayor aware of the overages?
What is McCasland’s side of the story?
How is it possible that the City Controller was writing checks and these overages did not show up on a balance sheet?
The City’s general fund advances cash to complete projects in anticipation of reimbursements from the GLO once the work is approved. Are there audited financials that show more detail on how these funds were spent AND additional liabilities which may be accruing?
Why did the City sue the GLO to keep these programs last year if they were losing so much money?
Rule #1
Rule #1 in business is that when you’re in a hole, stop digging. Evidently, NO ONE at the City got that memo.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/7/2021
1500 Days after Hurricane Harvey
The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/20210626-RJR_8687.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=18001200adminadmin2021-10-07 22:05:122021-10-08 10:52:11Bombshells in Council Meeting Raise More and Bigger Questions about Housing and Community Development
Should City Be in Disaster Relief? For One Program, It Spent $3 Million to Get $3 Thousand
One of the more alarming facts that came out of Thursday’s City Council meeting is that Houston’s Housing and Community Development is spending far more on disaster relief than it gets back in reimbursements. In the case of one program, Economic Development, the ratio between costs and reimbursements to date was actually 1100 to 1, even higher than the headline indicates ($3,596,821 spent vs. $3,260 reimbursed).
The program’s purpose: to help small businesses damaged by Harvey. But the City launched the program just this year. And four years after the storm, those who needed assistance the most have already gone out of business. Most small businesses can’t survive that long after losing essential equipment. Is this program chasing business applicants that no longer exist? It’s hard to tell without more information. (The City’s most recent pipeline report, published just yesterday, doesn’t even mention the Economic Development Program.)
Regardless, the Economic Development Program isn’t the only area where expenses seem out of whack. This raises the questions, “Should the City even be in the disaster-relief business?” And “Can others do it better?”
Disaster Relief Costs Exceed Reimbursements and Budgets in Multiple Areas
Temika Jones, the Department’s new Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Director showed the chart below as part of her presentation. She has one year on the job. Before that, she served as an auditor for a major accounting firm. Her presentation spotlighted two giant problems: Costs exceed reimbursements. And costs exceed budgets – so some may never be reimbursed.
In the chart above, focus on the last two columns in the Total row. They show that the City is incurring disaster relief costs that average 2.3X higher than reimbursements – across the board.
Also focus on the big red numbers at the bottom of the slide. They show budgets that have already been exceeded.
Now compare Columns 3 and 6 in Line 1. The City has already overspent its four-year budget for administration in the first year of its contract with the GLO by $1+ million. Oops. The budget was $15 million. But the City already spent $16 million and has only had draws approved for $1.2 million.
Finally, compare Columns 3 and 5 on Line 4: The Homeowner Assistance Program. The department budgeted only $8.2 million for project delivery, but has already spent $30.6 million – almost quadruple. That means they have no budget remaining to finish the program. Worse, reimbursement for $22.3 million could be in jeopardy.
City Operating Outside of Its Core Competencies
There are several reasons for the problems discussed above:
The City is operating waaaaay outside of its areas of expertise. Police. Fire. Water. Streets. Trash. Those are the things people expect from the City and what the City should focus on. In business, any time you tread outside of your core competencies, your costs and risks escalate exponentially. That takes money away from flood victims.
It appears that the City was so eager to get its hands on hundreds of millions of dollars in disaster relief money that no one asked whether the City even should be in that business. Or whether the City should just have let the GLO handle disaster relief – as it did so well in 48 other counties.
As of the end of last year, the GLO had reimbursed 2961 homeowners; Houston reimbursed 119.
And while the GLO reconstructed 2500 homes, the City reconstructed only 117.
Increasing the Pace, But Falling Father Behind
The City has accelerated its pace this year, but Jones’ presentation also shows that the City is still sitting on top of applications worth $114 million that have yet to be filed. That’s almost triple the previous year’s number. Meanwhile, expenses have more than tripled.
That brings us full circle. The City’s Economic Development Program has spent more than $3 million to get $3 thousand approved. It makes one wonder whether the purpose of pursuing HUD money was to create employment in Housing and Community Development or to help flood victims.
The City put a third bureaucracy between money in Washington and the flood victims who need it. Two could have done the job faster, easier, and better.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/9/2021
1502 Days since Hurricane Harvey
The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.
How to Speed Up Flood Assistance
Since Harvey, Houston’s Housing and Community Development Department has been criticized severely by HUD, the GLO, media, and flood victims alike for poor performance and non-performance in flood assistance efforts. Thursday, Keith Bynam, the Interim Director of the Department, and Temika Jones, the Department’s Assistant Director and Chief Financial Officer, informed city council members about other issues: severe and repeated budget overages in their department.
Their explosive testimony drew sharp questions and raised many more about the department’s management and oversight by the City.
Eight Main Recommendation to Improve Disaster Assistance
Bynam and Jones never did get to finish their presentation. Unfortunately, recommendations on how to fix the department’s problems were at the end. Arguably, Pages 22 and 23 should have been the focus of their presentation.
Bynam and Jones made eight recommendations as part of their Corrective Action Plan for flood assistance.
Flood Assistance: A Multi-level Problem
The meeting yesterday focused on fixing the negative financial impact to the City. But the impact to flood victims caught up in this bureaucratic miasma needs to be considered simultaneously.
During my business career, I found it hard to go wrong if you structured your organization around clients’ needs. In this case, there are two sets of clients: the GLO and HUD on one hand. And flood victims on the other. Both have one primary need: speed.
One program (Home Repair) has already expired. And 1501 days out from Hurricane Harvey, hundreds of millions in funds remain to be distributed – despite overspending on administrative expenses, such as employee salaries and computer expenses, by 400% last year.
City Council needs to look at the flood assistance from their clients’ perspectives and start there. How can they speed up the assistance?
Insights from Former Employees, the GLO, and Flood Victims
Not wanting to rely solely on Bynam and Jones recommendations, I also talked to former employees of the department, the GLO, as well as flood victims who described several problems:
It’s amazing how closely these comments map back to the recommendations made by Bynam and Jones. The two lists closely parallel each other, though they are not identical.
Ten People to Pay Two Bills?
In her testimony yesterday, Ms. Jones, who joined the department a year ago, said that, shortly after arriving, she discovered that, “We had 10 people paying bills in accounts payable and two people requesting reimbursements. That change was made immediately.” She said, “The GLO compliments us at least weekly on the progress we are making, but we have a long way to go.”
Friends in the media who have covered the department for decades describe persistent problems that previous mayors and city councils found convenient to ignore.
I applaud Jones and Bynam for having the courage to air dirty laundry in public. That is the only way these problems will ever get fixed. Departments like Housing and Community Development cannot become fiefdoms for featherbedding, or as one former employee put it “a receptacle for misfits and castoffs from other departments.”
Some Unsolicited Advice: Restructure Around “The Right Five”
I had a highly successful information technology (IT) client for 30 years that did government as well as private-sector work. They believed that for their clients to be successful, IT systems had to deliver the “right five”:
Example: a successful airline must juggle equipment availability, maintenance, reservations, pricing, baggage, seating, staffing, gate availability, check-in, air traffic control, weather, seating and other variables…for each flight, thousands of times a day.
For the system to work efficiently, customers, employees, and vendors see only what they need, when they need it, where they need it, in a form that lets them do the task at hand. Software guides them through each step.
It’s safe to say that Houston’s Housing and Community Development Department does not have “the right five.” I say that based on the testimony we heard yesterday, from City Council reactions, from former employees, and from the persistent criticisms offered by HUD, the GLO, and flood victims.
Checking the “Flight Status” of Flood Applications
Neither the City Controller, City Council, Mayor, HUD, GLO, the Department, nor flood victims can tell the “flight status” of pending applications at a glance. That’s how you get an economic development plan where the City has spent $3.6 million to get $3,260 of aid approved (see line 3, page 14). That needs fixing.
And part of the fix will require managing the information so that low-wage employees can perform their individual roles in a very complex process.
The whole notion of “trying” to file paperwork within 90 business days feels repugnant to me. But with the “right five,” filing those applications in real time with a fraction of the people could happen automatically.
If the City were a private business, it would not be trying to figure out how to timely file flood assistance applications right now. It would be filing for bankruptcy. We seriously need to fix this.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/8/2021
1501 days since Hurricane Harvey
The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.
Bombshells in Council Meeting Raise More and Bigger Questions about Housing and Community Development
Weeks ago, Mayor Sylvester Turner said he would provide a complete explanation for allegations of interference in a $15 million contract that would have benefitted his former business partner. Many people thought that would happen today at a joint meeting between the Budget & Fiscal Affairs and Housing & Community Development Committees. But it didn’t.
The Mayor didn’t appear. His representative didn’t speak. And Tom McCasland, the fired director of Housing & Community Development wasn’t even invited. Instead of explanations, we got more bombshells and even bigger, more troubling questions that pointed to what Mayor Pro Tem Dave Martin called “a train wreck” that was years in the making.
The Longest Three Hours Ever
Keith Bynam, the department’s Interim Director, and Temika Jones, Assistant Director and Chief Financial Officer (also a former auditor) sat in the hot seats for three hours. They gave a presentation about the department’s finances.
The meeting almost ended before it started. Council members received the presentation from Bynam and Jones less than an hour before the start of the meeting. The members had so little time to prepare that several wanted to postpone. Based on their initial review, some also called the presentation a “diversion.” The acrimonious discussion about whether to adjourn the meeting consumed the first 33 minutes and set the tone for the rest of the day. One council member, Mike Knox, walked out.
While the presentation was certainly not what council members expected, it also wasn’t a “diversion.” It more closely resembled open heart surgery on an entire city department in front of live TV…using hand grenades instead of scalpels.
Sadly, Bynam and Jones had planned to talk about a “corrective action plan” for the department, but never got to their recommendations because of persistent interruptions from council members whose jaws were scraping the floor.
At the end of the meeting, the City Attorney said the internal investigation that the Mayor assigned to him had been turfed to outside counsel – former US attorneys. He knows a hot potato when he sees one!
If this presentation was an attempt to support the mayor (who was reportedly at an Astros game), it backfired. Bynam and Jones spent half their time fielding questions from council members about why they didn’t turn whistleblower years ago. They claimed: 1) that they repeatedly raised spending issues with McCasland, 2) that McCasland supposedly discussed them with the Mayor, and 3) that they weren’t really sure if he ever did.
Bombshell Revelations
Among the bombshells:
Virtually all city council members appeared to be surprised by the revelations.
12 Bigger Questions Remain
Compared to his role in one dubious financial transaction, Mayor Turner now has many bigger questions to answer.
Rule #1
Rule #1 in business is that when you’re in a hole, stop digging. Evidently, NO ONE at the City got that memo.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/7/2021
1500 Days after Hurricane Harvey
The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.