The Bonusgate scandal has just taken a huge left turn, as Chuck Rosenthal grows a set. KHOU and KTRK have articles on the matter. (Update: and KPRC, with a lengthy tape also). From KTRK’s comes this gem:
On Tuesday morning, a truck full of boxes containing documents were removed from the mayor pro tem’s office. Rosenthal apparently got a tip on Monday night that if he didn’t remove the boxes by Tuesday, they would disappear.
“There have been allegations made over the years that that office has also been used by some city officials to use their budget to do some things that officials didn’t want to do on their own budget,” said Rosenthal.
According to KHOU, the total was five filing cabinets worth, plus one box they went back for. Wonder if any of them were from the break room? I’m a little less sanguine about the dent now, to say the least.
For the second time Tuesday, investigators from the district attorney’s office took documents from former Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado’s office.
In their second trip, they took one box from the office.
Officials would not comment on what kind of documents were in the box.
Earlier Tuesday, a source told 11 News five or six investigators took about five filing cabinets’ worth of documents from the office.
Apparently, there have been allegations of travel expenses that got funneled through the mayor pro-tem’s office (and budget) when they would have looked funny in the individual council member’s expense report.
“There have been allegations made over the years that that office has also been used by some city officials to use their budget to do some things that officials didn’t want to do on their own budget,” said Rosenthal.
Such as travel:
We asked Rosenthal to give us an example of what he might look into. He says over the years, he’s heard rumors that perhaps an elected official would want to take a trip that wouldn’t appear proper going through that person’s budget. Rosenthal says he’s heard that the official would funnel the trip through the mayor pro tem’s budget.
He says he’s heard those allegations for years, but never had an opportunity to investigate. Now he has that opportunity. Rosenthal says he plans to look back as far as the statute of limitations allows, which could stretch back to the Lee Brown administration.
Not like we have a culture of corruption or anything.
Wonder if Tom forced their hand? Update: Or could this be Rosenthal cooperating in an underhanded way to block the request? “I’m sorry, those records were seized by the DA. . . ” And the DA (legally) can refuse any TPIA asking for materials subject to a criminal investigation.
Oh, don’t you just know some folks are burning up the phone lines tonight? Rusty’s probably going to have more business than he can handle soon….