Well, the smell of filth and corruption downtown has finally reached Washington.

Two years ago the former head of Houston’s building department, Monique McGilbra, and Mayor Lee Brown’s former chief of staff Oliver Spellman were found guilty of bribery in Cleveland. Newspaper accounts at the time also claimed the government was prepared to prove McGilbra had also been bribed by a company called Keystone here in Houston. Surface was a partner in the company, but neither he nor anyone else at Keystone was charged with a crime.

In 2002 a Houston Chronicle editorial called the company the keystone of Harris County cronyism.

“I know for a fact the FBI certainly hasn’t talked to me, I wasn’t around when anything alleged to have occurred, occurred,” Emmett told us.

Commissioners El Franco Lee and Jerry Eversole led the effort to lease purchase county buildings from Keystone. Lee’s former company did business with Keystone, Jerry Eversole’s son shared office space with the company and while his company made millions from county contracts, Surface was reappointed chairman of the sports corporation by Commissioner Eversole.

Last fall we detailed Commissioner Eversole’s questionable work habits and raised questions whether he improperly used campaign funds for personal benefit. While examining his work calendars, we found evidence of his favorite golf foursome. One of the players was Michael Surface, another was Leroy Hermes who was one of the architects of Reliant Stadium. Hermes got contracts at Reliant while Surface was sports corporation chairman. We also know Hermes did engineering work on the Commissioner’s Eversole’s house. So far Eversole has refused to say how much, if anything he paid for it.

I bolded the above because of a related issue I am sure I wrote about here before (but can’t find): the parking garage at Public Works facility at 4200 Leeland. KBR had the contract for the garage design, as well as the Reliant roof. When the latter came through, they pulled all their “A-list” engineers, along with anyone competent to put a pencil to paper, and assigned them to the stadium. The only term that can describe the design produced by the remaining staff is “criminally incompetent.” I use that first word deliberately, mind you. There is no way the design should have passed muster when submitted for approval — yet it did. (Guess who was in charge of the “building department?” See the first paragraph quoted.) A few of the minor problems:

• During the construction, the engineers missed an underground vault adjacent to the building, right where the ramp had to be placed. It was apparently a basement room that had been sealed off fifteen years before, and contained some old furniture. After several weeks delay, a change order was made to remove the concrete cover and fill in the room. Once the roof was removed, the vault turned out to include a major supporting beam that extended from under the building. Rather than unbolt or use a cutting torch to sever it, a large digging device (the kind we often call a “steam shovel”) was used to smash it loose. Needless to say, it shook the whole building.
• The garage’s second level is supposed to be even with the office building’s second floor. It’s about eight feet lower. This made it impossible to have a level walkway directly to the 2nd floor as previously planned. (There’s just a floor to ceiling window where the door is supposed to be.)
• The lower level of the roof means that several drain pipes are too low and directly over a sidewalk, lowering clearance so much, a portion of the sidewalk had to be blocked off.
• The supports of the 2nd level are two rows of (rather small) I-beams, each of which supports a horizontal crosspiece; none of them are sheathed in concrete, and several are directly in parking spots, where they could be easily clipped or hit.
• Each pair of crosspieces is linked by a large central beam that extends to the crosspieces mentioned above. These beams are larger than the crosspieces and support the center of the garage — but themselves have no support. They’re completely dependent on the smaller crosspieces which are supported by the paired I-beams.
• Had the 2nd level been elevated to the required height, and the walkway placed where it was supposed to be, there would have been far less than the required 10′ clearance, and the ramp would have been prohibitively steep.
• The corner is also blind; a truck coming up the ramp will have no choice but to swing wide to avoid clipping the edge of the structure, and woe to anyone trying to exit the 2nd level at the same time.
• Technically, it’s not part of the garage, but at the rear of the lot there was supposed to be a 3rd gate and card reader, for use by utility trucks. Trucks which might be towing a trailer. However, due to the placement and design of the entrance, it was necessary to make a 90-degree left turn immediately after passing through the gate. The entrance lane is about 12 feet wide, and it is impossible to “go wide” due to a retaining wall, nor can you “cut close” due to a concrete post. I really doubt I could take that corner in my car. In an F150 longbed, even without a trailer? Laughable. The result was that the fence was retrofit with a sliding manual gate elsewhere. Unpowered, no security, and often left open.

The result of all this is that the city inspector responsible for the final approval refused to ok it for use. His assessment was that the building could hold itself up, but support no vehicles. Rumor has it he was shaking his head as he got out of his car, looking at it. I’ve seen the building myself, and frankly I’d be nervous walking under it — it looks flimsy even to the untrained eye. The I-beams are about ten inches across, and maybe a foot from the top to the bottom of the “I”. A former refinery worker of my acquaintance referred to it as “pipe racking” and suggested I park my car under it the next time a hurricane comes to Houston. (I pointed out that if I don’t work there, that would be suspicious; anyway, what makes him think the city would pay for it? They’re immune to liability.)

The entire revamp of 4200 and 4215 Leeland was supposed to cost about $5.8m, but ran closer to $7m by the time it was done. At least one million of that was the “carport.” For six years, it has been nothing more than an expensive carport. Every repair plan kept getting put off as the Legal Department kept trying to find someone to sue. KBR escaped responsibility as it sold that division, split into about three different entities, all of whom said “hey, it wasn’t us, we didn’t exist back then.” I don’t know if the name “Hermes” is connected with this little fiasco or not, but rumor (again) said it was some Greek guy doing the design — and “Hermes” ain’t a Spanish name. I hope the FBI is aware of this fiasco also and checks into that angle. It’s cost Public Works a great deal of money aside from the obvious waste; part of the reason for the garage was to consolidate two satellite facilities at Leeland. PW ended up continuing to lease a facility elsewhere for four more years before shrinking staff allowed it to jam the remaining people and vehicles into other facilities. Of course, now that the need for increased staff has become glaringly obvious (an issue I could write tons more on), there’s no place to put them.

Tonight we learn the city hall subpoenas involve Hermes Firm and design work it may have done on a fire training academy. The subpoena also asks about expense records for a trip McGilbra took to Los Angeles. Add to this the ongoing controversy swirling around the District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal and you get why the county judge was waiting for the next shoe to drop. Now it’s dropped.

“It’s like a spider with eight legs, shoes keep dropping here,” Emmett said.

Michael Surface has refused to talk with us for weeks as we’ve begun to spread our investigation to the sports corporation and the Reliant Stadium. And once again emails are in the mix. The sports corporation lawyer told us Surface deleted emails involving sports corporation business written on his Keystone company computer.

Ed Emmett wants to make a big deal about that, but while it might be suspicious, it’s not illegal. It’s his company computer and as long as he’s operating within company policy, big deal. Of course, if such emails were incriminating, we do have a crime here. Kinda hard to prove it without the e-mails, though….

Of course if any of those e-mails were to or from the Authority, then they should be on those computers also.

(Edited to fix a few typos. Edited for content at 15:26 cst.)