To defend the project at the center of the allegations, Turner attacks the former housing manager

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Mayor Sylvester Turner plans to turn against the former housing manager who accused him of directing affordable housing money to a developer.

Turner said he would present information about the management of former department manager Tom McCaslands that he says will help explain this show last week. He plans to do so before two board committees next week.

The exact nature of the information, which Turner said he received on Tuesday, was unclear, although he suggested that McCasland was withholding information from the administration.

It is important for me to make sure I have the information from my directors on how to run this city, and if there are any major developments taking place within your department that you are not making this information available. , and you know that will eventually come to light, you don’t have the luxury of putting up smoke screens, Turner said.

McCasland did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Turners’ remarks on Wednesday.

Last week, he accused the mayor of setting up a competitive funding process to channel Hurricane Harvey’s affordable housing money to a selected developer. Turner rescinded staff recommendations to fund four projects in favor of a single deal in Clear Lake, called Huntington at Bay Area.

The four staff recommendations reportedly used $ 16.2 million in Harvey funds to support 362 affordable housing units. Selection Turners would use $ 15 million to fund 88 units.

A co-developer of the Huntington deal is a company run by longtime Turners partner Barry Barnes and another Barnes firm partner Jermaine Thomas. Turner left cabinet when he was elected mayor in 2015.

Turner denied the wrongdoing and said he prioritized the project because it is in City Council District E, a relatively wealthy community that has not seen an affordable housing agreement supported by the city since. six years. He fired McCasland later that day.

The mayor teased the new information after At-Large council member Michael Kubosh expressed concern over the allegations at Wednesday’s council meeting.

Kubosh said he would push for an outside investigation and asked Comptroller Chris Brown, the city’s independently elected financial watchdog, if he could lead it. He said the allegations surprised him because he often relied on the word of department heads to decide his votes.

What really worries me is that the director has said that the competitive process is a farce and not a competitive process at all, Kubosh said. I know yesterday that the mayor commented theres more to come. So, I don’t know if we were going to do the villainous Tom McCasland, if he’s really the culprit here, the real villain, I don’t know. But we have to purify the air, if there is nothing wrong, we have to know it to be able to move forward. It’s putting a cloud over us right now and I want it to go away.

Brown said he had no investigative powers in the city charter, although his office said he believed there should be a third party investigation. Turner announced an internal investigation, led by the city attorney, last week. The city attorney reports directly to the mayor. Turners’ office said the investigation uncovered information Turner plans to present next week.

Kubosh also renewed questions on the Controllers’ Checkbook financial transparency platform, a project that would make much of the city’s financial data readily available online. Turner blocked the continuation of the project earlier this year.

McCaslands’ allegations came as a shock to council members when they testified before the housing committee last week. Those at the meeting said they were overwhelmed with the information and would need more time to digest it.

District F council member Tiffany Thomas, who heads the housing committee, said on Wednesday that the mayor’s information would help provide context. Turner plans to present the information at a joint hearing of the council’s budget and housing committees.

I know the board was expected to have this solid discussion immediately after last Tuesday, so I just want to encourage my colleagues not to just seek information but seek to understand, Thomas said. . We have to want more for ourselves than the hot shots in the news clips, we have to want more for ourselves in the city than the viral moments. So let’s do the hard work to get the information so that we can restore confidence in our housing program and the seats we sit in with the Houstonians.

The meeting of the joint committee has not yet been called.

This article will be updated.

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