Friday UpDate

This publication is dedicated to & maintained by those of us who really care about this city. We are many --- (and growing stronger with more people joining our ranks everyday). We are the nameless , faceless city, county, state, federal, and corporate taxpaying citizens & workers who are sick of the "good ole boy system" here in Houston, Texas --We were born on 7-30-1999. We are --- married & single-male & female, maintenance worker to Deputy Directors. We are the faceless civil servants who year after year do our job. We are the one's who see the hard earned tax $$s of the citizens in this area used & abused and given away to enrich a few greedy people with each new administration. Our hobbies include: Watching our backs---as we try to bring you the truth of what is happening in Houston, and getting the REAL information out to the public.

Friday September 29, 2000 UPDATE-----HERB LUM, GARY ORADAT COMPLAINT TO OIG:

Since posting the story below, we have filed a complaint with the OIG asking for a complete investigation into the handling of this matter , to see if proper procedures were followed & if the disciplinary action taken against Mr. Lum was appropriate. We have also had calls from 2 other employees who checked their personnel records to find that their E.P.E.s were also changed by Herbert Lum. ....we have forwarded the names to the OIG. We advise ANYONE who was ever evaluated by Mr. Lum to please....go back & check your personnel records.

Of course if you're Herb or Michael Ho's friend, then they will cover for you .... here's a good example of them covering for a friend .....:

Seems this Mr. Fung who is a friend of Herb & Michale Ho's, has had 3 accidents with a city vehicle in 4 months. Hmmmm look real close at that one on August 30th. Mr. Fung had his 13 year old daughter in the car when he had that one...Clearly against the use of city vehicles to have family members in car. This is for city use only...not transporting your family. We hear he still has his car, and yet he's had 3 accidents in 4 months & no disciplinary action has been taken against him, one of those accidents he was ticketed...See Boys & Girls.....if you know the right ass to kiss, you can do just whatever you want to....policies & procedures be damned. (We're gonna ask the OIG to investigate this one too!)

The Construction Division, led by Deputy Director Herbert Lum, P.E., is responsible for implementing and overseeing the construction phase of Capital Projects; providing project management services and obtaining quality construction in a timely manner for funds expended.

obtaining quality construction in a timely manner for funds expended Here's a project that Herb & his "pet" Michael Ho are so afraid to submit to Council, that Michael is waiting until he takes his vacation to do it. The project was let in 1997, wasn't started until 1999, and was finished in January of 2000. This RCA was drafted in March, but everyone knows how council is scrutinizing all contracts now & they haven't had the nerve to submit this one yet. This is change order #7 and Her tries to blame it on the previous construction administration, but if ya'll look closely at the changes being submitted, you'll see that they are all DESIGN phase screw ups, and at the time of design....HERBERT LUM was the chief engineer overseeing design in Street & Bridge.....Now, now Her...did you think we would forget? 7th change order readers....this one 8 months AFTER the job is finished, signed off on....for almost $500,000, we want to know WHY? When will any of these people be held responsible for their screw ups, and quit passing it on to the taxpayers?

Don't let them do it anymore councilmembers....PLEASE don't let them do it anymore.Sept. 15, 2000, 11:37PM

Jury: City workers tampered with records
By JO ANN ZUIGA
Copyright 2000 Houston Chronicle

A jury took less than three hours Friday to find two former city of Houston employees guilty of tampering with government records.

Wanna see some government documents that were tampered with by HERBERT LUM....who Stooge GARY ORADAT let off the hook???? (this one we're filing a complaint on Monday morning...10 am against LUM & ORADAT)

Have you ever wondered why you weren't promoted for years & years on end even though you have worked hard & diligently for year after year? Go back & check your personnel files. Maybe you will find the reason there, just as this engoineer did when he checked his own file last year after being told that he had not gotten a position he had applied for. The reason, he was told was that he had a bad E.P.E....He had never been aware of this and in fact had kept copies of all his E.P.E.'s. (EPE's are Employee Performance Evaluation) After finding this bizarre case we thought we'd share it with you. We cannot believe that given all his incompetence & now this illegal activity Herbert Lum has been allowed to remain at PW&E as long as he had. We also cannot believe that Oradat would cover for this...yeah...we believe Oradat would be a part of a cover up...hell he covered for Hilda all the time.

He stated that "based on the information submitted at the time & place of our meeting, it is my belief that Mr. Lum's comments were added AFTER you signed the JPR (job performance review). Further, as Mr. Lum could not state with certainty that your claim was untrue, i have decided to uphold your assertion"....."But the Overall Rating will not change."......"As a result, I will issue a verbal counseling to Mr. Lum for this action"

I'lll bet Roger Harris etal would have preferred a verbal counseling to being investigated by a jury....Let's see if we can't get Mr. Oradat & Mr. Lum before one of those juries.

The same Circus is being played out again...to the tune of a different song this time. There is a proposal to RE-ORGANIZE...yet again Capital Projects. BUT WITH THE SAME PEOPLE!!!!! What good is it if you have the san=me players? These same people made the same promises to Jerry King. How can this NEW plan work with all those MASS PRODUCED chief engineers & senior engineers?

If this was an NBA team, most of the players wouldn't be given a second chance. simple question to ask is "Why is this administration giving the same players the chance to waste more money?"

What ever happened to the Mayor's promise of Integrity, Accountability, and professionalism? If the same people are left to orchestrate another reorganization...don't expect any changes. Not one of them has the quality , They sould out to big money, and buddy, buddy deals long ago.

Interesting tidbit....we hear Carol Alvarado has told Showri Nandigiri that if he doesn't jerk Mark Kosmoski into place & demand that he give Harding Lawson a contract he's to be gotten rid of........Does the Mayor know you're doing this Carol? (Housnitch tried to get in touch with Ms. Alvarado but was unseccessful). But we hear she's become very adept at threatenting people with never getting a contract...never working again in this city. Too bad the Mayor let's all these people invoke his name. Too bad Carol has become so much of what she used to fight against.

Houston City Council Members Chris Bell and Mark Ellis will discuss the recent property tax cut in the next CouncimanBELL Monthly online town hall meeting Monday, September 25th, 2000 9:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. CDT

Where: AOL's Digital City Houston, www.home.digitalcity.com/houston/webchat

To Participate:
AOL Members, go to Keyword: Houston Chat and click on Houston Town Meeting
Live! If you use a different Web browser, type the following URL:
www.home.digitalcity.com/houston/webchat. Click on Town Meeting with CouncilmanBELL. You will have to download Instant Messenger (at no charge) to participate. Download times vary by computer, so it is best to download Instant Messenger well before the live chat.

Falling Apart: City Hall not working, and few attempting repairs
The squabble at City Hall over the city's budget and tax rate threatens to exact great cost and promises little gain. Even so, the controversy would be more productive, perhaps even enlightening, if some members of City Council were less consumed by their ambitious poses and more concerned about enduring public interests.

Councilman Chris Bell, who frequently voted with Mayor Lee Brown, has become a ringleader of the opposition at precisely the time that term limits have left him ineligible for re-election to council and casting about for another job. For whatever reasons, Bell and his allies on council have chosen to nourish unconstructive conflict at the expense of collegiality and fiscal prudence.

Bell said his motive behind the tax cut was not to leave a few dollars more in property owners' accounts, but to cause the Brown administration to look for efficiencies. If that were true, he and other council members would have sought the efficiencies during the budget process and used their council majority to secure them. Now that the majority and the mayor are estranged, one hears little about the efficiencies Bell and others might have had in mind.

Councilman Mark Ellis is another moving force behind the rejection of the current property tax rate, envisioned by the mayor's budget, and the likely adoption of a default tax rate that is 1.83 cents per $100 lower. Ellis says Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt agrees with him that the tax rate cut is fiscally benign, but this is like saying General Custer concurs with your estimates of enemy strength. Bettencourt's analyses of various issues only distantly related to his office range from unpersuasive to baffling.

Ellis rightly notes that rising property values and new development will cause tax revenues to grow even with the lower tax rate. But the city is booming after years of neglect and requires substantial investment in infrastructure.

The reason Houston has Parks to Standard and Neighborhoods to Standard and Libraries to Standard programs is because much of the city's amenities and basics are substandard. In the wake of the tax cut, the administration must search for improvement projects to delay or abandon.

Councilman Carroll Robinson, having swung his vote away from the mayor, is unconvincing in the role of noble conciliator. Before the tax-rate vote, he warned that the administration's revenue estimates were not conservative enough, then he voted to cut the city's only steady source of revenue, thus guaranteeing that the revenue estimates would be unsound.

Mayor Brown cannot escape blame, either. Although Houston has a strong-mayor form of government, Brown has delegated all the tasks and responsibilities of his office to his staff, leaving no one clearly in charge. By failing to set priorities and forcefully pursue them, Brown has invited challenges to his leadership from council members whose ambitions surpass their aptitude for public service.

Former Councilman Ray Driscoll, who appeared before council on Tuesday, scolded the mayor and council members for their petty bickering. He warned that relationships must be repaired before everything falls apart, but much of city government already appears to be disassembled. The tools and chief mechanic needed to put it back together are nowhere in sight.

I read with interest the Houston Chronicle’s Editorial, Falling Apart, City Hall not working, and few attempting repairs (Friday, September 22, 2000).

The Chronicle Editorial makes the same mistake that many at City Hall have been making since 1998. The mistake is assuming that spending more taxpayers' money automatically means better and more effective and efficient delivery of city services.

The Editorial gives short shrift to controlling expenditures and making city government smarter, faster, more entrepreneurial and customer friendly.

Since my election I have been writing about and speaking out on ideas for making city government more effective and efficient. I have also offered a number of innovative ideas on how to raise more money for the city without raising city taxes or fees. I recently sent all the members of the Editorial Board a letter outlining just a few of my ideas in this area.

You may not agree with my ideas, but it is unfair to say that "[n]ow that the majority and the mayor are estranged, one hears little about the efficiencies…"

Please read the information I send you and I am always available to visit with you to discuss my proposals.

Sept. 23, 2000, 8:49PM

Authoritarian Brown still at odds with Robinson in Democratic flare-up
By JULIE MASON

When Carroll Robinson was running for City Council in 1997, he was often quite bristly about assumptions that just because he was a black Democrat, he would automatically be a default shill on council for then-mayoral candidate Lee Brown.

Three years later, Robinson and Brown are about as at odds with each other as two elected officials can be, short of gunplay.

Robinson, who generally votes the New Democrat line on council -- meaning fiscally pragmatic and socially traditional Democrat -- brought down the wrath of Brown recently when he sided with conservatives in support of a tax-rate cut the mayor's office opposed.

The resulting conflict between the two is an almost textbook example of new-style Democratic politics clashing with old-school party liberalism. Interestingly, where the majority of Houston Democrats stand politically is probably somewhere in between.

Councilman Chris Bell, one of the most liberal members of council, voted the same way Robinson did. But Bell has long been a lost cause to Brown, having staged a devastating walkout in protest of the mayor's handling of a contract and making no secret of his half-formed plans to run against Brown next year.

Still, Brown got fired up about these betrayals from within his own ranks, and headed off to meetings of the Tejano Democrats and the Harris County Democratic Party's executive committee, where he lashed out at Bell and Robinson and questioned their Democratic credentials.

Well, come on now. Reality check: The mayor who endorsed Republican Harris County Judge Robert Eckels is questioning someone else's Democratic chops? And it's not like the mayor is a regular with the Tejano Democrats or the local Democratic Party.

Nevertheless, for the mayor who decries partisan politics (although he spoke at his party's national convention), it was a performance worthy of, well, an irate partisan mayor. For those who just like to watch a good fight, it does appear that halfway through his anticipated six years in office, Brown is finally getting in the game.

Speculation began in earnest, as it always will with these City Hall flare-ups. Would Brown strip Robinson of his committee assignments in retribution, as he did with Bell after the walkout? Certainly, Brown tends to wield the hammer more harshly against Democrats who vote against him than Republicans.

Some Robinson partisans also complained that Brown was subjecting Robinson to the treatment conservative jurist Clarence Thomas received when he was named to the U.S. Supreme Court -- specifically, expecting him to adhere to a certain agenda just because he's black.

It all forms a potent argument, but Robinson is a special case. Breathtakingly ambitious, Robinson, like Bell, is looking to make a name for himself on council so he can seek higher office. And not just some piddly city office -- Robinson sets his sights pretty high.

Unfortunately, his sometimes graceless scramble for the spotlight often irks those around him. When he came out, after voting for the tax cut, with his own plan for an alternative that would ostensibly bail the mayor out, other members of council began griping about his grandstanding, saying they would oppose him just on principle.

With so little principle to spare at City Hall, council members' willingness to give theirs away just on a grudge shows how far the situation has deteriorated.

The authoritarian Brown also intensely dislikes challenges to his position, and reacted with unprecedented venom to Robinson's alternative, which would have given a more limited, targeted tax cut to senior citizens.

So, suddenly finding himself in bad odor with the mayor and his cohorts on council, Robinson responded by organizing automated calls and mailers to the city's Democratic base, reminding them of his long history of work in the party and the accolades he's received for his leadership.

Will it work? Who will come out on top, and which philosophy of Democratic politics will prevail at City Hall? Even beyond the ongoing debate over the merits of the tax cut Robinson and others voted for, there is a different battle going on that could determine the direction of local Democratic politics in the future.

Typically, Robinson is undaunted, saying he routinely faces certain expectations and pressures at City Hall, but he doesn't let such external considerations form his thinking.

"Shoot, I've been in worse fights than this one," Robinson said. "You know what they say, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. And I am a world-class chef."

(All letters and e-mail correspondence become the property of HOUSNITCH and housnitch.com. Unless otherwise expressly requested, we are entitled to publish all such correspondence. We reserve the right to edit letters for length and clarity, and for content that might get us sued, or to withhold their publication. Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of our editors or sponsors.)

Subj: NOTHING
Date: 9/19/00 9:10:55 AM Central Daylight Time
From:
To: Housnitch1@aol.com

Dear HouSnitch,
Several of us at HFD are flabbergasted and appalled at
the misinformation and lack of information provided by
the administration. Also we wonder why the
"investigative reporters" in this city keep missing
it. Is Public Safety really a concern of the average
citizen. If not it should be. On a near daily
occurrence, Medic units (Advanced Life Support staffed
with Paramedics) are running across town on many
assignments. In example, Medic 34 from Laura Koppe and 59 to the Fondren and West Airport area, Kingwood units going near Hobby airport, Greenspoint units to Westheimer, and the list goes on and on. This is not an anomaly but a routine day. And besides being on the brink of a total meltdown, (which I predict with the seasonal increases due to Pediatric and influenza cases to occur in November) no progress has been made in any area with regards to staffing, additional units or otherwise. Many of the rank and file are concerned about their safety day to day with 3 man crews.
Washington D.C. stands to be severely penalized for
not following recommended practices due to a line of
duty death and most other cities are pressing to
adhere to safety recommendations.
Just this morning I observed an incident off of West
Bellfort with the "First Responder" being Ladder 69
(beltway and Briarforest) for the Medic unit near
Northwest Memorial. This is unacceptable not the type
of "Service" those of us in the field wish to provide
to our community. Lets all put on our blinders and repeat after our illustrious Mayor (who is not Bob Lanier) "There is not a crisis in this City"
Keep up bringing the facts out into the open

Subj: (no subject)
Date: 9/24/00 4:28:02 PM Central Daylight Time
From:
To: Housnitch1

The aggressiveness Chief Lester Tyra demonstrated at the time he was head of the union in making it a point to publicly tell city governmental officials to do their job or else sets the tone in what city governmental officials are doing today. So the Chief needs to stop crying himself by attacking those City Council Members that are doing just that, their job.

He should, by his own standards he established for himself then and once again publicly, should step down as the Fire Chief before he nationally embarrasses the Mayor and himself by being fired.

It's his choice now vs. city governmental officials later. City Council, do not let him wave the final outcome to look in favor of the Chief if the decision is made by governmental officials later.

Subj: Re: E-1
Date: 9/23/00 11:46:28 AM Central Daylight Time
From:
To: Housnitch1@aol.com

The running commentary on the award for fire apparatus to E-1 indicates the decision to award was made even before bid solicitation. The specification discrepancies described by Mr. Denton seem insufficient to disqualify a bid of this size, and were certainly worthy of clarification prior to award.

Just wondered if E-1 has a political contribution policy similar to Entertainment One, which admitted "pass through" contribs disguised to appear as "personal" contribs.

Or does E-1 have management level HFD personnel on their (clandestine) payroll?

Subj: RE: City Hall
Date: 9/21/00 9:43:47 PM Central Daylight Time
From:
To: Housnitch1@aol.com

Naw. You're not the only one who tells City Council. The problem is that they don't listen, aren't interested unless it's something they already believe, know better than anyone and remember, it's only a part-time job. If you bring up a problem, they claim it's administrative--they have no say about it, yet they continue to fund the programs without asking any hard questions or looking beyond the surface responses they get from the Departments.

The even bigger problem is that for some reason when a person ascends to a City Department Job he attains a very special status---he/she suddenly receives special guidance from a higher power, even higher than the Mayor. If you ask a question you get a generic answer that does not give the specific information requested. If you try to inform the Mayor, the letter is simply sent to the office being complained about and of course, another generic letter is on the way. Talk about the fox guarding the henhouse! And they get away with it consistently because there is no oversight over the departments.

Subj: Re: Dispatch
Date: 9/21/00 9:47:42 AM Central Daylight Time
From:
To: Housnitch1
Would a knowledgeable person please define HFD's "Critical Resource
Dispatch" in regard to ambulance availability? I constantly hear
reference to this status on dispatch channels.

Thanks

Actually today's term for it is 'Resource Management Dispatch'. I guess the previous term sounded too 'Critical'.

When the city has less than 25 ambulances in service in the city (approx. 50%), then we are put, with the approval of the Senior EMS Supervisor, into 'Resource Management Dispatch'. That means that all EMS units respond to scenes and transport to the hospital using lights and siren, regardless of severity of injury or illness, and also basically drop off the patient at the hospital and immediately return to service and begin heading back to the firehouse, doing the patient care report on the road. When we are not in 'Resource Management Dispatch' we are given 30 minutes from the time we change our status to 'At Hospital' before we must be in service.

Dig?

A little boy goes to his dad and asks, "What is City Government?"
Dad says, "Well son, let me try to explain it this way:

I'm the head of the family, so call me The Mayor.

Your mother is the administrator of the policy, so we call her the City Council.

We're here to take care of your needs, so we'll call you the People.
The nanny, we'll consider her the Working Class.
And your baby brother, we'll call him the Future.

Now think about that and see if it makes sense."

So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what Dad has said.

Later that night, he hears his baby brother crying, so he gets upto check on him.

He finds that the baby has severely soiled his diaper. So the little boy goes to his parent's room and finds his mother sound asleep.

Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny's room. Finding the door locked, he peeks in the keyhole and sees his father in bed with the nanny.
He gives up and goes back to bed.

The next morning, the little boy say's to his father, "Dad, I think I understand the concept of City Government now."

The father says, "Good, son, tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about."

The little boy replies, "The Mayor is screwing the Working Class while the City Council is sound asleep. The People are being ignored and the Future is in Deep Shit."

WE NEED YOU ... This is your page ..... help us with it...ANY DONATION WILL HELP.... PLEASE...... P.O. Box 55423 Houston, Texas 77255 713-722-9258

tell em what you think darlins, we get tired of telling them by ourselves.......

"He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice."
-Albert Einstein