Going To The Mattresses
We shouldn’t have to file a lawsuit against the county for taxpayers to see public records, but this is Harris County! As the mobsters used to say – we’re going to the mattresses, and Mattress Mack is on our side.
The hearing was held in the 157th district court.
Dolcefino Media had filed a lawsuit to make sure Harris County did not destroy public records that could hurt our continuing investigation into county corruption, focusing on the former Health Director, Barbie Robinson.
“This is Barbie Robinson, the fired Harris County Public Health Director…”
“If you don’t have that transparency the government can do what they want without repercussion or without accountability to you, the people that they serve” Attorney Jeff Diamant said.
We weren’t fighting for this battle for honesty and transparency alone.
The county’s biggest cheerleader is in the fight with us.
“Let’s expose it and the best disinfectant is sunlight to all the county commissioners,” Mattress Mack said.
“Developing this evening, a shakeup at the top of the Harris County Health Department.”
“The director of the Harris County Health Department has been fired.”
Barbie Robinson was indicted last December. Charged with four different felonies. Accused of manipulating the award of tens of millions of dollars in county contracts.
The new District Attorney, Sean Teare, just dismissed the charges, claiming the former DA weaponized the office for political prosecutions.
The former District Attorney is firing back and is formally asking the Justice Department to investigate what’s happened here.
“This is a coverup by Sean Teare in return for support he received from certain public officials who could be implicated in these investigations” Kim Ogg said.
Ogg didn’t name names in that interview with ABC13, but we will…
She’s talking about Lina Hidalgo the county judge, and the county commissioner Rodney Ellis.
And we think taxpayers deserve a full accounting of what’s going on.
“They’re not getting the job done. Harris County is not a safe place. The constables are way underpaid,” Mattress Mack said.
One thing is certain; the District Attorney is trying to make it hard for us to follow the trail.
He is trying to keep the Robinson case files a secret from taxpayers. And that’s simply wrong.
But one of the things we also wanted to see were the emails between Robinson and the woman who ultimately fired her. Her boss, Diana Ramirez.
Ramirez abruptly resigned from her more than 400 thousand dollars job as Harris County Administrator right before the Robinson indictments were thrown out.
It was that Kim Ogg letter to the feds that led us to the courtroom.
“There were many things that could’ve been done for our Harris County residents, for almost 30 million dollars,” Kim Ogg said.
Ogg claimed the county was destroying emails from former employees 30 days after they left Harris County employment.
If that was right, the county was set to destroy the Ramirez emails.
And Mattress Mack, as he always does, agreed to help.
“All those records need to be open to the public can see them. If there’s nothing there great, there’s nothing there. If there is something there, let’s expose it,” Mattress Mack said.
In court, Judge Tanya Garrison questioned county lawyers, and she was spot on ‘Are they supposed to trust you. They need something in writing. I can’t fault them for that’
“And so, if an employee leaves, they delete all of their emails and delete their cell phone records or wipe their cell phones within 30 days. They may be destroying evidence before anybody has the opportunity to uncover the truth,” Attorney Jeff Diamant said.
“Journalists often find out about potential scandals months after someone leaves the county. If I find out in June about something that happened in March, and I ask for the records and they’re gone, that is a violation of the public’s right to know. That’s the issue here,” Wayne Dolcefino told the camera.
Our request for a court order demanding the county follow state law ended with an agreement instead.
The county promising to keep email communications involving Robinson and her former boss.
“We do want the county attorney to come out publicly and say they are not allowing departments to destroy emails,” Wayne Dolcefino said to Tiffany Bingham.
But the bigger fight still looms on the horizon. County lawyers simply refuse to tell us if the county was destroying emails of other former employees soon after they left.
“Do you destroy it if there is not a PIA request?” Wayne Dolcefino asked Tiffany Bingham.
“I think you should just look at the schedule because it speaks for itself,” Bingham responded.
“But it doesn’t answer that question. You know that, Tiffany. Thank you though,” Dolcefino responded.
“That’s the problem, we can’t get a confirmation that they haven’t destroyed records. They won’t confirm whether they’ve already destroyed records,” Attorney Jeff Diamant said.
“County Attorney Christian Menefee has chosen a path of secrecy. The guy doesn’t have the guts to sit down for an interview with us,” Wayne Dolcefino told the camera.
“We want transparency in Harris County, we are going to shine the light on this,” Mattress Mack said.
We are on a mission to root out waste Harris County programs that have wasted millions of dollars. And Mack has joined the fight.
Four years ago, we teamed up to start exposing soft-on-crime judges — a series of reports called Blood on Their Hands.
Two years ago, we teamed up to help expose Harris County’s botched 2022 elections.
We filed a lawsuit when the election administrator fought us. We testified in Austin to help change election laws. And we did.
Now, Mack wants to help find the money to pay county law enforcement what they deserve to be paid.
“That’s right, that’s why I’ve asked Dolcefino Consulting to help expose some of this waste, and if we find $100 million worth of waste, that could fund the Harris County deputies,” Mattress Mack said.
But Mack’s number one fight is the battle against crime. He wants his legacy to be a simple one: a guy who fought to make his town the safest in the country.
“On my phone, every couple of hours there’s another blip across the phone about somebody else being shot in Houston. We’ve got to make Harris County a safe place for people to live, work, play, and raise a family. That’s what the purpose of government is. That’s what I want to do with the rest of my life, from a civic standpoint, to make Houston and Harris County a safe place, where you’re not afraid to walk your child down the street at 8 or 9 o’clock at night,” Mattress Mack said.
Keep up with us on social media:
