Payday for a politician
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Sylvester Turner’s companies have made millions of dollars off Houston taxpayers while he has been in office, and it’s time to start showing Houstonians how.
Last week at the Mayor’s debate, Turner got all defensive about his Linebarger connections. The Channel 13 moderators didn’t challenge him, so let Dolcefino Consulting.
Linebarger Goggan is the controversial tax collection firm that sues Houstonians for property taxes, toll road fees and traffic tickets. It is famous for putting politicians on the payroll to satisfy Affirmative Action pledges.
Sylvester Turner is one of those politicians whose firm gets a piece of the pie.
City of Houston Affirmative Action records show Linebarger has paid Sylvester Turner’s law firm, Barnes and Turner $850,000 on just two city contracts.
That is your money. And it is money that Sylvester Turner could have rejected so disadvantaged firms in the minority community could get work. Of course, if you ever looked at the who’s who on a Linebarger contract you can see a lot of familiar names.
Linebarger Goggan got an $8 million contract from HISD claiming they would share up to 25% of the deal with women and minority owned firms. For years, a managing partner of the firm signed government documents saying Barnes and Turner was one of the firms they used. In 2014, the company affirmed the monthly take for Barnes and Turner was $10,000.
A Houston Chronicle article profiled Turner’s lucrative Linebarger deals. In 2014 Sylvester Turner suddenly claimed those years of records were wrong. Linebarger chalked years of false reporting to a mistake. HISD just said OK in true watchdog fashion. So let’s get this straight.
For years, Linebarger falsified records to HISD, allowing them to play with the affirmative action numbers and what they said they were doing for disadvantaged firms? Who did they share their big contract with? You would think Sylvester Turner would want to know for his constituents.
It’s been more than a year.
HISD records released last week show Linebarger may now be keeping the whole deal for themselves, and no longer sharing a single penny with a minority company. But who knows if these records are any better than the other ones.
Why is Sylvester Turner silent?
We just gave you 850,000 reasons why!
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