More on Richard Vacar's hasty departure (updated)
We noted last week that eyebrows were raised when Richard Vacar hastily retired as head of the Houston Airport system. Today, the Chron's Bradley Olson has more, and it appears the non-profit agency Vacar created could have been the problem:
The genesis of the Houston Airport System Development Corp. came in 2000, when City Council authorized the city aviation department to assist a company making a bid to manage 13 airports in Mexico. Under the “technical services” agreement, the city would be reimbursed for the time aviation employees spent on international development at a rate of 1.8 times the actual costs, plus expenses.
The idea behind the development corporation was that money eventually would flow into city coffers, and airport employees would add cosmopolitan élan to their résumés by consulting for other airport systems around the world.
But little money has made its way into the city treasury . Houston airport officials said they could not provide details last week on how much time employees have spent on HASDC activities, how much money the city has been reimbursed, or even how many employees have performed work for the corporation.
Vacar said he believed there had been between $60,000 and $70,000 transferred to city airport operations from HASDC and stressed it would be much more in the future.
From Olson's previous story, we learned of the city-approved agency:
Under a 2000 agreement in which City Council authorized the consulting activities, employees in the aviation department are allowed to do work for HAS Development Corp., and the city is reimbursed 1.8 times the cost of the employees’ time, plus expenses. A percentage of revenues generated annually is given to the city, board member Dionel Aviles said, although he declined to say how much.
According to 2006 and 2007 financial forms filed with the Internal Revenue Service, HASDC took in a little more than $1.1 million each year.
“It’s a very good concept,” Aviles said. “It will benefit the city of Houston in the long run.… Eventually, as these contracts take shape in other airports, they will accumulate a lot of money that will go back to the city of Houston.”
So ... we have a non-profit, quasi-governmental agency that's been flying under the radar, promising big financial rewards for the city sometime in the (distant) future. It's interesting to note that in nine years of existence, this appears to be the first time the agency is receiving any scrutiny.
KEVIN WHITED ADDS: The Chronicle's lazy plagiarist of a metro columnist (Rick Casey) writes that he and Olson both tried to get Mayor White to tell them why he effectively fired Vacar, but that White wouldn't. Unbelievably, Casey leaves it at that, basically whining that White wouldn't write his column for him and that may lead to rumors. John Kass or Mike Royko this is not.
In fact, one wonders how much longer the salary of this Jeff Cohen pet can be justified, in light of all the layoffs of real journalists who actually contribute something to the newspaper. The fact that a column on this explosive comment generated only ten (!) comments says a great deal.
Also, Rich Connelly emails that he posted about the Houston Airport System's international dealings back in March, and that the organization was not forthcoming about its finances back then.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 05/24/09 01:39 PM | Print |
Previous Entry | Home | Next Entry
ADVERTISING
DISCLAIMER
All content © 2004-09, blogHOUSTON and the respective authors.
blogHOUSTON.net is powered by Nucleus.
Site design and Nucleus customization are by Kevin Whited.