I've said more than once that the office of the County Attorney has played a significant role in the various scandals emanating from the District Attorney and Sheriff's offices. Now, thanks to the work of Wayne Dolcefino, it seems that County Attorney Mike Stafford may have his own skeletons in the closet. Let's start with this story, which talks about how a one dollar fee that gets added to fines for toll road violations has been spent by the CA's office.
Coconut shrimp anyone? That's part of the menu for the county attorney's office Christmas party.Yes. Your toll fines paid for the catering bills from the east side Italian eatery Pizzinis. One party cost $5,625.
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Next time you get called for jury duty you'll have to pay $5.50 for parking a day. Too bad you don't have control of that toll road fund.
The county attorney's office has used $196,000 so they can all park for free, even though most county employees have to pay their own way.
Sheriff's deputies pay three bucks to park in another lot every day.
"Anytime I can use the fund instead of tax dollars I'm going do it," Stafford said.
More than two million dollars has gone into the public toll road fund. Nearly $100,000 has gone to provide extra pay to selected employees.
"There were people who were unable to get a raise because of the salary cap and they deserved it," Stafford said.
Oh, by the way, the toll road fund could have been used to pay the salaries of the county lawyers who are working with the toll road. Two lawyers were paid $225,000 a year.
"I think that's an idea worth considering," Stafford said.
The next story, however, sounds an awful lot worse.
It's sunrise and Harris County Attorney Mike Stafford is starting his work day, not from home, but from a house on Pine Lake in west Houston. It's the home of woman named Donna Lightfoot."How would you describe your relationship with her?" we asked him.
"Wayne, that's personal and I'm not going to get into that," said Stafford.
We asked because at the time of our surveillance, Lightfoot was a $47,000 a year aide in the county attorney's office.
On surveillance video, we saw them at Los Cucos Mexican restaurant on Memorial. And there's me.
"Do you think it's appropriate for someone sitting there to have a relationship with someone who works under you?" we asked him.
"I don't know," he answered.
"You don't have an opinion?" we asked.
"I don't know," said Stafford. "It would depend on a lot of things you haven't put out there."
"Like?" we asked.
"I don't know," said Stafford.
We know Donna Lightfoot used to be Stafford's neighbor in Indian Springs near Crosby. She lived a couple of doors down. There is no county policy forbidding hiring personal friends, but five weeks after she was hired, she got a 65 percent raise, six raises in two years. Her salary was in line with more senior assistants.
Dolcefino completes his trifecta with a story about how much of Stafford's campaign contributions go towards pricey Friday night dinners, reportedly for his staff. It's clear that it's the story about Stafford's relationship with Donna Lightfoot that's going to have legs, because it's got local Republicans worried.
County Republican Chairman Jared Woodfill said he plans to speak informally with Stafford about the allegations."I've known Mike Stafford for years, and he is a very honest man, a man with a lot of integrity, a good man," Woodfill said.
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Woodfill noted that Stafford and the woman are both single and that she has since moved to another department, the tax-assessor collector's office.
"Maybe they were working together, and there were some type of feelings toward each other, and they decided that if they were going to have a relationship, one of them would have to move on. And I guess she left the department and went and worked somewhere else," Woodfill said.
He said he would not compare the allegations to revelations that forced District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal to resign in February.
"This is nothing like Rosenthal," Woodfill said.
Finally, I should note that the HCDP has called on County Judge Ed Emmett, whose ethics plan has not come up for a vote before Commissioners Court yet, to denounce Stafford. Their statement is beneath the fold. Given all that's gone on in county government in recent months, I think he at least has to address it. What say you, Ed?
Harris County Democrats called on Republican County Judge Ed Emmett to give more than lip service to cleaning up Harris County government. He must publicly denounce County Attorney Mike Stafford in light of revelations of inappropriate activity by Stafford.Posted by Charles Kuffner on October 16, 2008 to Local politics
"If Ed Emmett has any sincerity at all when it comes to cleaning up the ethics mess in Harris County, he would start right now by denouncing the actions of County Attorney Mike Stafford," said Harris County Democratic Party Chair Gerry Birnberg.Emmett's support for ethics reform in Harris County government has always been half-hearted. In the wake of former DA Chuck Rosenthal's terrible scandal regarding racist and pornographic emails, Emmett promised an ethics reform plan within 90 days. When the Houston Chronicle asked him about the plan after 90 days, Emmett said he'd forgotten he'd made the promise. Eventually, he produced a report, 70 days late, from an ethics panel headed by one of his contributors. To this day, none of the proposed reforms has been implemented or brought before the County Court. (http://www.texasrepublicanrapsheet.com/Emmett.html)
Now Ed Emmett faces a new dilemma as he must react to scandals involving the man shielding him from an open records request involving emails from his official office.
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"Ed Emmett must make a choice," added Birnberg. "Will he side with another of his scandal-plagued Republican colleagues who is currently shielding him from having to release emails to the public? Or will he side with the people of Harris County and denounce Mike Stafford? It's hard to see how Stafford could be a part of Emmett's solution when he is, himself, part of the problem."