Questions over contract need answers
Fort Bend County judge has opportunity to reassure voters, clear up controversy before Election Day.
There’s trouble in Fort Bend County. Like many other counties across the country, communities there are contending with racist, xenophobic and otherwise troubling political rhetoric in the lead-up to Election Day. The difference here is the county’s incredible demographic diversity. It’s a county that former Kinder Houston Area Survey director Stephen Klineberg, was so fond of describing demographically as the closest example of “one-fourth, one-fourth, one-fourth, one-fourth” that you could find. Not only are Black, Hispanic, Asian and white residents found in nearly equal measure, roughly a third of residents are foreign born.
That’s one reason the election four years ago of KP George to the county’s highest office was greeted as a new day of inclusion and progress. The Democrat, Indian-born financial planner and former Fort Bend ISD trustee has touted his American success story as apt training to expand opportunity in the fast-growing county.
Not all were so inspired. During the height of COVID, George said he faced so much vitriol, including physical threats, that he finds it necessary to travel with a sheriff ’s deputy, as he did when he met with the editorial board. The hatred and xenophobic attacks have reached a fever pitch as his reelection bid heats up against Republican retired Army Col. and former constable, Trever Nehls, prompting George to speak out publicly about messages he’s received blasting him as a “foreigner,” “carpetbagger,” “scammer” and incorrectly identifying his religion as Muslim. (He’s Christian.)
Against this backdrop, voters have a tough task — as do we — in trying to discern discriminatory attacks from legitimate concerns about governance now that George faces questions in a late-developing county contract controversy.
We’ll take one issue at a time.
The racist rhetoric is coming from a small but vocal group, George insisted. When the New York Times wrote about the county, they framed support for politicians denying the results of the 2020 election as an effect of a shrinking former white majority, gasping for power. While it’s true that the current campaign cycle there has taken the flavor of the latest political movements, there has always been more to the story in Fort Bend County than its on-paper diversity.
It was here that the political gains of Reconstruction met a particularly bloody end in the Jaybird-Woodpecker War of 1889 when building attacks culminated with the county’s wealthy white leaders violently reasserting their control. They then “played the dominant role in Fort Bend County politics for the next seventy years,” according to author Pauline Yelderman.
The county’s more recent narrative of explosive growth, wealth and immigration has proved far louder than the historical stories that speak to still significant divides.
One need only look at its schools, whose disparate disciplinary practices warranted a federal civil rights investigation. Or consider the parent discussions about school district policies and resources that quickly reveal deep geographic, racial and other divides.
In this current election cycle, for example, Democrat Neeta Sane drew attention when she said that she, as an Indian American, had endured discrimination from the Democratic party there. After losing her primary for county commissioner, she endorsed the Republican candidate in a long statement alleging “racial bias” within her own party. She has also endorsed George’s opponent, Nehls.
George has been through multiple campaigns but told us this was the worst in terms of hate and bigoted threats, many now coming from his opponent’s supporters.
George’s election in 2018 seemed to finally reflect the county’s diversity and perhaps a disturbance in any good-oldboy forces still lingering. The county has also elected Democrats, both Black, for district attorney and sheriff. Now, voters there have to sort through competing visions of what Fort Bend County is and could be.
That task has been complicated by recent allegations out of commissioners court.
The evolving scandal involving a political consulting firm, a county contract to help get out the word about the COVID vaccine, may feel familiar to Harris County residents.
There are major differences, though. Here’s what we know: The contract was approved in 2021 in order to help dispel misinformation about the vaccine and ensure that hesitant and atrisk communities had access to information about it. But the quality of that work is now in question.
An audit, made public in October, shows multiple discrepancies and problems with the execution of the contract awarded to Next Wave Strategies. George has been supportive of the audit. “I welcome and I appreciate they’re doing it,” he told us.
On the one hand, things seemed to have worked as they should. The external audit from the firm Whitley Penn found concerning gaps and the county halted payments. Though roughly $102,000 of the $345,000 contract had been paid, the county auditor subsequently sought roughly a fourth of that returned, according to the Chronicle’s Claire Goodman.
“It is surprising to find deficiencies to this extent from a county contractor, and it’s very disappointing,” Ed Sturdivant, county auditor, told the Chronicle. “This is something we’re not used to seeing.”
On the other hand, a lack of clarity has complicated what might otherwise be a straightforward story about a firm that didn’t come through.
George has discussed details only sparingly, including in a live, radio call-in segment on Houston Public Media’s “Houston Matters” on Oct. 27 in which he seems to have misspoken in saying the contract had been “banned.” Afterward, Nehls, George’s opponent, took to Facebook, declaring the ordeal “corruption at its core”, adding “we must hold KP George accountable for this clear violation of public trust.”
In George’s meeting with the editorial board on Nov. 2, the county judge remained guarded but assured us that he had no relationship with Next Wave. He also said he had no involvement in selecting the contract or with the firm.
“I don’t engage in any of that stuff,” he told us.
We’re less assured of that following additional reporting.
Longtime commissioner and Republican Andy Meyers was concerned about the contract early on, not eager to give a partisan group county resources that might build up their Rolodex.
Hiring a partisan group is not out of the question. An outreach campaign has a lot in common with a political one functionally.
But Meyers kept his eye on it. “I stayed in contact with the auditor’s office to make certain that the vendor was basically doing the work for which they were sending us invoices,” Meyers said.
Following up the county auditor and purchasing department, he learned that the firm’s initial bid had been well below the final amount actually awarded.
To be sure, this can happen in the negotiating process and Meyers confirmed that he was not prevented from seeing any of the original bids though he did not request them at the time. But the large increase of more than $200,000 made him frustrated that he hadn’t been given more information up front.
While the county judge was not involved in these steps, his office was, Meyers said, including on the rating committee that ranked the proposals and in the negotiations process.
We sent follow-up questions to George’s communications manager and only received responses to some. We did not receive answers from the purchasing department that could confirm that the judge’s office was involved in the process of ranking and negotiating the Next Wave contract.
George reiterated to us that he has “never worked with” Next Wave. He would not, via his communications director, respond to questions about his office’s involvement in the contract process.
Meyers said there are also two more external audits underway on much larger contracts that he had concerns about. He doesn’t necessarily place the blame at George’s feet. “He’s well meaning, I think, in general,” Meyers said, “He just is a little over his head.” But he did say the contract negotiation details left a bad taste.
A contract with a firm that dropped the ball isn’t a deal breaker. Having a member of his office involved in the contract selection and negotiation is also not terribly concerning. Even having an outside relationship with that firm would not be, as Meyers himself noted, unusual in county government. George’s seeming lack of candor with colleagues, and with us, is notable.
What’s more notable, though, is that no one has publicly put forth a plausible theory on how George would have benefited personally from the contract — a key ingredient in proving public corruption.
For its part, the Fort Bend District Attorney’s Office would not confirm or deny an investigation to us. But a source familiar with an office inquiry who is not authorized to speak about it indicated that nothing in the allegations suggests illegality and that claims of wrongdoing appear to be “politically motivated.”
A follow-up audit is underway and because of that, George said he won’t comment further. We seriously can’t see how confirming details about the process would compromise that inquiry. It might actually assure voters.
George touts his COVID leadership and the high vaccination rate in Fort Bend County, his efforts to expand the capacity of the county’s emergency operations, his robust assistance efforts to help local families, businesses and restaurants during the pandemic, along with a customary tax rate cut, and raising the county’s profile to attract new businesses. He also supported a disparity report to help ensure the county hired more diverse contractors.
Nehls, president of a biotechnology company, is campaigning on property tax burdens, crime and other staple Republican issues. Recently, Nehls appeared on a KPRC candidate spotlight saying crime is “skyrocketing” and that the murder is up 183 percent since George took office. But, according to data reported to the FBI from the Fort Bend County Sheriff ’s Office, the number of reported homicides went from eight to 17 — an increase, but not nearly as alarming sounding. The Department of Public Safety has recorded nine homicides for the county in 2022 as of Friday.
When George took office, he was, a former Chronicle writer noted, “a potent symbol of the new Fort Bend.” Wading through the racist comments of this election season, however, shows that the new Fort Bend still has a ways to go to live up to its potential.
“It’s sad because we are sending a very wrong message to our children,” George told the board. “We need to live in harmony. And also we need to send a clear message to the other parts of the country: You could live in harmony.”
Voters will have to decide who is best to lead the county toward that harmony, toward that potential. The contract is one part of that decision. In this late hour, we call on George to speak out more fully and give voters the answers they need to make an informed choice.