No evidence of METRO wrongdoing

No support for allegations

Steve Hawley, Mar 12, 10.

UPDATE (03/25/10), 11:26 am

District Judge Al Bennett has ruled in METRO’s favor and denied the plaintiff’s request to gain access to the transit agency’s computer system, according to Guidry News.

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An attorney who has accused METRO of destroying documents has admitted he has no evidence to support those claims, and a district judge ruled that METRO has been complying with open records laws, according to Guidry News.

The allegation was first raised two weeks ago by former City Controller Lloyd Kelley, who told the Houston Chronicle that METRO had “sanitized” its records and that he could provide witnesses and evidence. Kelley was seeking travel documents, emails, and other records from several top METRO officials, including president & CEO Frank Wilson and outgoing chairman David Wolff, as well as an executive for one of METRO’s contractors. Kelley and his attorney did not disclose the reason for the request.

Wilson said that one of the transit agency’s attorneys had shredded some documents without his knowledge, but that he did not know the contents of the documents or whether they were pertinent to Kelley’s request. The attorney was fired by METRO later that week.

But Guidry News reports:

[N]o evidence provided to date indicates that documents have been improperly withheld from Mr. Kelley’s Open Records requests. In addition, when asked today by Judge [Al] Bennett, Mr. Kelley’s attorney said he did not have a witness who could testify specifically that documents relevant to Mr. Kelley’s requests had been destroyed.

Before and after today’s hearing, the plaintiff still has provided no sworn evidence based on personal knowledge to support the allegations against METRO.

Instead, the Chronicle’s Houston Politics blog reports:

[Kelley’s attorney] told state District Judge Al Bennett that Metro couldn’t be trusted to comply with the court’s order not to destroy any documents. West also said he could produce witnesses who would testify that Metro officials—particularly its chief executive, Frank Wilson—had strong motives to hide or shred documents Kelley wanted to see.

The attorney then alleged that Wilson had an inappropriate relationship with his female chief of staff, although he said he did not know the nature of the relationship. Again, Guidry News reports, “No facts to support these allegations have been brought forward by Kelley or have surfaced in the ongoing investigations.”

The Chronicle says that Kelley and his attorney asked the judge “to order Metro to essentially turn the entire contents of its computer system over to an independent expert who would then allow Bennett to privately determine which documents were responsive to Kelley’s January request.” Judge Bennett denied the request, stating that METRO was “keeping with the court’s desire” to preserve all documents, according to Guidry News.

METRO’s policy is to retain all important documents permanently, and it also has an off-site document storage facility in Phoenix. METRO’s own internal investigation has revealed no wrongdoing so far, and the Harris County District Attorney’s office is also investigating.

Charles Kuffner at Off the Kuff says:

So Kelley has no witnesses to testify that any documents or emails he’s requested have actually been destroyed as he’s loudly been alleging for weeks now, and the best he can do is produce someone to testify that Wilson had motive to destroy documents – the documents he can’t find anyone to say were destroyed – because these documents might have to do with an inappropriate relationship, the nature of which he’s not sure about. It sounds a lot less sensational when you put it that way, doesn’t it?

This doesn’t mean that documents weren’t shredded, or that Wilson didn’t have an inappropriate relationship with [his chief of staff]. All the things Kelley is alleging may be true. But he’s not acting like a man who has evidence of the charges he’s made, he’s acting like a man who’s hoping to find evidence of them. Those are two different stories.