THE HOUSTON CONTROLLER’S SPONSORSHIP CONTROVERSY

THE HOUSTON CONTROLLER’S SPONSORSHIP CONTROVERSY

Por: Bill King

Last week, Mayor Whitmire held a press conference to call out City Controller Chris Hollins for soliciting sponsors for the City’s annual “investor confer- ence.” Whitmire said the solicitation from firms that either do business with the City or seek to do business with the City was a conflict-of- interest and smacked of “pay-to-play.”

Hollins sluffed off the accusation, claiming that he wasn’t doing anything different from previous controllers, does not ap- prove contracts, and that his solicitation of sponsors was no different than Whitmire soliciting sponsors for other events. Hollins also said the sponsorship funds were going to a non-profit over which he had no control over how the funds would be spent. The facts about what was going on here are still a little fuzzy. Here is what we know.
The City has sponsored an annual Investor Conference for the public finance industry for several years.

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