Chronicle reporter Dan Feldstein checks in from Cleveland, where former Brown Administration officials have been testifying in court:
A chief of staff for former Houston Mayor Lee Brown testified this week that he advised contractors to select minority subcontractors based on their support of the mayor.
As they prepared bids for city work, prime contractors would sometimes call and ask which firms in the city’s affirmative action program were “preferred,” said Oliver Spellman, testifying against Cleveland entrepreneur Nate Gray.
“Certain minority firms are more supportive of the mayor than others,” Spellman explained to the jury.
The testimony came during the federal court trial of Gray and two other men snared in a Cleveland-based bribery investigation that has reached to Houston and other cities.
Brown has not been accused of wrongdoing. He has said that he was unaware of improper efforts to influence contracts listed in charges against Spellman and another former Brown official, building services director Monique McGilbra.
The bad thing is, given how former Mayor Brown was generally oblivious to the city falling down around us on his watch, it’s almost believable and certainly plausible that he didn’t know the degree of corruption on his staff.
