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Patel indicted on 8 total counts By Ken Fountain KFOUNTAIN@FORTBENDSTAR.COM
Taral Patel, the Democratic candidate for Fort Bend County Precinct 3 Commissioner, was indicted September 3 by a Fort Bend County grand jury on four felony counts of online impersonation and four misdemeanor counts of online misrepresentation of identity related to his race for the commissioner’s court seat. The indictments cap a nearly year-long investigation by the Public Integrity Office of the Fort Bend District Attorney’s Office and the Texas Rangers of Patel, a former chief of staff to County Judge KP George and Biden White House employee who scored a slim majority in a five-person Democratic primary in March. Patel is set to be arraigned on the misdemeanor counts on Friday and on the felony charges on September 23. Patel, who is an IndianAmerican and a Hindu, was arrested and charged in June with felony and misdemeanor counts of online impersonation and misrepresentation relating to allegedly creating another false Facebook account, under the name “Antonio Scalywag” and using a photo of another county resident, Patrick Ernst, in order to post false, racist messages about himself and others related to the campaign. Before last week’s indictments, news had dribbled out about subsequent search warrants seeking online, phone, and computer records in the investigation, including allegations that Patel had created a false Facebook account under the name of of 240th District Court Judge Surrendran Pattel and used it to create a false one-on-chat with the judge to show that the judge “had hostility toward Taral Patel and Fort Bend County Judge KP George.” “Patel” and “Pattel” are variations of a common surname among South Asians and people of South Asian descent. The two men are not related. In the felony indictments handed down last week, Patel is accused of creating false online personas using the names or likenesses of five people: Emst (under the name “Antonio Scalywag”); Pattell; Paul Rosenstein, a former county employee; Patrick
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Fort Bend / Southwest • Volume 49 • No. 37 • $1.00
CenterPoint to host open house in Missouri City on Sept. 14 Staff Reports Following the turmoil thousands of Fort Bend County residents felt when they didn’t have electrical power for several days in the wake of Hurricane Beryl in July, CenterPoint Energy a is hosting a Community Open House on Saturday, September 14, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. The event will be held at the Landmark Community Center, 100 Louisiana Street in Missouri City. The event is one of 19 open
house events the company, which is the primary electricity utility for the region, is holding across the greater Houston area through the end of September. “The company’s open house events, which are being held in every county across Greater Houston, are designed to elicit customer feedback concerning the company’s response to Hurricane Beryl, as well as to provide a forum to communicate the specific actions CenterPoint is taking to improve future storm response
as part of its Greater Houston Resiliency Initiative,” the company said in a news release. CenterPoint has experienced much criticism from the general public and lawmakers and other officials for its response to power outages after Beryl, which slammed into the Texas Gulf Coast near Matagorda in the early morning hours of July 8 and aimed directly at the Houston area. Although it was a Category 1 storm, the least severe in the classification system, its winds caused
tremendous devastation, includes the downing of many transmission lines. Full restoration of power did not occur for about a week. Fort Bend County was one of most severely impacted counties in the region. “We have heard the calls for change, and we are taking action now,” CenterPoint President and CEO Jason Wells said in the release. “As part of our commitment to improving, we are encouraging all of our customers to share their experiences dur-
ing Hurricane Beryl, as well as their ideas for how we can do better.” Attendees of the open house will have opportunities to demonstrate CenterPoint’s new Outage Tracker and sign up for the Power Alert Service to stay better informed about outages before, during and after a storm. Along with CenterPoint representatives, local organizations will be on hand to help customers to prepare for storms and create personalized emergency plans.
FBISD board discusses removing schools as polling sites By Ken Fountain KFOUNTAIN@FORTBENDSTAR.COM
During an agenda review workshop meeting on Monday, three members of the Fort Bend ISD board argued that the district should not make its campuses available as polling elections in the upcoming election, despite a state law requiring the district to do so. Position 7 trustee and board president David Hamilton, Position 5 trustee Sonya Jones, and Position 2 trustee Adam Schoof raised concerns over safety issues and an ongoing Texas Education Agency investigation of allegations of electioneering of the district during last November’s successful Voter-Approved Tax Rate Election as reasons for making campuses unavailable. Like school districts across the state and nation, Fort Bend ISD campuses have traditionally been used as polling locations for both early voting and on election days. Early voting in this year’s elections at the federal and state levels, including the highly contested presidential election, begins on October 21 with Election Day on November 5. In June, the TEA notified Fort Bend ISD that it is investigating two separate complaints, one of which involves allegations that members of the administration of former Superintendent Christie Whitbeck “unlawfully incentivized students and
Members of the Fort Bend ISD board on Monday weighed the possibility of removing the district’s campuses as polling locations. Screen capture of FBISD board meeting.
staff to vote in last year’s 2023 VATRE election and engaged in electioneering.” In December, Whitbeck abruptly announced she was leaving the district in what was publicly framed as a voluntary retirement agreement. She was succeded in January by Superintendent Marc Smith. The second complaint involves allegations by former trustee Kristen Davison Malone that other members of the board violated the Open Meetings Act to oust Whitbeck and hire Smith to replace her. Both investigations are ongoing. Jones said she and Hamilton, who participated in the meeting virtually, wand more information the the “options” the district had with regard to making its buildings available as polling locations. Hamilton said it was unclear how the dis-
trict’s campus safety plans could be impacted by having people enter campuses to vote. Coby Wilbanks, the district’s general counsel, told the board members that under a provision of the Texas Election Code, public facilities are required to make locations available as polling locations at the request of the entity administering elections - in this case, Fort Bend County. Wilbanks said the district works with the county during election cycles to ensure that the process operates smoothly. “At the end of the day, there is a requirement that facilities be made available,” he said. Wilbanks said district personnel inspect every facility chosen as a polling site to identify and mitigate against safety risks, a point that was echoed by
Fort Bend ISD Police Chief David Rider. Rider added that the district works with other law enforcement agencies to enhance security at polling locations. Jones raised the TEA electioneering investigation, saying that her primary concern was that those incidents allegedly involved district personnel. “I don’t think it’s appropriate at this time” to offer voting at the sites were the incidents allegedly occurred, she said. In what she called a clarification, Position X trustee Angie Hanan noted that the TEA investigation involved alleged behavior by staff which have nothing to do with polling sites. Hanan said that other activities like school plays draw large numbers of people at one time, but there was no discussion of calling off those kinds of events.
“For the 30 years that I have been in this district, those campuses have been used,” she said. Elections may be the few times that people actually visit the district’s campuses, which she said promoted the district to the public. Furthermore, she said, allowing voting on campuses helps the district fulfill its mission of engaging students in the democratic process. Answering a question from Hanan, Rider said that in his 15 years with the district, he could not recall a single major security incident during election times at district campuses. Position 4 Trustee Shirly Rose-Gilliam bluntly asked Rider, “Do we have to be afraid of going to vote and having all of our polls open? Do we have to be afraid?” “I would say no,” the chief responded. “I would say that we work with our partner agencies. We have a very competent emergency management division, that we’d be taking a very close look at every one of our polling locations. Just like we do every day, we’re going to make them as safe as we can possibly make them.” Bringing the discussion to a close, Position 6 trustee and board president Kristin Tassin, who is an attorney, said she could see no way around the fact that the district is required by law to make its facilities available. But she said she would confer with Smith about the safety and electioneering concerns raised and report back to the board.
Greater Houston Partnership looks at 10-year anniversary of ‘Fracking Bust’ Staff Reports
Taral Patel, the Democratic candidate for Fort Bend County Precinct 3 Commissioner, has been indicted on four felony counts of online impersonation and four misdemeanor counts of online misrepresentation of identity.
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Editor’s Note: In its “Economy at a Glance” report for September, the Greater Houston Partnership - the regional chamber of commerce - discusses the 10th anniversary of the “Fracking Bust,” an event that permanently changed the structure of the greater Houston region’s economy. The main body of the report is presented here with permission. Find the full report at houston.org.
The oil and gas industry no longer determine Houston’s fate. Other sectors, like aerospace, life sciences, global trade, logistics, and advanced manufacturing now play significant roles. However, traditional energy remains important, and it will for some time. And as the world moves to a low-carbon energy future, Houston has positioned itself to lead the transition. All these shifts have made
Houston less vulnerable to the boom-and-bust cycles of the past and laid the foundation for future growth. The Fracking Boom The region boomed in the first half of the ’10s. From January ’10 to December ’14, Houston created 457,500 jobs, nearly as many as it creates in a typical decade. The metro area was one of the few bright spots in a
nation struggling to recover from the Global Financial Crisis. The U.S. lost nearly 8.7 million jobs during the meltdown. The unemployment rate hit 10.0 percent. Lenders foreclosed on 3.8 million homes. Over 320 banks failed. Houston wasn’t immune. The region lost 110,000 jobs; its unemployment rate peaked at 8.7 percent. Foreclosures weren’t as severe a problem, though. Texas
lending laws limited the scope of home equity loans, which was the root of the crisis elsewhere. Only eight banks failed in the Lone Star State. It took more than four years for the nation to return to pre-recession employment levels. Houston, helped by the fracking boom, recouped all its losses in 25 months, the
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