Grabowski dropped from Houston lawsuit

PALMER — A lawsuit against the city of Houston and sitting Mayor Virgie Thompson ran to a third week, even as resources available to try the case were at a premium.

A judge also ruled at the end of last week that the Houston Treasurer Carolyn Grabowski should be removed from the list of defendants in former police Capt. Charley McAnally’s lawsuit alleging wrongful termination on the part of Thompson and the city, as well as seeking damages resulting from his firing in April 2012. Grabowski said she was dropped from the lawsuit because she lacked supervisory authority over McAnally, though state court records still list her as defendant.

That discrepancy isn’t uncommon: the website often lags behind court proceedings by several days while clerks translate proceedings into online filing entries.

Grabowski’s removal leaves Thompson, then-deputy mayor Jim Johansen, Dallas Massie, and the city of Houston as the defendants in the lawsuit, originally filed in 2012, and reportedly near settlement as recently as late last year.

Houston closed its police department shortly after McAnally’s termination.

Testimony in the lawsuit has repeatedly described a police department walking a financial tightrope, and recordings have portrayed a hard-edged back room on the politics surrounding employee evaluations in the city, like a profanity-laced exchange between Thompson and McAnally over a disciplinary action, as well as city managers struggling to combat what they saw as a flood of negative press about city dealings.

Fire chief Tom Hood and Fire Capt. Christian Hartley have testified that a now-infamous encounter near a fireworks stand in Houston was unprofessional. They said McAnally challenged a man to a fight whose brother was being arrested for disorderly conduct.

McAnally’s testified Monday that the department was in the black for every month during his tenure. During cross-examination, defense attorney Danielle Ryman pointed out that expenses exceeded income for each of the last six months of McAnally’s tenure. In the month McAnally was fired, the department had a difference of about $17,000 between revenue and expenses, and differences of about between $6,000 and $9,000 in the four other months.

The monthly differences tell only part of the story, McAnally said.

“Actually that’s mischaracterizing,” he said. “What you’re saying is operating in the red is us spending from the city budget which had been budgeted for us rather than having an income above what we were budgeted.”

Some months, the department operated above their budgeted revenue because of heavy traffic through Houston, McAnally said.

“During the summer months, when everybody’s driving 80, 90 miles an hour through Houston, we’re actually writing more citations than what it costs the city to run the department,” he said.

Attorneys clashed Monday over how to calculate the amount Mr. McAnally says he is owed, at least in part because of a personnel action filed before his termination, known as an F4 form. Reasons were not attached to the F4 evaluation, defense team attorney Sarah Shine told the court.

“With respect to this F4, all that he’s arguing is that they didn’t attach the reasons,” she said. “Arguably, if they had attached the reasons, Mr. McAnally would have even more difficulty obtaining employment.”

Defense attorneys told judge Kari Kristiansen they were surprised to learn that McAnally was attending a disability hearing for another job, and asked whether calculations of lost salary have included years affected by his disability. Because plaintiff attorney Ken Jacobus had not released that information despite multiple opportunities in discovery, Shine requested Kristiansen to sanction him, a request Kristiansen denied.

Ken Jacobus, McAnally’s defense attorney, drew a rebuke from Kristiansen for showing up almost half an hour late to a Monday afternoon trial session. The trial has gone about a week longer than its planned length, meaning full-day proceedings are no longer available, given the volume of criminal cases through the Palmer Courthouse, Kristiansen said.

McAnally also testified Monday that he played no roll in a recall campaign launched against Thompson in 2012, and that he strongly suspected other residents of having played a role. He also testified that as a Willow resident, he was unable to participate in Houston elections, and so couldn’t have voted in favor of Thompson’s recall.

Closing arguments were anticipated Tuesday morning, court officials and attorneys said.

Contact Brian O’Connor at 352-2269 or brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com.