Houston council throws out police captain’s evaluation

HOUSTON — Houston City Council voted unanimously Wednesday night to reject the mayor’s recent job evaluation of police Capt. Charley McAnally and order a new assessment by Deputy Mayor Jim Johansen.

After several community members voiced support of McAnally during a public hearing and Mayor Virgie Thompson recused herself from future evaluations of McAnally because of his recent allegations of financial mismanagement, six council members agreed to give McAnally another shot at proving his worth to the city.

“I was very pleased by the community’s response and the council’s decision to reject my last evaluation,” McAnally said Thursday. “That evaluation was so obviously slanted because of the ongoing FBI investigation.”

Those speaking favorably about McAnally during the public hearing included HPD dispatcher Wanda Thomas, former mayor Rosemary Burnett, Planning Commissioner Ralph Buzard, community member Lorita Shumway and robbery victim Norman Broderick. McAnally’s attorney, Ken Jacobus, also made a statement to the council, warning them of the possible legal implications of accepting Thompson’s recent assessment of his client.

Thompson reiterated Thursday that she never knew about any investigations into city finances before she evaluated McAnally March 15 and that she didn’t think that evaluation should be replaced by another one.

“Capt. McAnally said I had a conflict of interest when I did his evaluation, but I only learned about the possible FBI investigation when he sent a letter to the council about it two days after his evaluation was submitted,” Thompson said. “I feel the council should not have questioned my evaluation more so than to just ask for clarification.”

McAnally claims Thompson’s negative performance evaluation of him was a direct response to being informed by him in early January that the FBI had launched an investigation of possible financial malfeasance at Houston City Hall and that she had committed a felony by tipping off Treasurer Carolyn Grabowski to “get her books in order.”

McAnally played for the Frontiersman this week a secret recording he’d made of Thompson Jan. 11 when he’d told her about the investigation. On the tape, Thompson can be heard responding calmly to his statements and simply saying, “That’s fine” when he mentioned the FBI could find her guilty of obstructing justice.

“That tape proves she knew about the investigation before she did my evaluation,” McAnally said. “The FBI has a copy of that and several others.”

Grabowski, who said she was asked by Thompson not to be at Wednesday’s special meeting because she was afraid she’d lose her cool, said in an email to the Frontiersman Thursday that she has not embezzled any city funds nor manipulated numbers in any way.

She said the city is required to have an audit since it received $500,000 in legislative grants this past year and it is believed the last of the grant funds will be spent by the end of August by the Public Works Department.

“Once that is done, the city will have an audit that will clearly indicate there has not been any ‘manipulation,’“ she said, adding she has hired a lawyer for her own protection. “Capt. McAnally doesn’t understand the meaning of the word ‘embezzlement.’ Just because he doesn’t understand how the numbers work doesn’t make them wrong.”

Councilman Lance Wilson said Thursday there was consensus on the council that there was a conflict of interest with Thompson and Grabowski because of the pending investigation and that he’s glad to finally see everyone agree on something.

“Ruth (Blanchard) and I didn’t feel this evaluation was called for at this time because he’d already received a good evaluation last December,” Wilson said. “Mayor Thompson called this special meeting to consider his evaluation three hours after McAnally had sent out his email informing council of the pending FBI investigation. There’s no coincidence here.”

Efforts to reach the rest of the council by email and phone by Thursday’s press deadline were unsuccessful.

Contact K.T. McKee at kate.mckee@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.