Full disclosure: Houston leaders' financial statements get a full airing

Wed Oct 1 10:43:51 2008 CST

By Jennifer Peebles

Hey, Mayor, aren’t you glad you sold that WaMu stock when you did?

Houston Mayor Bill White took a bath last year when he sold his stock in Washington Mutual bank, selling more than 1,000 shares at a net loss of more than $5,000.

Had he held on to the stock, he could have lost even more. WaMu’s collapse last week has been dubbed the biggest bank failure in U.S. history, with the company being taken over by J.P. Morgan Chase.

Despite the hit he took on WaMu, White won’t likely be hurting for cash any time soon, according to his 2008 personal financial disclosure form.

The mayor and other elected city officials are legally required to fill out the disclosure forms each year.

White, the city’s 14 councilmembers and various other city officials are required to spell out the details of how they, their spouses and their dependent children make their livings, detailing the work they do, interest they receive, stocks they own, bonds, trusts, blind trusts, loans –- you name it, there’s a place for it on the form.

But most Houstonians probably have never seen these forms. While they are public record under state law, kept in the city secretary’s office, the law doesn’t require that the city post them on the Internet – and the city doesn’t post them. Texas Watchdog is remedying that by posting all the forms on its Web site, TexasWatchdog.org, in PDF format.

(Keep in mind, these financial disclosure forms are separate from city leaders’ ethics forms, which would list any potential conflicts of interest they have. Those forms, which Texas Watchdog wrote about earlier this month, are supposed to be posted on the city’s Internet site -– but, as of today, Sept. 30, only one councilmember’s form appears there.)

The personal financial disclosure forms from the mayor and council were signed several months ago and cover the 2007 calendar year.

The mayor’s WaMu stock sale is just one item mentioned on his report (see part 1 of his report here and see part 2 here). The forms don’t say exactly how many shares or how much the mayor lost – they only require such disclosure within ranges. It only says White sold between 1,000 and 4,999 shares of stock in Washington Mutual Inc. for a net loss of between $5,000 and $9,999.

But he may have made some of it back. His disclosure form also lists the sale of several stock call options, among them, a call for less than 100 shares of WM stock, sold for a net gain of less than $5,000.

The mayor has – or had, given that the forms are for last year – stock holdings in numerous major American and international corporations, including Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, Cisco Systems, e-Bay, pharmaceutical giants Eli Lilly and Pfizer, package-bringers FedEx and UPS, good-things-to-life-bringers General Electric, computer chip maker Intel, Band-Aid makers Johnson & Johnson, and Microsoft. It’s a substantial, and diversified, portfolio –- not too surprising for a successful businessman and lawyer who was once deputy energy secretary.

Some other tidbits:

+ Of the mayor and the City Council, only White and District F Councilman M.J. Khan reported receiving gifts worth more than $250 in their official duties.

White received one ticket to the 2007 home opener for the Houston Texans from team owner Bob McNair, and Khan got 11 tickets to the Houston Comets’ game against Seattle from the city’s Convention and Entertainment Facilities Department. The councilman said that he didn’t ask for the tickets, and wound up not being able to attend. (See part 1 of Khan's report here and part 2 here.)

White also reported getting free attendance at an anniversary weekend for the Susman Godfrey law firm, where he worked for many years, and two nights’ stay at a ranch from Houston multimillionaire John Poindexter. (White’s form also includes a note that says that, as mayor, he receives many gifts that the city keeps.)

+ City Controller Annise Parker reported owning less than 100 shares in CenterPoint Energy, the people who either turned or did not turn your power back on sometime in the past two weeks. (See her report here.) Neither the mayor nor any of the 14 councilmembers reported owning any CenterPoint stock.

+ Looking at some of the politicos’ stock holdings will make you cringe, given the recent news from Wall Street. At-Large Councilman Peter Brown reported owning 10,000 or more shares in Merrill Lynch, which is being taken over by Bank of America. Ouch! (Hope he sold it as soon as he could.) And White reported holding various stocks listed in the care of Goldman Sachs, which is being propped up by $5 billion of Warren Buffett’s money.

+ Of the mayor and council, only Khan reported any kind of travel paid for by an outside source. He listed three trips: $4,071.37 in expenses paid by the British consul general’s office in Houston; $1,700 paid by the Houston International Protocol Alliance; and $3,922 paid by the U.S. State Department for a visit to Washington, during which Khan was singled out for praise by Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice.

The forms don’t require officials to say where they went or why, so we gave the councilman a call to find out more.

His visit to Britain was as part of a group invited by the British government in the wake of the 2005 London terrorist attacks. The British government was particularly concerned about “potentially homegrown” terrorism, Khan said, and wanted to find out more about the experiences of Muslims who had immigrated in the past 30 to 50 years. (Khan is a native of Pakistan and has worked with the Islamic Society of Greater Houston.)

The expense from the Protocol Alliance, which is part of the city’s Convention and Visitors Bureau, was when he was a member of Houston’s delegation to its sister city in Norway, Stavanger. (They went in the summertime, Khan said, and there was 22 hours of daylight a day.) And the State Department took him to Washington to be honored as an “Outstanding American by Choice,” a program that recognizes naturalized U.S. citizens of great achievement.

+ It’s no surprise that several elected officials in city government in Houston, Texas, would have investments in the petroleum world. Brown reported having 10,000 or more shares in TransOcean, the self-described “world’s largest offshore drilling contractor,” and more than 5,000 in Enbridge Energy, along with receiving more than $10,000 in income from “mineral interests” through a family trust. District G Councilwoman Pam Holm reported having less than 100 shares in El Paso Corp. And the mayor, being no slouch in the stock market, reported having 10,000 or more shares in Conoco Phillips last year, and having sold more than 10,000 shares of Exxon Mobil in 2007 for a net gain of $25,000 or more. He also reported making $25,000 or more by selling stock in Precision Drilling.

Hope that makes up for the WaMu thing.

UPDATE, added 10:34 a.m. Monday, Oct. 6: Khan called us back to say his trip financed by the State Department wasn't to DC -- it was to Qatar. Read more in this follow-up post.

Here's a complete listing of the reports filed by the mayor, councilmembers and the controller.

Mayor Bill White: Personal financial disclosure form part 1 and part 2

Toni Lawrence, District A: Personal financial disclosure form part 1 and part 2

Jarvis Johnson, District B

Anne Clutterbuck, District C

Wanda Adams, District D

Mike Sullivan, District E

M.J. Khan, District F: Personal financial disclosure form part 1 and part 2

Pam Holm, District G

Adrian Garcia, District H and Mayor Pro Tem (also a candidate for Harris County sheriff)

James Rodriguez, District I

Peter Brown, At-Large Position 1

Sue Lovell, At-Large Position 2 and Vice Mayor Pro-Tem

Melissa Noriega, At-Large Position 3

Ronald Green, At-Large Position 4

Jolanda Jones, At-Large Position 5

City Controller Annise Parker

Photo of WaMu sign at top left by Flickr user TheTruthAbout .... Photo of Houston City Hall by flickr user eschipul, used via the Creative Commons license. Photos of city officials via the city Web site.