It was a serious charge, even though it was never substantiated: AshBritt, a debris removal company with a checkered past, claimed that Joe Jaworski, the former mayor pro tem of Galveston, used Hurricane Ike to help a client at his law practice.

In a letter sent to Jaworski and obtained by Texas Watchdog, the corporate counsel for AshBritt claimed that Jaworski pressured city officials to "deactivate" the company' s contract the day after the hurricane made landfall.

To AshBritt, Jaworski's motives weren't particularly complex: Jaworski is the corporate counsel for DRC, a rival firm, and he wanted to ensure that his client would "operate as the sole debris removal operator in Galveston." Jaworski had also received a $2,000 campaign contribution in October from a DRC executive, according to Texas Ethics Commission data.

Texas Watchdog recently caught up with the Jaworski, fresh off his losing campaign against state Sen. Mike Jackson. Jaworski is now stumping for Chris Bell, the Democrat who is facing Republican Joan Huffman in the state Senate District 17 runoff today. 

Jaworski said that he never had any conversations about AshBritt with anyone. And he said he's never even heard of them.

Jaworski says that while he did introduce DRC staff to city officials after Hurricane Ike slammed into Galveston, that's part of his job as their corporate counsel. But that was the extent of his efforts. He wonders whether, as city officials were determining which part of the city needed the most help, someone at AshBritt took the delay as a sign that the firm was being pushed aside.

"Total speculation," he says. "But somebody got it in their mind that I was some powerful guy who was able to determine who got what, and I had some sway over who got what."

The odd thing about AshBritt's letter is that it appears the company never lost its contract. Both AshBritt and DRC assisted with the clean-up efforts, Galveston city officials said.

We tried repeatedly to contact AshBritt to see whether they could explain their accusations in more depth, but they didn't return our messages.


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