The Fort Worth City Council agreed to pay $9.6 million to settle three connected whistleblower lawsuits, including one from the city’s former police chief, Joel Fitzgerald. All three suits were filed by former city employees who claimed they were fired after reporting significant cybersecurity issues that left the city vulnerable to hacks. The council approved the settlements in a vote during their Aug. 13 evening meeting. Former assistant IT director Ronald Burke will receive $2 million, former IT employee William Birchett will receive $2.4 million, and former police chief Joel Fitzgerald will get $5.2 million from the city. The settlements…
Author: Hasnain Abid Khanzada
Oak Cliff residents were put on alert after an oil spill in the historic Lake Cliff neighborhood. Last week, the city discovered someone had spilled oil into the lake. For a few days, fishing was prohibited. The park is in City Councilman Chad West’s district. He told NBC 5 that immediately, the Department of Environmental Quality & Sustainability got to work. An investigation led them to the source. “It was a small business in the neighborhood that spilled 70 to 80 gallons of used oil into the storm sewer,” said Councilman West. “The storm sewer of course because of gravity…
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans pushed back the start of training camp practices this week so his team could work in the furnace of the noon heat in Houston. “Nothing to complain about,” Ryans said. “We just got to go to work. For me, it’s about adversity. When it hits you, how do you respond? Some guys responded well today, and some didn’t.” Ryans and the Texans coaching staff will use the practice tape and the stifling conditions as a teaching tool. “It’s more of a mental thing,” he said. “And that’s what playing in the NFL…
BELLAIRE, Texas — Members of the Bellaire City Council continued to debate on Aug. 12 whether they would ask residents to approve a higher tax rate for the 2024-25 fiscal year or try to balance the budget with a rate that would not require resident voter approval. The deadline to place a tax rate election on November ballots is Aug. 19, and the Council has scheduled another workshop for Aug. 14 to continue the discussion. Current situation City leaders have been considering calling for a tax rate election to help fund a collection of supplemental budget items that could not be…
HARRIS COUNTY, Texas (KTRK) — Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg and the Texas Rangers announced criminal charges on Tuesday that they say were related to the November 2022 election. A clerk who worked in the elections administrator’s office is accused of falsifying timecards. Investigators say he worked a second full-time job for 15 months while he worked for the county. The district attorney’s office shared that the election official will be charged with theft and five counts of tampering with government documents. According to news partners at the Houston Chronicle, this is the result of a Texas Rangers investigation into…
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — It wasn’t that long ago that catalytic converter thefts were a major issue in Houston. ABC13 covered them frequently. According to data presented by the Houston Police Department at city hall Tuesday morning, that would have been in the first part of 2022. HPD Cmdr. Dana Hitzman presented the information during a meeting for the City of Houston’s Public Safety Committee. The statistics provided were part of a line graph that didn’t include specific numbers, which ABC13 requested through an open records request. The graph showed that in March 2022, the City of Houston had more than 1,200 incidents…
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — A Houston neighborhood frustrated that its piles of debris from Hurricane Beryl have still not been picked up and called Action 13 to find some answers. Lakeside Terrace is a singular stretch of road along the edge of Lake Houston, just east of the Summerwood subdivision. David and Linda Rose, who have lived in their Lakeside Terrace home for 18 years, were perplexed by the piles of debris that remained in their neighborhood, even after nearby streets were already cleaned. “I don’t want to see this all up and down the street,” Linda Rose said. “I just…
ST. PETERSBURG, Florida (KTRK) — Yordan Alvarez may have to pay for breaking someone else’s property. The Houston Astros’ leading home-run hitter took some batting practice ahead of the club’s game in Tampa Bay against the Rays and crushed a ball into right field, surpassing the 370-foot distance on the field. Standard fare, right? However, No. 44 left no survivors with his boom shot. Tropicana Field’s right-field video board became glitchy, according to, let’s call them, witnesses. A social media user, StadiumStephy, posted a photo of the damage on X, formerly known as Twitter. The malfunction is hard to explain, but…
LEAGUE CITY, Texas (KTRK) — A man who robbed a Dickinson bank set off a 20-mile chase involving multiple agencies, leading to the suspect’s death when officers surrounded him in a southeast Houston dead-end street, authorities said. The Houston, Dickinson, and League City police departments were among the law enforcement agencies involved in the chase, which occurred primarily on the inbound Gulf Freeway during the height of the Tuesday afternoon rush. The Texas Department of Public Safety and the Galveston County Sheriff’s Office also participated. According to Dickinson police, officers responded to a robbery at the PNC Bank in the 3500…
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner’s next step in politics may lead him to Capitol Hill. Democratic leaders chose Turner, a former Texas state lawmaker, as the party’s nominee in November’s 18th Texas Congressional District race, taking the place of longtime seat holder Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, who died last month. Jackson Lee represented District 18 and Houston in the U.S. House of Representatives for nearly three decades. “You can’t replace Sheila Jackson Lee. You can’t. But you can certainly commit yourself to continuing to do the work,” Turner told after the vote. “It’s my goal to bridge us…
