Good morning, Houston. Sure, the national economy may be going to hell in a handbasket, but look on the bright side: Houston's housing market is remaining pretty strong, so at least you homeowners have something of value! According to a new report, the median home value in Houston fell just $500 between the end of the third quarter 2007 and the end of the year, to $119,300 from $119,800 — still a gain of......

So former Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado testified before a grand jury yesterday about the City Hall payroll scandal involving four of her ex-employees who allegedly helped themselves to nearly $200,000 in unauthorized payraises and bonuses — and the panel may hand down indictments in the case as early as tomorrow. Alvarado appeared before the grand jury voluntarily; the four former mayor pro tem employees testified last week under subpoena. What's said in the grand......

City Councilwoman and former Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado used at least four city employees to set up meetings with a personal client who has paid her nearly $75,000 in consulting fees since 2002, despite her earlier assertion that she never asked staffers to do non-city work, the Chronicle reports today. Messages from Alvarado's city e-mail account show Alvarado asked city workers to set up meetings on several occasions with San Antonio buinessman Rudy Rodriguez,......

A new development in the invesigation into City Councilwoman and ex-Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado: Prosecutors have subpoenaed records from Alvarado's outside consulting jobs, which we assume is just another part of the Harris County DA's probe. DA investigators have spent the past couple of days in San Antonio and the Austin area subpoenaing documents from a couple of political consulting firms for which she’s done contract work. Alvarado’s personal financial statement on file at......

KHOU has gotten hold of a compilation of documents from the Office of Inspector General's probe into the City Hall payroll scandal, and it looks like temporarily former Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado may have a little explaining to do. Channel 11 points out the e-mail Alvarado was sent warning her about excessive bonuses her pro tem employees were taking, a detail that came out during the ex-employees' hearing on Tuesday. For the first time,......

After a 16-hour hearing and deliberation process, the city's Civil Service Commission upheld the firings of four former mayor pro tem employees accused of taking nearly $200,000 in unauthorized payraises and bonuses, but it cleared two lower-level employees of conspiring to get the bonuses. During the hearing, the ex-employees said former Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado had either personally OK'd, or given them the authority to OK, bonuses and raises far beyond the norm for......

Rosita Hernandez and Christopher Mays, two former mayor pro tem employees accused of taking part in nearly $200,000 in unauthorized payraises and bonuses, are having their say today at a Civil Service Commission hearing. City employees who are dismissed have the option of the appeals hearings, at which they can give reasons they should be allowed to keep their jobs. We're still waiting for details of today's proceedings, but KHOU reports that Walter Boyd III,......

Wow — we almost thought we were going to go a week without news of another development in the City Hall payroll scandal. Sure, there was the story of Rosita Hernandez's amazing disappearing GED, but that didn't really count as breaking news. Fortunately, there is something as we close out the week: The FBI has asked for the bank records of former Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado, though DA Chuch Rosenthal said she's not the......

Former Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado was subpoenaed today to appear at a civil service hearing for employees fired in the City Hall payroll scandal A series of empowerment seminars will be held in Houston to urge Katrina evacuees to vote in New Orleans municipal elections If Lockheed Martin gets the contract to develop the next space exploration vehicle, it'll base operations for the project in Houston, the company said today The newest athletic craze......

KPRC is reporting that the DA's investigation into the City Hall payroll scandal has widened to include possible criminal wrongdoing by City Councilwoman and former Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado. Harris County DA Chuck Rosenthal told Channel 2 that there are questions about whether Alvarado told employees in the mayor pro tem office to perform "tasks unrelated to city business." Though it isn't clear exactly what the tasks were, KPRC said they would be illegal......

More developments in the soap opera that is the mayor pro tem's office: Two former employees talked to the media Monday, one who was fired earlier this month for taking what officials say were unauthorized payraises and bonuses and another who was let go months ago under odd circumstances. Christopher Mays, who was among the four pro tem employees dismissed in the payroll scandal, told KPRC yesterday that his signature had been forged several times......

Another day, another story from City Hall: This time, another seemingly forged mayor pro tem memo has been found, but this time it bears the initials of former City Councilman and Mayor Pro Tem Gordon Quan. The memo, dated December 2005, authorizes $2,500 for a newsletter, but Quan and his former office manager said the initials on it aren't his. "It wasn't really even close to my initials," Quan said. Quan was mayor pro tem......

Rosita Hernandez, one of the mayor pro tem office employees who lost their jobs last week over a payroll scandal, appealed her dismissal today, maintaining that she did nothing wrong. As Hernandez's attorney, Walter A. Boyd III, said: "Simply getting a bonus or simply getting a raise, the last time I checked, was not a violation of the law. It's only if it's unauthorized." He added, "That's the crux of the issue we have today,......

Investigators with the Harris County's DA's office seized more than 15 boxes of records from the mayor pro tem's office Tuesday, the same day an April 2005 memo came to light in which former Pro Tem Office Manager Rosita Hernandez asked then-Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado to approve $5,500 in bonuses. Hernandez and the three other pro tem employees were fired last week for taking $143,000 in bonuses city officials say were unauthorized. The $5,500,......

The latest twist in the mayor pro tem saga: The discovery of a dented filing cabinet in City Hall that may or may not have been jimmied open to retrieve ... well, we're not sure what. The black, 5-foot cabinet was kept in an unlocked City Hall break room adjacent to the pro tem office, where four workers reportedly helped themselves to a couple hundred thousand dollars in unauthorized payraises and bonuses. The damage to......

As the four employees in the mayor pro tem's office wait for word today on whether they'll lose their jobs (though KHOU says they already know), there are still questions about exactly how they got away with giving themselves about $200,000 in payraises and bonuses. Yesterday, the attorney for office manager Rosita Hernandez said Hernandez didn't steal taxpayers' money and alleged Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado knew about the raises and bonuses — in......

Local TV stations are reoprting that Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado has decided to temporarily step down from her position after the results of an investigation into illegal bonuses and raises her employees took were released today. "I intend to temporarily … step aside from the office of the mayor pro tem pending the outcome of the grand jury investigation," Alvarado said at a press conference this afternoon. Details of the report from the city's......

City Councilwoman and Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado changed her tactic in the city spending scandal today, sending a letter to her District I constituents accepting responsibility for pro tem employees who took illegal bonuses and unauthorized payraises. "I want to be perfectly clear — although certain staff members under my supervision acted improperly without my knowledge, the responsibility is mine," she wrote. "More importantly, it is my responsibility to make sure nothing like this......

City Councilwoman and Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado, who has found herself at the center of a city employee spending scandal, got a little more defensive Monday, hiring high-profile lawyer Rusty Hardin and a PR firm to help her cope. Though Alvarado has maintained that she didn't have anything to do with the employees in the mayor pro tem office taking extravagant payraises and more than $140,000 in unauthorized bonuses, the question remains how all......

More details today from the City Hall scandal of the month: Most of a $66,000 budget increase in the mayor pro tem's office went to employees' paychecks, not office supplies. Rosita Hernandez, the office manager, told a City Council committee last summer that she needed the sixty-six grand for paper, ceremonial envelopes and document storage (which makes Houstonist wonder just how much ceremonial envelopes cost these days — good thing we don't have to use......

City Councilwoman and Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado apologized to her fellow councilmembers today for disruptions the investigation into illegal bonuses in the mayor pro tem's office might have caused. During today's City Council meeting, Alvarado denied again that she knew anything about the four employees who took $130,000 in unauthorized pay bonuses: "I would never do anything to jeopardize the integrity of the position or to compromise the essential services the office provides,"......

One of the city employees involved in the bonus scandal in the mayor pro tem's office gave an interview to KPRC this afternoon, very vaguely pointing the finger at Mayor Pro Tem and City Councilwoman Carol Alvarado. Florence Watkins, who has worked for the city for nearly 12 years, said she knew she was wrong for taking a share of $130,000 in unauthorized pay bonuses, but she thought she had earned the money. Her salary......

Agents from the city Office of the Inspector General raided the office of Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado today, taking equipment and putting employees on administrative leave after the city finance director got reports of payroll irregularities. Details are scarce, but KPRC reported computers were confiscated and the office's door locks were changed. Four employees were placed on leave, but officials didn't comment on Alvarado's status. As mayor pro tem, she handles administrative functions for......