Call her the Queen of Ethics. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo is now demanding ethics reform after a recent audit found possible conflicts with several flood control district projects. In a news release following the audit, Hidalgo said, “We need transparency and guardrails, so we can get Harris County government in line with basic ethics standards.”
That seems a bit rich coming from someone who was forced to withdraw a COVID vaccine health outreach contract that was steered to a political operative over far more qualified healthcare organizations. That bid-rigging scheme led to the indictments of three of Hidalgo’s staffers. More recently, Hidalgo had a massive meltdown at Commissioners Court, where she brought in a group of young children to try to shame other commissioners to support her budget plan. When that didn’t work, she violated the rules of the meeting by going on an extended rant before storming out.
Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey says Hidalgo’s latest ethics claims are a non-issue. He tells KTRH that the problems found in the audit were mostly “minor paperwork errors” which the flood control district has already pledged to fix. Ramsey also notes that the county only contracts with state-registered engineers on flood projects. “Anybody that is a registered professional engineer is held to the highest ethical standards, and they are required to do an ethics review each year,” he says. “I doubt that Judge Hidalgo has ever even taken an ethics course or understands what that means.”
Ramsey is confident that all of the county’s flood control projects are on the up-and-up. “This is something that I think (Hidalgo) is pushing to be a distraction to her own problems,” he says. “We have put out $3.5 billion worth of construction contracts to address flooding in the county.”
“This is all a sad distraction because she didn’t get three people to agree with her on a recent budget issue…she is creating this for no good reason.”
The next Commissioners Court meeting is Oct. 16.