Focal Point

The special counsel for the State Commission on Judicial Conduct this morning filed charges accusing Judge Sharon Keller of violating her duty as a judge during a botched 2007 death penalty appeal.

It’s the next step in Keller’s appeal challenging the commission’s public warning, issued in July. The warning said Keller acted improperly by choosing to close the Court of Criminal Appeals clerk’s office at 5 p.m. despite knowing that defense lawyers wanted to file an appeal in a pending execution.

The charges lay out, point by point, the commission’s version of what happened on Sept. 25, 2007, when lawyers for murderer Michael Richard requested extra time to file an appeal. The points were compiled from sworn testimony by Keller and others.

The charging document was filed with a three-judge special court of review, which now has 30 days — with a 30-day extension available — to schedule a hearing on the charges.

After the hearing, the review court has 60 days to render a decision about whether Keller was properly reprimanded by the commission, an independent agency that investigates allegations of wrongdoing by Texas judges.

Keller blames defense lawyers for drafting Richard’s appeal without haste and for failing to use other available methods to file appeals after 5 p.m.

His name isn’t really Joe Doe, but that’s the handle the Brazoria resident who won $76 million on a Lotto pick last December is going by in Travis County District Court, where he is suing to stay anonymous. There are plenty of reasons why an instant multimillionaire might want to maintain his privacy — all those calls from long-lost relatives might get annoying — but a close reading of this case hints at more intriguing reasons.

First, the background. The ticket was sold Oct. 21, 2009, at an HEB Pantry Foods market in Alvin, about 30 miles south of Houston. The winner claimed his prize two months later.

But there was a problem with the ticket. An attempt to copy it had damaged its face, rendering it difficult to read. The lottery commission launched an investigation to make sure the claim was legitimate, which agency spokesman Bobby Heith said is standard with damaged tickets.

Heith said the investigation was thorough: security camera tapes were reviewed, people were interviewed, records were searched. The final report, issued on May 3, confirmed the ticket was genuine, and the agency declared that the winner could be paid. According to a press release issued at the time, the lucky man decided to accept the cash option, which came to just under $49 million. “The winner requested minimal publicity,” the release stated.

The lottery commission as a matter of course asks its big winners to subject themselves to a certain amount of publicity as a way to promote the games. At a minimum, Heith said state law requires the agency to release basic information of winners — name and hometown.

But, he added, many winners have found a way to maintain their anonymity by forming a trust prior to claiming their prizes. In this case, the winner was named only as the MAED Trust, in care of a Houston bank.

The matter might have died then if not for the fact that the lottery commission received an open records request for the investigative report into MAED’s winning ticket. The investigation clearly identified the winner by name, Heith said. So the commission referred the request to the Attorney General for an opinion.

Two weeks ago, the AG issued its findings: Much of the report, including sections showing the winner’s name, had to be released. Last Friday, however, the winner asked the court for a temporary restraining order to block the release of that information while he appealed the decision. That was granted, so for now it remains sealed.

Yet reading the AG’s opinion carefully provides some tantalizing clues as to why the lottery winner might have sought to cloak his identity.

In his request to keep the records private, the winner identified several exemptions to open records law, including one that protects an individual’s privacy in certain instances. According to Texas legal precedents, that has been defined as “highly intimate or embarrassing facts, the publication of which would be highly objectionable to a reasonable person” and are “not of legitimate concern to the public.” Examples might include allegations of sex abuse or a suicide attempt, said William Christian, the Statesman’s open records attorney.

In this case, the AG’s office agreed that part of the lottery commission’s investigation had turned up details that met this definition, and thus could be withheld from release.

Another argument made by the lottery winner’s attorney was that some of the information contained in the report “relates to a criminal investigation,” according to the AG’s August 10 decision. The state’s lawyers decided those details, however, are not protected, and are subject to public release.

In his request for the emergency restraining order, MAED claimed that releasing the information would result in “a breach of personal privacy and placing the safety of [his] family in jeopardy.”

Stay tuned.

Last spring, following revelations that the head of the Boys & Girls Club of America earned nearly $1 million while the charitable organization’s programs were being cut, I wrote about highly compensated non-profit executives in Texas, asking how much was reasonable pay. The article highlighted a large pay package for the leader of the YMCA of Greater Houston, among others.

Turns out it was a worthy target.

According to a study released earlier this month by Charity Navigator, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit evaluator of non-profits, Clark Baker, the long-time leader of the Houston YMCA, was the highest-paid non-profit administrator of a human services organization in the U.S. last year. His nearly $700,000 in annual compensation is about five times the median pay for the category.

The head of the New York Philharmonic topped the list of highly paid charity bosses, with total compensation last year of $2.65 million.

At the time I wrote about the subject, a spokesman for the Y’s board defended Baker’s pay, pointing out that “the YMCA of Greater Houston is the third-largest YMCA in the country, growing faster than any YMCA over the last 10 years, and has a qualified and experienced CEO to lead our complex and intricate 125-year-old organization.” Baker earned considerably more than the chief executives at YMCAs in New York and Los Angeles.

According to Charity Navigator’s survey, which reviewed the latest financial returns of more than 3,000 non-profits nationwide, the median CEO compensation for an organization the size of the Houston YMCA — with a budget of about $110 million annually — was about $350,000, or a bit more than half of Baker’s $662,000 compensation, according to figures in the Houston YMCA’s 2009 financial returns.

Unreported in both my story and the Charity Navigator report was how much other Houston YMCA execs earned. According to the non-profit’s latest financial report, 14 of the organization’s officers earned over $150,000 in total pay in 2008; seven of those collected more than $200,000. Three (including Baker) earned more than $300,000.

The Innocence Project filed the original complaint that prompted the Texas Forensic Science Commission to investigate whether Texas executed Cameron Todd Willingham in 2004 based on faulty finding of arson.

Today, the Innocence Project sent a letter to the commission arguing for an expanded investigation into the culpability of the State Fire Marshal’s Office in the case. An agency investigator, relying on investigative techniques now known to be based on bad science, testified that Willingham intentionally set the fire that killed his three young daughters in his Corsicana home.

A subcommittee of the Forensic Science Commission announced last month that it has reached a preliminary finding that the fire marshal — and a Corsicana fire investigator who reached the same arson conclusion — did not engage in professional negligence or misconduct. Both investigators were relying on beliefs and practices that were commonly held when they probed the Willingham fire in 1991, commissioners said.

Before reaching a final conclusion, the commission solicited additional information, prompting today’s letter from the Innocence Project.

The subcommittee plans to present its findings to the full commission at a specially called Sept. 17 meeting in Dallas.

Innocence Project co-director Barry Scheck made three points in his 14-page letter:

• The State Fire Marshal’s Office was negligent when it failed to inform the criminal justice system that some of its earlier investigations were unreliable, particularly after the agency adopted National Fire Protection Association Code 921 as the only scientifically acceptable means of analyzing fires.

• The arson investigators who testified at Willingham’s trial were professionally negligent. “While these people may have been but simple fire investigators, i.e. not scientists, they still had a duty to understand if their methods for ascertaining arson were understood by their profession to be unreliable,” the letter said.

• Testimony from the state fire marshal was inappropriate, going beyond a scientific assessment of the fire.

“These allegations of negligence and/or misconduct call into question the reliability and validity of arson investigations and convictions — past, present and future — across Texas,” Scheck wrote.

The letter also was signed by Stephen Saloom, the Innocence Project’s policy director.

Austin lawyer Samuel Bassett, former chair of the Forensic Science Commission, has also urged the panel to provide an in-depth report on the use of flawed arson science in Texas.

Tony Davis, an Austin ex-convict without a law degree, today agreed to a temporary injunction barring him from continuing to sell legal briefs or act as a lawyer.

The injunction, signed today by District Court Judge Rhonda Hurley, also bans Davis’ company — International Legal Services, also known as ILS Services — from providing legal advice or help.

Though temporary, the injunction does not include an expiration date.

Davis is a former accountant convicted of fraud and money laundering as part of an early 1990s scheme to charge companies $25,000 to $400,000 in fees for loans his company, Forum Financial, never delivered.

After serving more than five years in prison, Davis returned to Austin in 2004 and later set up International Legal Services, which sold legal briefs to federal prisoners or their families for fees ranging from $10,050 to more than $25,000, court records show. Legal experts say the fees are more than most law firms would charge for appellate representation in a criminal case.

Advertising in newsletters sent into federal prisons, International Legal Services guaranteed that its copyrighted legal briefs would result in freedom for its clients. However, courts have routinely dismissed the company’s arguments as frivolous and have fined Davis for wasting the court’s time by using the arguments in repeated appeals in his own case.

The American-Statesman first wrote about Davis and his business in 2007.

And in May, we wrote about a temporary restraining order banning Davis from the unauthorized practice of law. Today’s injunction replaces that order.

The injunction was sought by the Texas Supreme Court’s Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee. The local committee is led by Austin lawyer Joanalys Smith, with lawyer Kevin Lashus acting as the committee’s prosecutor.

Round One goes to Jorge De Leon, in a TKO.

De Leon is the amputee whose mixed martial arts bout late last year drew the attention of the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. The agency, which regulates combative sports in Texas, contended De Leon’s presence in the ring represented a danger to himself or others because of the prosthesis he wears on his lower right leg. The artificial leg, TDLR said, violated a rule prohibiting fighters from wearing “metal, straps, buckles, necklaces, jewelry or other objects (including piercings) that may cause injury to either fighter.” De Leon lost his leg in Afghanistan, when a roadside bomb exploded under his Humvee.

The agency fined the promoter that hosted the November fight, Chip Thornsburg, and his organization, the Texas Amateur Mixed Martial Arts Association. Thornsburg protested and in April the case was heard by an administrative law judge.

In his proposal for decision, published last week, Judge Richard Wilfong determined that because the fight was held on a federal military base, Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, the bout was outside the state agency’s jurisdiction. Thus, it had no standing to fine TAMMA and Thornsburg.

“This case [should] be dismissed with no action taken against” Thornsburg, Wilfond wrote.

Unfortunately, while the proposed ruling represents a win for De Leon and Thornsburg, it leaves unanswered the question of whether an amputee with a prosthesis can legally compete in sanctioned fighting events. De Leon had argued that the padding on his metal leg provided adequate protection to his opponent; a ringside doctor agreed. De Leon was soundly thrashed in the bout.

The question may yet be answered, however. TDLR spokeswoman Susan Stanford said the agency was likely to appeal the decision, meaning the case could end up in a legal re-match.

Meanwhile, the state agency suffered a more substantive blow in a separate part of the same ruling. Boxing regulators had charged the Texas Amateur Mixed Martial Arts Association with permitting a fight in May 2009 in which two combatants from different weight classes were allowed to mix it up in a bout. TDLR fined TAMMA, contending it should be held responsible for failing to ensure the safety of the fighters.

In his decision, however, Judge Wilfong said allowing the inappropriate fight was actually the fault of the TDLR-licensed referee, who should have shut down the fight.

UPDATE: Judge Keller has asked the Supreme Court to name a court of review. Under state law, the chief justice has 10 days to randomly select the three judges from among 13 of the state’s 14 appeals courts.

The six justices on the 3rd Court of Appeals are exempt because Keller works in the Austin court’s district.

The Texas Supreme Court this morning denied Judge Sharon Keller’s request to throw out last month’s public rebuke for her role in a botched 2007 death row appeal.

Later today, Keller’s lawyers are expected to file a separate appeal challenging the “public warning” given by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. That appeal will ask Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson to name, by random drawing, three appeals court justices to review whether the warning was justified.

Today is the deadline for requesting the three-judge panel, which apparently would hold its own hearing — with witnesses, cross-examination and exhibits. (I wrote about the confusion regarding this appellate process last month.)

The Supreme Court did not elaborate or give reasons for its 8-0 ruling. Justice Nathan Hecht, who successfully challenged a public rebuke by the commission in 2006, did not participate.

Keller had argued that the Texas Constitution does not permit the commission to issue a public warning. She had asked the Supreme Court to throw out the rebuke and dismiss all charges against her.

The 13-member commission had concluded that Keller failed to properly perform her duties in 2007 when she closed the Court of Criminal Appeals clerk’s office at 5 p.m. despite knowing that defense lawyers wanted to file an appeal in a pending execution. Michael Richard, who raped and murdered Marguerite Dixon of Hockley in 1986, was executed later that night.

Keller disagrees with the commission’s conclusion, saying defense lawyers were to blame for the missed appeal because they failed to diligently work on Richard’s petitions and did not pursue every available avenue to file his appeal after 5 p.m.

The Texas Supreme Court, which announces its decisions every Friday, did not rule this morning on Judge Sharon Keller’s request to have her ethics rebuke thrown out.

The Supreme Court also did not rule on Keller’s request for an emergency stay extending Monday’s deadline to file a more traditional appeal challenging the July 16 “public warning” from the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. (That appeal is really a request asking Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson to appoint a three-judge panel that would determine if Keller’s rebuke was justified.)

In the matter pending before the Supreme Court, Keller claims she was improperly reprimanded by the 13-member commission, which said Keller failed to properly perform her duties in 2007 when she closed the Court of Criminal Appeals clerk’s office at 5 p.m. despite knowing that defense lawyers wanted to file an appeal in a pending execution.

Keller is asking the Supreme Court to throw out the rebuke and dismiss all charges against her because, she argues, the Texas Constitution forbids the commission from issuing such a warning.

The Supreme Court is currently on hiatus and begins its new term Sept. 1. The nine justices can still rule on Keller’s petitions later today or Monday by issuing special orders.

Keller’s petition is here.

The commission’s response is here.

And, just filed yesterday, is Keller’s replyf to the commission’s response.

The former chair of the Texas Forensic Science Commission, Austin lawyer Samuel Bassett, today urged the panel to provide an in-depth report on the use of flawed arson science in Texas.

The seven-member commission is investigating the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, executed by Texas in 2004 for a Corsicana fire that killed his three young daughters.

At the commission’s quarterly meeting in July, the four-member subcommittee investigating the Willingham case issued a tentative finding that Willingham was convicted of murder and arson based on flawed science. But because the arson investigators relied on commonly accepted beliefs about fire behavior, the members said there was no professional negligence or misconduct involved.

Bassett urged the subcommittee to broaden their report, which is expected to be presented to the full commission in September, to analyze the history of flawed arson science in Texas.

Noting that the State Fire Marshal’s Office adopted scientifically based arson investigation techniques in 1993, two years after the Willingham fire, Bassett pushed the commission to determine how diligently the fire marshal disseminated the information to law enforcement, fire departments and prosecutors.

“Did the Fire Marshal’s Office commit professional negligence or misconduct in failing to disseminate the new fire science standards in a timely manner?” Bassett asked in a memo.

Bassett also urged the Willingham subcommittee, which has been meeting in private, to conduct its investigation in public. The case is too significant, and the controversy too hot, for secrecy, he said.

Bassett was the commission’s first chair until last year, when Gov. Rick Perry replaced him with Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley.

Hundreds of creditors from across the country have filed claims asserting that Triton Financial founder Kurt Barton owes them more than $63 million, according to a new report filed by the receiver appointed to manage the company following its closure by state and federal regulators late last year. Regulators have described Barton’s management of Triton as a Ponzi scheme.

And the vast majority of the claims will not be paid back, according to Steven Harr, the Dallas-based court-appointed receiver.

According to the report, 268 people in 33 states have filed 640 separate claims asserting that Triton and Barton owe them money. The vast majority of the claims — 586 — come from people who gave Barton their money to manage or invest. About four dozen of the claims, worth about $2.7 million, are from creditors, people who lent Barton money or provided a service for which they were never paid.

Harr, who has been selling off Barton’s and Triton’s holdings for half a year, said that a judge has yet to determine where the various creditors will stand in line for the money that remains once the Triton businesses and properties are liquidated. But he said that lenders with valid liens on Triton’s various properties will have priority over other creditors.

According to the latest report, dated July 23, the Triton receivership had about $836,000 in cash at the end of June, thanks mostly to the sale of various pieces of real estate. In several cases, Harr has chosen to abandon property whose market worth was less than the money still owed on it.

In one instance, Harr is still running a business once owned by Triton. In fact, the Triton Sports Center, in San Antonio, has undergone substantial renovation in recent months in order to increase its profitability and bring a better sale price, according to the report.

The receivership also still owns a 72.5 percent interest in a Nebraska equipment rental and finance company, as well as some preferred shares in a software company.

The report said that Barton’s personal home has been turned over to his wife. The two are divorcing. A ranch owned by the family has been sold.

UPDATE: The Supreme Court has given the judicial conduct commission until Aug. 6 to file their reply to Judge Keller’s petition.

And the full story, which ran in Friday’s print edititions, is here.

Claiming she was improperly reprimanded for her role in a botched execution-day appeal, Judge Sharon Keller asked the Texas Supreme Court on Thursday to throw out the rebuke and order that all allegations against her be dismissed.

The State Commission on Judicial Conduct issued a “public warning” to Keller on July 16, saying she failed to properly perform her duties when she closed the Court of Criminal Appeals clerk’s office at 5 p.m. despite knowing that defense lawyers wanted to file an appeal in a pending execution in September 2007.

But in a Supreme Court petition filed Thursday, Keller argued that the commission acted in a “lawless” manner because the Texas Constitution forbids it to issue such a warning.

“The order violates the constitution and is void. At the very least, it is a gross abuse of discretion,” wrote Keller lawyer Chip Babcock.

Babcock asked the court to issue a writ of mandamus ordering the commission to expunge the warning from all records and to drop its charges against Keller. “The (commission) should not be given rein to wreak additional mischief,” he wrote.

I wrote about this possibility in Sunday’s paper.

Red McCombs’ investment group is the main backer to Tavo Hellmund’s U.S. Grand Prix project in Southeast Austin. McCombs Partners’ involvement was announced Tuesday morning at the AT&T Conference Center, not far from the McCombs School of Business on the University of Texas campus.

McCombs, a wealthy San Antonio car dealer, previously was an owner of the San Antonio Spurs NBA basketball team and the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings. Hellmund’s group, Full Throttle Productions, is slated to stage an F1 race for 10 years, beginning in 2012. The state of Texas has pledged $25 million annually in support for the event.

“Nothing happens until somebody does something,” McCombs said during the announcement. “And people are what made this happen.”

Oganizers of the proposed Austin Formula One auto race announced that the track will be on about 900 acres near Elroy in southeastern Travis County. For more on that story, click here.

HOUSTON — A majority of the Texas Forensic Science Commission has tentatively concluded that there was no professional negligence or misconduct by arson investigators whose flawed work in a fatal Corsicana fire contributed to the conviction and 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham.

It would be wrong to punish investigators for following commonly held beliefs about fire conditions that are known, in hindsight, to be invalid indicators of arson, said John Bradley, chairman of a four-member panel reviewing Willingham’s case.

“We should hold people accountable based on standards that existed when they were working on these things,” Bradley said during the commission’s quarterly meeting Friday. Bradley is also Williamson County’s district attorney.

All four members of the investigative panel agreed with the preliminary finding, which was reached during two meetings that were closed to the public, said Dr. Sarah Kerrigan, a forensic toxicologist and director of the Sam Houston State University crime lab in Huntsville.

“The panel unanimously felt the science was flawed by today’s standards, but the question for us was, was there professional negligence or misconduct?” Kerrigan said, adding that scientific arson standards — though adopted nationally in 1992, the year Willingham was convicted — had not filtered down to the front-line investigators in Texas.

In the end, commissioners voted to give interested parties three weeks to submit objections to the proposed finding.

In addition, the panel will ask fire experts to submit information on what Texas arson investigators knew — or should have known — when the Willingham fire was investigated in 1991 and he was prosecuted in 1992.

The investigative panel will then spend about three weeks compiling the information and writing a final report about the Willingham fire, which will be presented to the full commission during an as-yet unscheduled special meeting, likely in September.

A full story will be available on statesman.com and in the Austin American-Statesman on Saturday.

I’ve had a few requests for the names of the public officials who filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Texas Open Meetings Act as a violation of their free speech rights.

In the story that ran Friday, 17 elected officials say they should not have to forfeit their First Amendment Rights when taking office.

Defenders of the law, which requires that governmental bodies conduct most public business in meetings that are open to the public, say the officials are merely trying to protect secret speech, not free speech.

The story listed the one local official whose name is on the lawsuit — Victor Gonzales, a member of the Pflugerville City Council. (Pflugerville is also one of four cities on the lawsuit; the others are Alpine, Rockport and Wichita Falls.)

The other 16 are:

Diana Asgeirsson, Angie Bermudez, James Fitzgerald and Johanna Nelson of the Alpine City Council

Jacques DuBose, Boerne City Council.

Jim Ginnings, Wichita Falls City Council.

Russell C. Jones, Sugar Land City Council.

Mel LeBlanc, Arlington City Council.

Lorne Liechty, Heath City Council.

A.J. Mathieu, Joshua City Council.

Cindy O’Bryan, Big Lake mayor

Todd Pearson, Rockport mayor.

Charles Whitecotton, Whiteboro alderman.

Henry Wilson, Hurst City Council.

Two names are recent additions to the lawsuit and are not identified by city: Jeff Browning and Kevin Wilson.

UPDATE: Chip Babcock, Judge Keller’s lawyer, issued the following statement:

“Judge Keller is disappointed and shocked that the commission has completely disregarded the findings of respected trial judge David Berchelmann, who presided over a four-day trial. It is perhaps not surprising that the same commission that made the charges finds them now to be valid despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Judge Keller looks forward to challenging this decision in the judicial system.”

Sharon Keller, the state’s top criminal judge, was reprimanded today for “interfering” with attempts to file a late appeal on behalf of a death row inmate in 2007.

The State Commission on Judicial Conduct declined to recommend that Keller be removed from office, instead issuing a “public warning” over her behavior in the case of convicted killer Michael Richard.

Keller’s lawyer, Chip Babcock, has in the past said she will appeal anything short of an exoneration.

Richard’s legal team with the nonprofit Texas Defender Service had asked the Court of Criminal Appeals to stay open beyond 5 p.m. on the evening Richard was to be executed. Keller, reached at home by court personnel, declined the request, the commission found.

Commissioners ignored advice from District Judge David Berchelmann Jr., who recommended that charges be dropped against Keller.

Appointed by the Texas Supreme Court to act as “special master” in the Keller case, Berchelmann held a four-day hearing in August.

More information as it arrives, and in tomorrow’s newspaper.

Here’s the commission report.

At the British Grand Prix last week, Formula One journalist Adam Cooper snapped this photo of Comptroller Susan Combs, who helped shepherd state support for a Texas F1 race through the Legislature, with Tavo Hellmund, head of Full Throttle Productions, the company tasked with pulling off the event. In May, F1 honcho Bernie Ecclestone announced that Austin had won the opportunity to host the race for ten years starting in 2012.

Combs’s office told us that she was traveling on her own time and expense on the trip last week.

Despite skepticism from some (FIA President Jean Todt termed the Austin race “just a project”), the comptroller appeared confident. “The legislation is already passed, it’s a done deal,” Combs told Cooper.

She added: “It’s going to put Texas on the international and global map, it’s going to put Austin on the international and global map, and it will brand Texas as the home of cars.”

Hellmund also stressed that, despite an extremely tight deadline of siting, designing and building a world-class track somewhere in East Austin in only two years, he was moving ahead apace: “We’re almost done with the design stuff. We’ve changed a few things based on the site, and the biggest thing is trying to finish the proper plan for the FIA Circuit Commission. I believe that’s in September. The Tilke people have been in Austin pretty much non stop and have met with our architects and our contractors. We’re hammer down.”

Elsewhere, Hellmund was busy recently telling reporters that the state of Texas was not going to provide any financial support to the project. Here’s what he told Autosport.com:

“They are not subsidizing anything - the state of Texas has basically passed legislation, just like they did for the Super Bowl, that allows for the contribution of incremental sales tax revenue that is created by that event. So, some of the liberal media in Texas have been trying to take shots at that, but that [the subsidy claim] is a fabrication.”

Unfortunately, he’s wrong. Hellmund is getting to use $25 million in collected tax revenue — in other words, public money — to offset the cost of the race’s annual sanctioning fee. If he weren’t using public money, he wouldn’t have needed the permission of the Legislature, the governor and the comptroller to get it. And when public money is used to support a private enterprise, we call that a subsidy.

There are also specific differences in the state’s support of the Super Bowl and F1. The biggest is that Texas has agreed to pay $25 million up front for the first year’s race. That appropriation is in the current state budget. You could look it up. Click on General Appropriations Act, top left; it’s on page 933.

Lots of F1 chatter over the long weekend, some of it about the plans to bring the race to Austin in 2012. Summarizing the tea leaves: Formula One executives are optimistic, though still appear to be covering their bets.

First up, Jean Todt, president of the F1 governing body FIA, was in Daytona over the weekend to take in a little NASCAR. When asked by a Fox Sports reporter about the May 25 announcement that Formula One would be returning to the United States in 2012 on a brand new track in Austin, he had this to say:

“At the moment, it’s just a project. I don’t think something will happen next year.”

We rate this sound-bite ‘cryptic.’ “Just a project” doesn’t sound very set-in-stone. And what did Todt mean by saying nothing would happen in 2011? Did he really mean 2012? Or was it a hint that he expected delays?

Even more intriguing, however, is another post, this from ESPN, which reveals that F1 racing boss Bernie Ecclestone is still actively pursuing another F1 site in this country, in New Jersey.

First the U.S. has no race, and now it’s looking at two?

Ecclestone also weighed in on several Texas-related points during an interview with the website Pitpass.com. In it, he sounded confident that Austin promoter Tavo Hellmund was for-real and on-track. The head of Full Throttle Productions, Ecclestone promised, was “‘going to make an announcement shortly,’ about the backers behind the circuit which will be built to host the race.”

Thusfar, Hellmund and others who would be in a position to know — for example Gov. Rick Perry and Comptroller Susan Combs, who both signed a letter promising an annual $25 million state subsidy if the Austin race materialized — have been silent on the identities of the moneymen.

The post, by Pittpass business editor Christian Sylt (who has contributed to our F1 reporting), continues: “Ecclestone says that Full Throttle ‘are the only people we found in America who are going to build a world-class circuit.’” Yet, Sylt, who also authored a book on Formula One’s economics, also points out that for the Texas track to work, even with the state’s $25 million annual subsidy in hand Hellmund still will have to come up with plenty of revenue:

“Construction of this will cost around £150 million [about $227 million in U.S. dollars] and even if it is paid off by investors over a 10 year period this would still come to £15 million annually. Money from ticket sales may cover this with the average revenue per race from spectators estimated by Formula Money to be £17.6 million [$26.67 million]. However, the catch is that the state funding is fixed at £16.4 million whereas the race hosting fee rises by 10% annually. By the tenth year of its F1 contract it is expected that Full Throttle will be paying around £38 million [$57.6 million]so that would leave a shortfall of £21.6 million after the Texas state has paid its contribution.”

In other words, not only will Hellmund need a lot of money to make this work, he’ll probably need increasing amounts of it each year of the 10-year deal.

During the interview, Ecclestone also repeated comments he made last week to the Statesman’s John Maher regarding some penalty clauses that could put additional pressure on Hellmund if Tavo doesn’t meet the 2012 deadline — which even Ecclestone admits is fast-approaching:

“‘It may be a bit tight two years,” says Ecclestone. “My concern is that I don’t know how quick they can build … that’s what I am worried about. I don’t worry about anything else.”

A new — or at least newly named — Dallas organization this week kicked off its campaign to erase all of that metropolitan area’s dry zones — locations that prohibit the sale of alcohol. If a recent blip in Texas’s booze elections holds, however, Keep the Dollars in Dallas could have a tougher time at the polls.

The organization, which highlights the gains in sales-tax revenue that legalizing alcohol sales could bring, is hoping to get a couple of initiatives on the November 4 election ballot. According to an article covering Dollars in Dallas’s kick-off in this morning’s Dallas Morning News:

“The ballot would include two initiatives. One would permit the sale of beer and wine — but not liquor — at stores throughout Dallas. Stores that now sell liquor would not be affected. The other would eliminate the ‘private club’ requirement that exists in dry areas.”

But here’s a chart from the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission’s recently completed strategic plan for 2011 - 2015, which illustrates the success of local elections to legalize the sale of alcoholic beverages:

As you can see, most “wet” initiatives have passed, however, by only a slim margin during the latest year. The dramatic decline depicted above is only a one-year phenomenon, so it’s unclear if it will turn into a trend.

Still, it’s worth pondering whether Texans are having a change of heart about increasing the amount of land where a man can wet his whistle. Consider this, also from the report: “In November 2007, two communities voted to prohibit the sale of alcoholic beverages. This was the first time a community prohibited the sale of alcoholic beverages since 1999.”

According to the beverage agency’s summary of the state’s patchwork of laws, “As of May 25, 2010, there are 42 completely wet counties in Texas and 29 completely dry counties. The remaining 185 counties are partially wet.” Partially wet means that the sale of some type of alcoholic beverage is legal in some part of the county. Wet means sales of all alcoholic beverages are permitted; dry means none is legal.

Most of the state’s dry areas are in the Panhandle, while the majority of the wet locations are on or near the Mexico border.

It’s probably a good thing that it’s not everyone’s idea of a good time to pry open a horse’s mouth, insert a file and begin grinding. But Carl Mitz loves his job as a horse-teeth floater.

“I don’t even consider it work,” he said. “Dealing with the horses, especially.” In his spare time at his home 100 miles east of Austin, he even develops new tools to file down equine choppers. He also curates a personal collection of horse skulls and photos that illustrate particularly nettlesome dental issues.

This morning, a Travis County district court judge is scheduled to hear arguments on whether Mitz and the rest of the estimated 300 to 500 teeth-floaters working across Texas should be permitted to continue laboring as they’ve always done, or submit to new state restrictions that would require them to work only under a veterinarian’s supervision.

The root of the problem, according to the Texas State Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners: the near-universal adoption by floaters of power tools to grind teeth.

Not only can the Dremel-like grinders potentially injure a horse’s mouth, but the high-pitched whine is a dangerous irritant, said the agency’s executive director, Dewey Helcamp III.

“The little-known fact is horses are among the most sensitive animals there are; they won’t tolerate that,” he said. “They’ll buck and kick and fight; they won’t allow it to be done without sedation.”

And sedation, Helcamp noted, may only be administered legally by veterinarians. In short, power-tools-plus-sedation equals veterinary dentistry, which by law is regulated. In August 2007, the agency asked a dozen Texas floaters to stop performing their services. When some of them didn’t, the cases were referred to an administrative hearing.

Before the cases could be heard, however, a handful of the floaters filed a lawsuit in Travis County district court, claiming a violation of their right to earn a living. After the case traveled through various appellate courts on technical questions, on Wednesday a judge will consider both sides’ motions to dismiss the case.

For their part, the teeth floaters view the agency’s move as a sudden attempt by the state’s veterinarians to edge them out of a trade they’ve performed inexpensively and without problem for decades. Filing down a horse’s teeth, they note, hardly requires a medical degree.

Horse teeth grow throughout the animal’s lifetime. When grazing, horses chew with a slight grinding motion which, when combined with the harder natural feeds, keep their teeth filed flat. But horses that feed on grain and softer foods tend to develop sharp points that need to be ground down about once a year.

Historically in Texas, the job has been done by a cadre of floaters who, like Mitz, learned through informal apprenticeships. A few certification programs have also sprung up.

“It’s not rocket science,” Mitz said. “Once you learn what’s normal in a tooth and how much to take off, it’s not real complicated. The biggest thing is just learning about horses.”

In his nearly 30 years on the job, Mitz estimated he’s seen more than 100,000 horses — mostly miniatures, which he specializes in. A busy floater can earn from $50,000 to $100,000 a year, he said. Demand is robust: Mitz said he has clients in about 30 states.

Mitz confirmed that the job, once performed with hand files, is now commonly completed with power tools. But supporters say that only makes the work more precise, not hazardous.

“We are not aware of any credible evidence that power tools are more dangerous, more difficult to work with, or pose any greater risks to animals,” said Wesley Hottot, an attorney for the Institute for Justice, a non-profit libertarian law firm that is representing the floaters. To the contrary, he said that a power grinder can be brushed against flesh without injury.

Nicole Oria, general counsel for the veterinarian’s board, said the agency had received “four or five complaints that involved injury to a horse” from lay floaters; Mitz and others say that the complaints have come only from veterinarians.

Hottot also contends that the sedation question is a non-issue. According to Texas law, horses are considered property, so an animal’s owner, or one of his employees, may legally sedate his own horse — which many do before a floater gets to grinding. In other cases, a veterinarian will be called in to do the chemical calming, Hottot said.

Finally, lay-floater advocates note that many animal-related procedures — castration, dehorning and tail-docking — traditionally have been performed without challenge by non-vets. Helcamp said those are one-time events done when an animal is young and so are fundamentally different.

As a last-minute compromise, the state veterinarian agency on Monday proposed permitting floaters to use only manual filers without state regulation. The proposal still must go through the board’s rule-making process.

Still, Helcamp conceded, the manual tool floater “is a dying breed.” Mitz and others say they hope to keep their profession alive.

When the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo Volunteer Fire Department applied last year for a license to host bingo games to raise money for equipment and training, it met nearly all the legal requirements demanded by the Texas Lottery Commission, which regulates bingo. The fire department had been in existence for more than three years, was organized primarily to provide firefighting service, and it operated firefighting equipment.

In fact, there was only one problem with its bingo application: No fires.

In order to qualify to host bingo games, according to the Texas Lottery Commission’s Charitable Bingo Operations Division rules, a volunteer fire department must have actually engaged flames once during the previous 12 months. Unfortunately for Ysleta’s fire crew — though luckily for its residents — the pueblo has been fire-free for more than a year.

“They’ve responded to a couple little deals” since the department’s founding about seven years ago, said Hayward Rigano, the Longview attorney who represented the volunteers in a hearing in front of an administrative law judge recently. “But nothing in the past year.”

Actually, he added, “nothing in the past two years.”

The department’s flame-free period may extend even beyond that. “The [department] has never responded to a call to fight a fire,” according to a May 2010 summary of a hearing for the case in front of a state administrative law judge.

One problem is that the tiny fire department is not qualified to fight structure fires, which requires a higher degree of training. The City of El Paso Fire Department handles those through a mutual aid agreement, a spokesman for the city said.

That leaves only outdoor brush fires for the Ysleta volunteers to tackle. Alas, the reservation land “is just sand and dirt,” Rigano pointed out. “There just aren’t that many fires in the desert.”

Not that the crew wasn’t ready. “[The department] argues that it is fully capable of fighting fires and was always available during the relevant time period,” the hearing summary said.

Rigano said the pueblo volunteers were tripped up by a brand new state rule adopted by the Texas Lottery Commission last year.

Commission spokesman Bobby Heith confirmed that the one-fire-call-in-the-past-year rule was enacted in December, while the Ysleta request to host bingo was still pending. But he insisted that it had nothing to do with the tribe’s application specifically: “They did not write that rule just for the Ysleta Volunteer Fire Department.”

It is unclear what the Ysleta firefighters spend their time doing — or even how many there are. Volunteer departments are not regulated by the state, and the Ysleta department is not a member of the State Fireman’s and Fire Marshals’ Association of Texas, a private organization that represents more than 90 percent of the state’s fire departments, said executive director Chris Barron.

Rigano said the department owns protective suits and several vehicles. Numerous calls to Ysleta del Sur Pueblo Volunteer Fire Department Chief Trini Gonzales, were not returned.

The preliminary results are in for which government agencies and officials are the most forthcoming about they know about the prospect of bringing taxpayer-supported Formula One racing to Austin.

The short analysis: So far, those who appear to know the most have been willing to share the least.

To review: Three weeks ago, the Statesman submitted a series of open records requests to the various parties that participated in luring Formula One racing to Austin: Comptroller Susan Combs, Gov. Rick Perry, state Sen. Kirk Watson and Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell, through the city of Austin. Over the past several days the results have trickled in.

The operative word is “trickle.” That’s because most of the information is being withheld. Each party has invoked one or more exceptions to the Texas Public Information Act as a way to delay or prevent the release of some documents. The Office of the Attorney General will decide whether the protests have merit in about a month.

As a result, nearly a month after the announcement that F1 racing was coming to Austin — thanks in part to a $25 million per year government incentive plan to be handed to a heretofore little-known race promoter named Tavo Hellmund — the public still knows little. Big questions remain about everything from the identity and financial and organizational capability of the local parties involved, to the location of the proposed track and what might be expected of local governments.

So, what do we actually know, based on what Combs, Perry, Watson and Leffingwell have released?

We do know that several members of Gov. Perry’s staff are excited about the idea. They said so in a series of short e-mails exchanged following the May 25 announcement that F1 was headed to Austin — the only documents that the governor’s office has seen fit to release. “Awesome, I will be there. Even though I much prefer stock car racing…” reads one.

In fact, the only correspondence that at all references the governor’s prior involvement was from Perry’s policy adviser Ed Robertson, addressed to several other office staffers: “A few years ago I went to a meeting with the Comptroller and [former secretary of state] Phil Wilson, the talk [about track location] was near the airport for easy access for cars to be flown in, Mrs. Combs grew up a big fan of racing.” (Through a spokesman for Luminant, the energy company he now works for, Wilson referred questions back to Perry’s office.)

In one e-mail from Perry senior adviser Mike Morrissey, dated April 1, 2010, the subject line references an attachment showing “Final 2 conceptual F1 facility renderings.” But those were withheld.

Perry’s office also included a previously released letter, dated April 7, 2010, and signed by the governor, Combs and Hellmund, that confirms Texas will provide $25 million a year for the next 10 years to Hellmund from the trust fund.

Similarly, the city of Austin has released nothing related to city staffers’, or Leffingwell’s behind-the-scenes involvement in bringing the race to the city.

The largest batch of information came from Watson’s office. The Austin Democrat carried a bill during the last legislative session that added F1 to the big sporting contests eligible for the Texas Major Events Trust Fund, which uses sales and other tax revenues generated by large events to help off-set the staging of the events.

The secretary of the Texas Senate, Patsy Spaw, claimed that inter-office policy communications leading up to that bill did not have to be disclosed according to the so-called Deliberative Process exemption to the open records laws, so no documents from the session were released except a couple of entries from Watson’s appointment calendar.

On Feb. 19, 2009, the senator met with Combs to discuss the race project. Four days later, the calendar notations show, Hellmund was “coming in to discuss the Formula 1 racing bill, per susan combs.”

On the day F1 executives announced the race was coming to Austin, a memo from one of Watson’s advisers reviews the history of the senator’s involvement: “the Comptroller approached you early in the session and asked you to carry this (due to your background and understanding of economic development) and that you understood Tavo was trying to put this together, though you really didn’t know the details.”

All of which seems to confirm the assessment that Comptroller Combs was the driving force behind bringing the race to Texas. So, what has her office released in response to our open records request?

Nothing yet. In a letter dated June 10, her office said it was referring some of our request to the attorney general’s office. The rest of their documents, she said, wouldn’t be made available for another week.

Here’s what Gov. Rick Perry’s office told the Austin Business Journal three weeks ago when news broke that a Formula One race might be coming to Austin, thanks in part to $25 million in taxpayer assistance: “We gave them a quote for the press release, but beyond that the comptroller’s office handled it.”

So we were a little surprised at Perry’s response to our open-records request to see the documents, correspondence and communications to and from the governor’s office related to the behind-the-scenes discussions to bring the race to Texas:

No.

Instead of turning over documents, the governor’s office is resisting. Yesterday, it filed a request seeking an attorney general’s ruling as to whether or not Perry legally has to release the records. According to state law, the AG has 45 business days to weigh in.

Lucy Nashed, a spokeswoman for the governor, said that Perry’s office has been open. For example, she said, it participated in the release of an April 7 one-page letter showing the state’s commitment to provide money to local promoter Tavo Hellmund through the Major Events Trust Fund.

As far as the rest of the documents, however, we’re left guessing. So that’s what we’ll do.

That Perry would insist that he played no role and then try to shield records that would prove so raises questions. After all, if the governor’s participation really only amounted to providing a supportive quote, what’s to hide?

A possible explanation: Reading between the lines of his office’s request for legal advice on our open records request suggests that perhaps he was more involved in the talks to bring F1 to Austin than he’s letting on. Let’s go to the tea leaves.

In the letter to the AG, Perry’s office invokes several exceptions to the open-records law that permits government officials to keep documents hidden. One the governor cites is the so-called Deliberative Process exception. If made in good faith, the request suggests Perry was involved in helping decide how to bring the race here — or at least kept apprised of it.

The second exemption the governor’s office cites is the Economic Development Information exception, which permits public officials to negotiate with businesses in some privacy to protect the corporations’ interests — again implying the governor knew more about Hellmund’s efforts to wed F1 and Austin than he has said.

The most intriguing part of the governor’s request to keep his record hidden, however, is this: “We also believe that some of the responsive information may implicate the property interests of a third party” — a claim that, once again, seems to be saying that Perry’s involvement with Formula One ran much deeper than his office has admitted — perhaps even down to site selection.

Regrettably, Perry is not the only one seeking to keep the discussions about how to spend the public’s money out of view. State Sen. Kirk Watson, the Austin Democrat who carried a proposal to add Formula One races to be eligible to receive support from the trust fund, has also invoked the Deliberative Process exemption to shield some documents from his office related to the race.

State Comptroller Susan Combs, who by all accounts was the primary driving force behind state government’s support of hosting the race, also has decided to fight the release of some communications and paperwork showing her involvement in the process. One of the several exemptions she cites in her letter asking the AG’s office for permission to withhold information: Government Code Section 552.110: Commercial or Financial Information.

Typically, that includes information on a private company’s internal finances. Yet, if the government is going to commit $25 million of taxpayer money to support bringing Formula One racing in Austin, isn’t the financial viability of the promoter exactly the kind of information it would be nice for the public to have?

One final note for open records geeks: state law says that agencies must turn over public documents as soon as reasonably possible, but no later than 10 business days can pass before they do so or provide as explanation as to why. The governor and comptroller each waited until late afternoon of Day 10 before revealing they were asking for the AG’s ruling, thereby maximizing the time the documents will be shielded from view.

On Nov. 1, 2007, the Texas Health and Human Service Commission’s Office of the Inspector General sent Family Connections executive director Louanne Aponte a letter informing her that it had completed its desk review of the nonprofit’s 2006 financial statements. The organization, according to the “rejection letter,” had failed the audit.

The reason: Family Connections’ financial reporting did not comport with accepted accounting standards. “Please work with your independent auditor to address the issues noted above,” the letter advised.

In hindsight, of course, the report is ominous. As we have reported (here and here, among others), it now is apparent that Family Connections had no independent auditor.

Four months ago, Aponte, who led Family Connections and its predecessor organization for 15 years, was confronted with accounting irregularities. In April, she was charged with tampering with government documents for fabricating the nonprofit’s financial statements. She subsequently was charged with felony theft, alleged to have stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars from Family Connections and other nonprofits for which she’d volunteered. Her husband, Marco, has been charged with money laundering.

Family Connections has since closed its doors. Louanne Aponte has not been seen since early March, and is thought to have fled the country. Marco Aponte’s lawyer said he’s not guilty and was unaware of his wife’s alleged misdeeds.

So should Family Connections’ accounting errors have tipped off the human services commission’s inspector that Aponte was up to no good, thereby perhaps preventing the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars and saving the nonprofit? It’s impossible to know, but the moment soon passed.

After receiving the failing report, Aponte apparently quickly fixed the errors in Family Connections’ financial statements. Six weeks after the rejection letter, the Office of the Inspector General sent another letter thanking her for her cooperation, and closed the case.

I asked human services commission spokeswoman Stephanie Goodman if the agency could have done anything differently. Here’s her candid response, sent via e-mail:

“Of course. Hindsight is 20-20, and we can always look for ways to improve our monitoring and review of contractors. In the context of our $25 billion a year budget, the amount of fraud we see is relatively small. We don’t want to have any fraud in our programs, but it costs money to put the people and resources in place to find and stop fraud. The constant challenge is in finding the correct place to draw the line so that we have effective monitoring that helps save the state money instead of a review process that costs more than it ever saves.”

If there was any question that Triton Financial honcho Kurt Barton was enjoying the fruits of what state and federal securities regulators eventually described as a shell game, it has been answered in on-going court proceedings, where a receiver continues to jettison the once-high-flying money man’s personal belongings.

This week’s offerings: A Mercedes Benz luxury SUV that Barton purchased for nearly $100,000, and a $90,000 boat. The top-shelf conveyances are added to a BMW, Hummer, pontoon boat, Chrysler 300c and a couple other lesser vehicles that Dallas-based receiver Steven Harr has already unloaded.

Last last year state and federal regulators shut down Triton, founded and run by Barton, after they determined that Barton was deceiving investors and using money from new investors to pay off old ones, according to filings by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Texas State Securities Board. Since then, Triton and its affiliated companies have been run by Harr, who has been trying to raise money for jilted investors by selling off Triton’s and Barton’s assets and shedding his debts.

If the luxury vehicles demonstrate how much Barton was enjoying the high life, court filings now show how much he was living on borrowed time and money. Earlier this spring, Harr decided to abandon Barton’s $55,000 Beemer because he owned more on the car than it was worth.

Similarly, this week’s district court filings ask the court’s permission to permit banks to repossess the Mercedes and the ski boat, which are both financially under water.

According to court documents, Barton purchased the Correct Craft 230 Ski Nautique in June 2007 for $87,000. When he stopped making payments on it last December, a month before regulators shut Triton down, he still owed $76,000. According to recent appraisals, the craft is currently worth about $65,000.

The Mercedes ML63, meanwhile, was purchased in November 2007 and registered to Triton Auto, which did business under the name Pro Player Auto, an ill-fated car dealership that Barton convinced football icon Earl Campbell to lend his name to. In that case, Barton borrowed all but about $400 of the vehicle’s $95,000 purchase price, according to court filings.

By the time his payments stopped arriving, in November 2009, Triton still owed $65,000 on the SUV — $8,000 less than its Blue Book value, according to court documents.

“Given the amount owed on the Mercedes,” Harr wrote, “and the amount it would cost to prepare the Mercedes for sale, it is unlikely that the receiver would be able to sell the Mercedes for an amount that would satisfy the lender’s note and certainly not for a price that would cause and of the proceeds to be deposited in the receivership for the benefit of the investors.”

One of the many questions left unanswered about this week’s surprise announcement that Formula One racing was coming to Austin in 2012 was F1 honcho Bernard Ecclestone’s take on the deal. This morning, F1 journalist Adam Cooper posted an interview he conducted yesterday with Ecclestone in Turkey, on the tour’s Istanbul stop.

Highlights from the Q&A: Ecclestone said local promoter Tavo Hellmund had already secured $200 million in funding for the project “otherwise he wouldn’t embark on it.”

But he also added that Hellmund still faced plenty of hurdles: “I think he’s going to face hundreds of them. He’ll have to jump over them all as he gets there! Building the circuit, for a start is not going to be easy.”

And then, finally, this intriguing tidbit: “But we’ll get it done, no fear. He’s got a lot of help from the government.”

So far, state and city officials have insisted that the only taxpayer-funded assistance they’ve committed to is up to $25 million per year from the state’s Major Event Trust Fund. But as they’ve described it, none of that money goes directly to Hellmund.

Rather, the fund is used to reimburse local governments for costs they incur hosting large sporting events. Money for the fund is generated from sale tax receipts in host communities that are attributable to spending at the event.

According to comptroller’s office records, the trust fund has been used seven times since 2004 to help cover the costs of events such as professional all-star basketball and baseball games.

You can read Cooper’s entire interview with Ecclestone here.