City delays release of fire inspection reports

A few weeks ago we told you about allegations that supervisors told fire inspectors not to ticket code violations in city-owned buildings.

These claims were denied by the Houston fire department and Mayor Annise Parker's administration. The mayor's press office called our reports "thin" and without documentation to back it up.

The mayor weighed in, too, saying that city buildings are being inspected and that they are safe.

"Since February of this year there have been 277 inspections of city facilities," Parker said July 8. "Twenty one issues noted that required city re-inspection. So we do get inspected."

Since we initially reported the story we have been leaked numerous documents from various sources.

Nothing we've received indicates that our reporting has been wrong. In fact, documents show our reporting has been spot on.

And those 277 inspections and 21 re-inspections Parker talked about?

We asked to see them on July 7. We still don't have them and the city says we can't see them until early August.

Why do we want to know? Because we think it's important that you are confident that fire code violations are being fixed in the city buildings. You should know if you're safe when you walk into a city building to pay a utility bill. Or when you watch your kids play at a community center.

We've also asked for emails between top fire officials about the allegations they had a double standard for city owned buildings.

We don't have those yet either.

It's been 14 business days. The law suggests that by now, we should have the documents.

We've also asked results of an office of inspector general report that might shed some light on the whole business.

But the city says they want that to remain completely secret unless Attorney General Greg Abbott's office tells the city to release it. But that decision will take weeks.

You can read here the letter the city of Houston's legal department wrote to us.

We think everything we asked for is a public record. These are documents you should see and the fact that the city want to keep them secret is confusing.

We'll keep pushing, but need your help. Please share this on Facebook or retweet this digital extra and tell the city to #turnitover.

Editor's note: Minutes after publishing this report, the city of Houston made a small sample of records available. We are still waiting for the hundreds of documents we've requested.

Producer: Trent Seibert