'Puzzling, inflated and wrong': Houston Housing Director McCasland terminated for alleging contract awarding bias

Hours after alleging Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner awarded a major contract to a favored contractor, housing director Tom McCasland was fired. 

"I'm being forced to participate in a charade that this was a competitive process when I know it was not a competitive process, and I'm being forced to ask my teammates to participate in that charade. And that's not something we can do and that's not something we will do," McCasland said in a Houston Public Media article. 

The now-former housing head for the nation's fourth-largest city asserted before Houston City Council that the recipient of the contract in question had already been pre-determined. The funding was allocated to the Huntington at Bay Area development. McCasland was fired hours after his remarks, according to Houston Public Media. 

A release issued by Turner's office and attributed to the mayor himself said the administration "has lost confidence in [McCasland's] leadership and abilities to manage the department in the city’s best interest, and it is time to move on," according to Click2Houston. 

Turner said that he didn't participate in the final review of the bidders for Huntington, according to ABC13. 

"There is no charade. Comments made by the former director of the City of Houston Housing and Community Development Department are puzzling, inflated and wrong," a statement from Turner said. 

According to ABC13, McCasland said that "four times" as many affordable units could have been built for the same money if Turner had accepted his recommendations for bids that he said scored higher. The bid that was accepted for $15 million would build 88 affordable housing units.

"Given the issues surrounding the GLO, the former director did offer to resign last year. The administration stood by him and has done everything possible to provide him with what he needed to manage under difficult circumstances. However, the administration has lost confidence in his leadership and abilities to manage the department in the city’s best interest, and it is time to move on. We wish him the very best," Turner said in a statement. 

McCasland said that he wasn't alleging that fraud occurred in the bidding process and awarding of the contract, but he said that he did want to raise concerns about the process, according to ABC13.