Below is the transcript of Controller Hollins at a City Council Meeting, followed by a summary of what Hollins said. The Mayor and a council member constantly interrupt Hollins. The Mayor, in his bully style, resorts to name-calling, which seems to be something he shares with Donald Trump.
In my opinion, when someone comes in, says how great he is, and doesn’t explain exactly what he did to earn his pay, it raises red flags. Below is a summary of what Chris Hollins said. I must mention that Mayor Whitmire did the same to Council Member Salinas to stop her from questioning Chris Brown. What is the Mayor hiding?
I also added a summary of the entire city council session.
Ask yourself: why would John Whitmire not want to release work records? What is he hiding?
Controller Chris Hollins:
“Now I’d like to provide you with an update on the Chris Brown investigation.”
Mayor/interruption:
“Okay.”
Hollins:
“As you all know … information related to Chris Brown’s employment with the city for more than three months. This administration has resisted our efforts to get those facts.
“A month ago at the same podium, I told you all that because our requests were not being met, we were forced to resort to the Public Information Act.
“I still find that preposterous, and you should too.
“One city office should not have to file a public information request to get basic information from another city office—”
Unidentified speaker:
“Point of order.”
Hollins:
“The administration refused—”
Unidentified speaker:
“Point of—”
Hollins:
“—refused to provide the information.”
Unidentified speaker:
“Point of order.”
A council member objects
Unidentified council member:
“Mayor, on the monthly financial report … Controller Hollins, respect for you, but I think we’re getting into … Believe me, I care about the finances of this city. I would stack up against anybody.
“I think you do too. I think Chris Brown does. I think the mayor does.
“I think the people in the City of Houston wanna see us up here working on problems to impact our budget and our future. I think they wanna see us working together, not causing fights, not bickering amongst each other.
“People are so sick of that.
“Let’s just get back to the financial report. What are we doing? We’ve still got a deficit. We haven’t solved all our problems. We’ve got a long way to go.
“Now I’m on a soapbox. Sorry, mayor. But I think we just wanna get back to the business of the City of Houston.”
Whitmire tries to move on
Mayor Whitmire:
“And so, Melissa, would you please speak?”
The transcript then becomes garbled during overlapping speech:
Mayor / overlapping speakers:
“Mr. Controller … please let us continue the finance report without interruption.”
There is also a garbled line that the transcript renders approximately as:
“If you want a campaign …”
followed by directions to Melissa to continue the financial report.
Hollins:
“The administration refused to provide the information.”
Mayor Whitmire:
“Go ahead, Melissa.”
Melissa/finance staff:
“This is the two-plus-ten financial report for the period ending August 31st, 2026.”
Whitmire directly rebukes Hollins
Mayor Whitmire:
“Chris, you’re really being ridiculous.
“You know it. I’ve been so generous for six months letting you campaign and have personal privilege, and it’s gotta come to a halt.
“We have a city ordinance. It requires us to be through in 30 minutes.
“You’ve done your financial report. I would respectfully ask you to let Melissa do hers.”
Hollins:
“Mayor—”
Whitmire:
“Please go ahead, Melissa.”
Hollins continues anyway
Hollins:
“So we filed a request covering the 36 items, the exact same 36 items that we requested in June. No more and no less.
“Late yesterday, the administration finally began to produce some documents.
“We received records related to roughly half of our requests.
“My office has not yet reviewed those documents, so I’m not going to characterize what they say.
“But roughly half of our requests remain outstanding.
“Some have received no response at all, and for 10 of them, the administration has gone to the attorney general seeking permission to withhold the information.
“Now, I want you to understand what kind of information we’re talking about:
“Emails sent and received by a city employee, his work product and deliverables, his duties and responsibilities, records showing the work assigned to him by his supervisors, the total cost of his employment to taxpayers, including salary, benefits and city resources, and whether he had an approved telework or flexible work arrangement.
“These are basic records about a public employee paid with public dollars.
“At the clown show that y’all just witnessed a few minutes ago, we heard testimony about the work being done and so on.
“We’re requesting that same basic information, and we requested it over three months ago through private channels, not at this podium.
“The administration is now offering a legal argument to withhold that information from our office.
“But after more than three months, I have yet to hear a good explanation for why information that is so basic is being kept from the controller’s office or the public.
“We’re gonna keep pushing, and I wanna be very clear about something.
“My office has reached no conclusions about Mr. Brown’s employment.
“The facts will lead us to the conclusions, but first, we need the facts.
“And we’re now more than 100 days into the administration resisting our efforts to get them.”
Hollins alleges political retaliation
Hollins:
“Unfortunately, there’s another part of this that council needs to know about.
“Just days after we filed these public information requests, my office began receiving a barrage of retaliatory public information requests from the mayor’s political consultants.
“And some of these requests are bizarre.
“They want my private communications with you and with members of your staff.
“They want communications with members of my old legal team at a law practice that I sold five years ago.
“They even asked for my communications with the CEO of United Airlines.
“Now, I have never met the CEO of United Airlines, and I had to Google his name to discover that he was, in fact, the CEO of United Airlines.
“Now, my office believes in transparency, and so we’re going to respond to these public information requests, and we’re gonna share what they produce.
“But let’s call this what it is.
“This is politics.
“We asked for this information through official channels more than three months ago.
“The administration did not provide it.
“The administration has sat here at this meeting for three months, making excuses about first saying they would provide it, then saying that they wouldn’t for these reasons.
“And now we are here.
“We finally resorted to this public information request, and within days, the mayor’s political consultants started firing public information requests at my office.”
The exchange breaks down
At this point, the automatic transcript becomes heavily garbled because several people are talking at once.
Council Member Davis:
“Thank you, Mayor. Brother Chris—”
Mayor Whitmire:
“Chris, you have decorum and follow the procedures. Please stop interrupting me.”
Council Member Davis:
“Brother Chris—”
Whitmire:
“I recognize Council Member Davis.”
Hollins / overlapping:
“You won’t let me—”
Unidentified / overlapping:
“Brother controller—”
Hollins / overlapping:
“I put my name on my request.”
Whitmire / overlapping:
“Brother Hollins … everyone has been so nice to you.”
Hollins:
“May I? May I?”
Whitmire:
“Chris, you’re embarrassing yourself.”
Hollins:
“Brother controller, if you let me finish—”
The transcript becomes increasingly difficult to separate by speaker, but Hollins can be heard returning to his central point:
Hollins:
“You can’t come in here and talk about how public employees … and how taxpayers …
“For more than 100 days, we have gotten delay, resistance, and now political retaliation.
“We are going to keep doing our job.
“We are going to keep asking the questions.
“We are going to follow the facts where they lead …”
Whitmire recesses the meeting
Mayor Whitmire:
“We stand in recess for 10 minutes.”
Summary of Chris Hollins
“Now I’d like to provide you with an update on the Chris Brown investigation.
As you all know … information related to Chris Brown’s employment with the city for more than three months. This administration has resisted our efforts to get those facts.
A month ago at the same podium, I told you all that because our requests were not being met, we were forced to resort to the Public Information Act. I still find that preposterous, and you should too.
One city office should not have to file a public information request to get basic information from another city office.”
[Interruptions from the mayor and council.]
“The administration refused to provide the information.
So we filed a request covering the 36 items, the exact same 36 items that we requested in June. No more and no less.
Late yesterday, the administration finally began to produce some documents. We received records related to roughly half of our requests. My office has not yet reviewed those documents, so I’m not going to characterize what they say.
But roughly half of our requests remain outstanding. Some have received no response at all, and for 10 of them, the administration has gone to the attorney general seeking permission to withhold the information.
Now, I want you to understand what kind of information we’re talking about.
Emails sent and received by a city employee, his work product and deliverables, his duties and responsibilities, records showing the work assigned to him by his supervisors, the total cost of his employment to taxpayers, including salary, benefits, and city resources, and whether he had an approved telework or flexible work arrangement.
These are basic records about a public employee paid with public dollars.
At the clown show that y’all just witnessed a few minutes ago, we heard testimony about the work being done and so on. We’re requesting that same basic information, and we requested it over three months ago through private channels, not at this podium.
The administration is now offering a legal argument to withhold that information from our office.
But after more than three months, I have yet to hear a good explanation for why such basic information is being kept from the controller’s office or the public.
We’re gonna keep pushing and I wanna be very clear about something. My office has reached no conclusions about Mr. Brown’s employment. The facts will lead us to the conclusions, but first, we need the facts.
And we’re now more than 100 days into the administration resisting our efforts to get them.
Unfortunately, there’s another part of this that council needs to know about.
Just days after we filed these public information requests, my office began receiving a barrage of retaliatory public information requests from the mayor’s political consultants.
And some of these requests are bizarre. They want my private communications with you and with members of your staff. They want communications with members of my old legal team at a law practice that I sold five years ago. They even asked for my communications with the CEO of United Airlines.
Now, I have never met the CEO of United Airlines, and I had to Google his name to discover that he was, in fact, the CEO of United Airlines.
Now my office believes in transparency, and so we’re going to respond to these public information requests, and we’re gonna share what they produce.
But let’s call this what it is. This is politics.
We asked for this information through official channels more than three months ago. The administration did not provide it.
The administration has sat here at this meeting for three months, making excuses about first saying they would provide it, then saying that they wouldn’t for these reasons.
And now we are here. We finally resorted to this public information request, and within days, the mayor’s political consultants started firing public information requests at my office.”
[Extended interruptions.]
“You can’t come in here and talk about how public employees [are accountable] … and how taxpayers … For more than 100 days we have gotten delay, resistance, and now political retaliation.
We are going to keep doing our job. We are going to keep asking the questions. We are going to follow the facts where they lead …”
Summary of Council Session
Chris Brown and the $127,000 job
Former controller Chris Brown appeared during the administration report to defend his work as Mayor Whitmire’s senior adviser for financial integrity. Brown spent much of his presentation pointing to his past accomplishments as controller—pension reform, OPEB reform, financial transparency, and other work—and then turned the scrutiny back on Controller Chris Hollins, arguing that Hollins’s audit division had grown in budget and staff while producing fewer audits. houstontx-2026-09-29-Council_Me…
Council Member Salinas then went straight at the issue Brown had largely avoided. He said Brown was making about $127,000 a year, had reportedly appeared at work only 13 days and sent 12 emails, and asked him directly how many hours a week he had actually been working. Brown first said his hours varied, then acknowledged that before the Chronicle story he averaged around 15 hours a week. When Salinas asked whether he thought that compensation was justified, Brown said he did. houstontx-2026-09-29-Council_Me…
That is probably the most important thing in the entire transcript for the question we were discussing earlier. You were wondering how anyone could prove whether a salaried adviser was really working 40 hours. Brown himself supplied the key fact: about 15 hours a week on average before the controversy became public.
There was also open friction between Whitmire and Controller Hollins. Hollins tried to discuss his investigation into Brown and complained that his office had been forced to use public-information requests to obtain records from the administration. The mayor and council members repeatedly interrupted, arguing that the financial report should not become a political fight. The exchange deteriorated into people talking over one another. houstontx-2026-09-29-Council_Me…
Immigration and the Model Cities grant
A large part of the public-comment session concerned opposition to Houston applying for the federal Model Cities Initiative. Speakers argued that the grant’s conditions could require cooperation with federal immigration enforcement and could entangle HPD more deeply with ICE. One speaker characterized it as not simply “free money” because applicants would have to align with federal law-enforcement priorities. houstontx-2026-09-29-Council_Me…
Ronaldo Salgado, whose father he said had been killed by ICE officers, made an especially emotional appeal. He argued that accepting the money could make immigrant families more afraid to contact police and asked council not to apply. Council Member Salinas responded that he agreed and said he would vote no if the proposal returned. houstontx-2026-09-29-Council_Me…
Flock cameras
The other major public-comment theme was Flock license-plate readers. Speakers complained about privacy, surveillance, immigration-related searches, and what they described as disproportionate placement of cameras in Black and Brown neighborhoods. Several speakers explicitly connected the camera network to ICE and federal immigration enforcement. houstontx-2026-09-29-Council_Me…
Council Member Jackson said she had originally supported Flock because constituents wanted technology to combat crime, but she later withdrew her support because she was not satisfied about where the data was going. The discussion indicated that the Flock contract could come back for renewal next summer. houstontx-2026-09-29-Council_Me…
Other important business
The council also dealt with the 2026 Major Thoroughfare and Freeway Plan. Representatives of the Coastal Prairie Conservancy supported amendments protecting Katy Prairie conservation lands, saying nearly 20,000 contiguous acres are protected there. Council members praised the effort to balance transportation planning with conservation. houstontx-2026-09-29-Council_Me…
There was also a substantial group of speakers asking Houston to formally recognize Filipino American History Month, emphasizing the Filipino community’s role in Houston’s healthcare, military, business, education, and civic life. The transcript also includes routine appointments, contracts, infrastructure items, Wi-Fi expansion spending, sewer and drainage work, and other consent-agenda business.