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Sunday,
JAY AIYER SAYS NOW IS A GOOD TIME TO MOVE ON!
THREE PEOPLE ARE NOW AFTER HIS POSITION!
September 09, 2007
Jay Aiyer, who pleaded guilty in June to a misdemeanor
charge of tampering with a governmental record,
will not seek another term on Houston Community
College's governing board.
The decision brought an abrupt halt to a once-promising
political career for Aiyer, 38, a lawyer and former
chief of staff for former Mayor Lee Brown. He
has served as an HCC trustee since 2001.
Aiyer said Friday that his plea did not play
a role in the decision to leave office. The agreement
prohibits him from working on any political campaigns
during his one-year probation, but it did not
disqualify him from seeking a second six-year
term.
"It's a good time to move on," Aiyer
said. "I've been on the board for nearly
seven years, and I'm ready to pass the baton."
Three newcomers will vie to represent his district,
which stretches from southwest Houston to Missouri
City. The November ballot includes businesswoman
Neeta Sane, a former candidate for Fort Bend County
treasurer; Manual Barrera Jr., a former senior
Houston City Council aide who now hears complaints
from people about parking and red-light tickets
for the city; and Lois Davis.
Incumbent trustee Yolanda Navarro Flores will
face two challengers: Daniel Barretto and Kevin
Hoffman, who is president of his North Houston
neighborhood council. He is not the same Kevin
Hoffman who serves on the Houston Independent
School District's board and oversees facilities
for Harris County.
Trustees Bruce Austin and Mills Worsham are running
unopposed.
Note: This article is from the Houston Chronicle.
www.chron.com
Felony charge filed against Jay Aiyer
It pains me greatly to see stories like this.
Houston Community College Trustee and one-time
City Council candidate Jay Aiyer is facing a charge
of tampering with a governmental record, a felony
that could cost him his law license, authorities
said Monday.
The Harris County District Attorney's Office
accused Aiyer of committing the offense in March
2005, by "unlawfully removing, destroying,
and concealing, the original filing" of a
portion of his campaign finance report and substituting
it with another document.
The charges were filed in the 184th criminal
court last Thursday. Aiyer posted a $2,000 bond
the following day.
Aiyer, reached Monday, said he could not talk
about the charges in detail.
"We will be able to work this thing out
in a couple of days," he said. "I think
it's going to be resolved."
I consider Jay to be a friend, so I hope the
charges against him are proven to be unfounded.
We'll see what happens.
Posted by Charles Kuffner on June 26, 2007 to
Scandalized!
http://www.offthekuff.com/mt/archives/009723.html
QUESTIONABLE PAYMENTS
HEAT UP COUNCIL RACE
June 8 - 14, 2005
by Ed Wendt
Public Inquest
A Houston Community College System (HCCS) Trustee
looking to make a big political move up is under
the gun over questionable campaign spending.
Businesswoman Sue Lovell has raised some damning
questions about Jay Aiyer’s reports from
his HCCS campaign fund, including unexplained
payments to himself.
Lovell and Aiyer are both running for Houston
City Council, At Large, Position Two. When Lovell
requested Aiyer’s campaign finance reports
from the HCCS General Counsel, the official repository
for these documents, she found some puzzling entries.
One was a $5,000 payment to Aiyer on September
13, 2004, listed as the repayment of a loan. Yet
nowhere in his reports was a loan from Aiyer to
his campaign listed. Also listed was a $1,000
“reimbursement” to Aiyer on May 19,
2004; nowhere were reimbursable expenses listed.
Two expenditures of $1,000 and $735.02 on December
6, 2004, were left blank; no payee was listed.
The report also showed numerous payments to credit
card companies listed as “campaign expenses.”
State law requires that those expenses be listed
separately to ensure that all expenditures are
legal.
Here is where things get really bad for Aiyer.
When Lovell questioned the credit card expenditures
and other suspicious payments, she received an
e-mail from Aiyer’s campaign manager on
March 31, 2005, saying that the report she had
received from the General Counsel was “an
erroneous report that was never filed.”
The e-mail said the correct report was at the
HCCS Board Services Office and “was filed
at the time of when it was due.” The campaign
manager offered to provide a copy of the “correct
report.”
Lovell took him up on the offer. The next day,
a secretary in the HCCS Board Services Department
faxed to Lovell’s campaign, “at the
request of Trustee Jay K. Aiyer,” a copy
of “his 2004 Candidate/Officeholder Report.”
This report contained a correction affidavit
which was notarized the day before that listed
two corrections: $2,685 to Walden and Associates
and $735.02 to Leedy Graphics. But attached to
it was what was purported to be the same campaign
finance report Lovell had received from the General
Counsel. However, it was obvious that this was
a different document: even though the notarized
cover page was the same, the form listing expenses
was different from the other one and the type
face used to list donations and expenditures was
different.
Previously unreported payments were listed including
$2,753.72 to Best Buy for a computer system, hundreds
of dollars to T-Mobile for cell phone service,
and payments to two consultants: $5,000 to Lone
Star Strategies on Oct. 15, 2004, and $2,500 to
Keir Murray on Oct. 17, 2004.
And the loan repayment and reimbursement to Aiyer
had mysteriously disappeared.
Just to be sure, Lovell again contacted the HCCS
General Counsel about this new document. The Counsel
responded what he had sent were the reports on
file. That means the report faxed by the Board
Services secretary is not official.
Aiyer is blaming someone else. He told Doug Miller
of Channel 11 that “a campaign worker”
misunderstood routine bank transfers and that
there were “erroneous drafts of his campaign
finance report that he never intended to file.”
The reports were signed by Aiyer, who swore that
the reports were “true and correct.”
Miller confirmed that the reports faxed to Lovell
by the General Counsel are the only ones in Aiyer’s
official file.
A number of questions need to be answered:
Why did Aiyer pay himself $5,000 for a loan that
apparently was not made?
Why did Aiyer pay himself $1,000 for expenses
that apparently were not made?
Why does Aiyer’s campaign manager call
the report from the General Counsel, the official
repository for campaign reports, a “report
that was never filed” while the one from
the Board Services Office is not in the official
file?
Why did Aiyer put the Houston Community College
System at risk by having an employee fax an apparently
falsified report to Lovell?
Just what did Aiyer spend his campaign funds
on?
Aiyer should know about the need for filing correct
campaign finance reports. As treasurer for Chris
Bell in his congressional primary race against
Al Green, Aiyer sent a complaint to the U.S. House
questioning Green’s report.
Lovell wants to know how Aiyer, the HCCS Trustee,
can be trusted as a City Councilmember when he
can’t be trusted to come clean about his
campaign finances. Sources: http://www.forwardtimes.com/inquest.htm
NRI Jay Aiyer, loses Houston City Council
Houston, December 12, 2005
NRI press
NRI, UK born, Jay Aiyer, 36,
attorney, Democrat lost to his opponent
Sue Lovell by taking 17, 653 or 49.1 per cent.
18,232 votes or 50.9 percent of the vote compared
to Sue Lovell's. He was defeated by a mere 579
votes in the polls on Sunday for Houston City
Council at-large Position 2
"I felt we ran a good race," Aiyer
said, "We both share some of the same issues,"
Aiyer said he will continue working to preserve
and improve public safety, repair aging infrastructure,
and expand the city's park space.
NRI,
Jay Aiyer
running for Houston city council
Houston (Texas), June 24, 2005
IANS
NRI, (Indian American) Jay Aiyer believes his
non-partisan image will get him elected as the
Houston City Councilman-at-large.
Although a Democrat, the 36-year-old is running
on a non-partisan platform in a constituency
that is home to an ethnically diverse population
of 1.8 million.
"I have got tremendous bipartisan support,"
Aiyer told IANS. This despite the fact that
he has been in politics a long time and almost
always on the Democratic side of a ticket, whether
it was as chief of staff for former Houston
mayor Lee Brown, or as legislative aide to state
Senator Rodney Ellis, or as treasurer for Congressman
Chris Bell.
"The race I am running is non-partisan
and I am very committed to running that way,"
he emphasised.
Always interested in public service, Aiyer
said he felt it was time to do something for
Houston's citizenry. He has been on the school
board of the Houston Community College System
since 2001.
"My success politically has been to be
able to reach out. So diversity is my strength,"
he contended.
"I understand government and I've worked
in the private sector," he noted. He said
he had been endorsed by former mayors Lee Brown
and Bob Lanier as well as the Houston Chamber
of Commerce.
NRI Aiyer will face two opponents Nov 8 in
an open primary. If he gets 50 percent or more
of the vote, he is in. But if none of the candidates
are able to secure that, all three will go into
a runoff election in December.
"This is a real entrepreneurial city which
sets it apart from other ones," says Aiyer.
"It's not only growing but changing in
its makeup. People come here from everywhere
else looking for opportunity. There's a real
spirit of optimism," he enthused about
a city he obviously loves.
He said he has worked with and got the support
of Houston's Indian American Political Action
Committee, set up 10 years ago, and that he
was hoping to reach out to Indian Americans
around the country.
"People have to understand there's value
in supporting a person from the community even
though they may not be in your district."
The London-born Aiyer who came to the US with
his parents when he was eight is married to
Nirja Sharma Aiyer, a healthcare attorney, and
the couple has two children - three-year-old
Meera and seven-year-old Naveen.
A graduate of the South Texas College of Law,
Aiyer has a bachelors degree from the University
of Texas at Austin in government and economics,
and a masters degree from the L.B.J. School
of Public Affairs at the University of Texas.
An attorney by training, he has a private practice
specialising in immigration and public law.
He was previously an attorney with the firm
of Chamberlain, Hrdlicka, Williams, White and
Martin, and worked as a senior management consultant
for Deloitte and Touche
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