Small Business Administration (SBA) Administrator Karen Mills was in San Antonio Monday to discuss ways both the agency and the Obama administration are working on to further encourage lending to small businesses.  (Houston Business Journal, February 8, 2010 by Tamarind Phinisee). 

Mills spoke at the annual International Franchise Association convention.  These efforts, Mills says, include asking Congress for additional funding for its loan programs. This could impact Houston as well.

In February of 2009, the SBA received $730 million in federal stimulus funding as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. However, this wasn’t enough to meet the loan demand and in December, the SBA received an additional $125 million from Congress.

“We immediately were able to get that out as well. (But) it will run out at the end of this month,” Mills says, adding that the president has asked Congress for another extension in funding.  SBA spokesman Jonathan Swain says the president called for extending the recovery act provisions for the SBA’s 7a and 504 Certified Development Company loan programs through Sept. 30, 2010. The House passed legislation that would do so and it included $323 million to fund the extension. The U.S. Senate has not yet acted on the proposal.

“We are continuing to discuss it with the Senate and are hopeful we will see the extension move forward soon,” Swain says.

If granted, Mills says, the additional funds will be used to increase the loan limit for its 7(a) and 504 loan programs from $2 million to $5 million. Mills says about 10 percent or 12 percent of the loans made with recovery funds have gone to franchisees. Many of these franchisees, she says, have expressed the need for larger loan limits in order to purchase buildings or to make acquisitions. “So, we’ve proposed to Congress that we increase these loans,” she says.

Other things the SBA is looking to do is extend the 90 percent guarantee on its 7(a) loan program. The Recovery Act, among other things, temporarily raised the guarantee on the 7(a) loan program up to 90 percent through the end of the calendar year 2009, or until funds set aside for the program were exhausted.

Prior to the enactment of the law, the guarantee on the 7(a) loan program was between 75 percent and 85 percent. The act also temporarily eliminated fees for borrowers on the 7(a) loans as well as fees for both borrowers and lenders on the 504 loans through the end of the year or until funding for the enhanced programs are exhausted. The 504 CDC loans are principally used for land, new building construction, acquisition and rehab of existing buildings, long-term machinery and equipment purchases, and debt refinancing. (Houston Business Journal, February 8, 2010). 

Interestingly, Mills says, the agency is also seeking to use its 504 loan program to refinance owner-occupied commercial real estate mortgages. Mills says that in this present economic environment, in an effort to get commercial mortgages off their books, some banks may be unwilling to renew commercial real estate mortgages even if the owners have never missed a payment. Using the 504 loan program in this capacity temporarily, she says, could benefit these business owners.

Mills says the agency has been meeting with small and large banks as well as small businesses, law firm attorneys and community leaders around the country to develop the measures that it is seeking from Congress. And, she says she believes these measures are ones that will be easy to implement.

“We can do those things quickly within the programmatic structure that we already have (in place) at very cost-effective rates,” she says. 

(Houston Business Journal, February 8, 2010 by Tamarind Phinisee).

A judge who awarded a $160,000 default judgment last month to a Beaumont man who said his civil rights were violated when he was beaten by a cop will preside over a hearing today that might put the issue back to square one. A clerk in District Court Judge Donald Floyd’s court said that a representative of the Reaud, Morgan and Quinn law firm filed the motion for the hearing, but would not identify the individual.

An attorney at the law office said that he was not aware of anyone at the firm representing any of the five Beaumont police officers named in the lawsuit. The default judgment was entered after all five Beaumont policemen named in Derrick Newman’s lawsuit failed to appear in court personally or by legal representative.  Assistant City Attorney Joseph Sanders said a decision never had been made as to whether the city would represent the officers, and the city was not named in the original lawsuit. Still, the city tried to resolve the matter by offering the 37-year-old Newman a $10,000 settlement, which he refused, attorney Langston Adams said.

At the conclusion of an internal affairs investigation, Police Chief Frank Coffin Jr. sent Newman a letter dated Feb. 20, 2008, saying that a disciplinary review board had said Newman’s allegation of the beating was supported by evidence and that a violation had occurred.

Named in the suit were James Cody Guedry, Charles J. Duchamp III, David Todd Burke, Jason J. Torres and John David Brown. Court documents showed that attempts to serve the men with subpoenas were unsuccessful, and the paperwork later was dropped off at the Beaumont Police Department. The incident occurred about midnight on Aug. 24, 2007, when Newman and two friends were coming back from picking up quesadillas at Cheddar’s Casual Cafe.

Police stopped the Nissan Sentra for failing to yield to an oncoming vehicle, saying it had turned too soon at a green light from Lavaca onto Highland, Newman said Thursday while sitting at a booth at a downtown restaurant. Two officers approached and asked for the three men’s driver’s licenses. The driver was charged with failure to yield, while the back seat passenger had an outstanding warrant and was arrested. It took two officers to do that, and Newman said that he and the driver felt the car being nudged during the encounter. He said he and the driver got out of the car and told the passenger to calm down. After putting the man in the back seat of the patrol car, one of the officers asked Newman to place his hands on the back of the Nissan so that he could be searched. Soon two other patrol cars arrived.

Neman claims Burke was carrying a wooden club when he got out of one car and as soon as he approached, started using it to hit him on his right arm and leg. “To this day, I don’t know what it was that made him strike me,” Newman said. “Once he started hitting me, my mind went blank. Everybody was trying to tell me to get down and be still.” Later, another officer Tasered him twice, he said. Newman said the other officers should have stopped their colleagues. “They weren’t protecting me. They weren’t doing their job. I know if I had tried to protect myself they would have stepped in to protect him,” Newman said.

Newman said once he was in the holding cell, the officer winked and blew kisses at him. Newman was charged with resisting arrest, but those charges later were dropped, he said. Newman said if Terrence Holmes, who represented him on the resisting arrest charge, hadn’t told him that he should file a complaint with the police department’s internal affairs division, he never would have known that he could do it. And he says if the officers hadn’t arrested him, he wouldn’t have filed a complaint.

“I know so many people who got beat up by the laws and didn’t know what to do,” Newman said. “If they don’t take you to jail a lot of people are happy to go home, especially young people.”

Newman eventually saw a copy of the dash camera recording of the incident. “It’s brutal. It’s brutal. A man is getting beat with a stick,” he said as he shook his head. “I’m still upset about it. It was bad. It’s not something I’d want to keep looking at.”

written by Dee Dixon (Beaumont Enterprises)

Attorneys with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (”EEOC”) announced in a June 15, 2009 EEOC Press Release that a San Antonio maintenance company and real estate management company will pay $29,500 and furnish other relief to settle a sex discrimination lawsuit filed by the attorneys in San Antonio, Texas.  See, http://www.eeoc.gov/press/6-15-09a.html .  According to the EEOC Press Release, the company’s violated federal law by allegedly firing a day porter at a San Antonio building because of her sex.  As stated in the Press Release, the sex discrimination lawsuit charged that the day porter was fired after a health related absence from work and was replaced by a man who had no more mechanical and maintenance experience than she had.  In addition, the EEOC claimed that she was not re-hired in retaliation for her filing a sex-based discrimination complaint with the EEOC.  The EEOC is the federal agency charged with enforcing federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination, and the alleged conduct violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  An EEOC trial lawyer was quoted in the Press Release as saying that “As a result of the EEOC’s actions, both of these companies recognized their obligations to provide their employees with a workplace free of sex-based discrimination and an environment where their employees feel comfortable to bring complaints to members of management.”  Further information about the EEOC is available at www.eeoc.gov .

Whether workplace gender or sex discrimination occurs in New Braunfels, San Marcos, San Antonio or elsewhere, victims of employment related sex discrimination may contact the EEOC and an attorney or lawyer to determine if an employment discrimination lawsuit is ultimately appropriate under the particular circumstances and facts of the potential sex discrimination claim.

Whether sexual harassment in employment occurs in Austin or elsewhere, victims of workplace sexual harassment may contact the Texas Workforce Commission in Austin, Texas at 512-463-2642 and consult an attorney to determine if a sexual harassment lawsuit may ultimately be appropriate under the facts and circumstances of the particular potential discrimination claim.

In this regard, sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination that violates Chapter 21 of the Texas Labor Code and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  See, http://www.twc.state.tx.us/crd/facts .  Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitutes sexual harassment when submission to or rejection of this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual’s employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual’s work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment.  According to the Texas Workforce Commission website posting, sexual harassment can occur in a variety of circumstances, including, for example, same sex sexual harassment and supervisors, co-workers, and non-employees sexually harassing workers.  However, the harasser’s conduct must be unwelcome, so it is helpful for the harassment victim to directly inform the harasser that the conduct is unwelcome and must stop.  Further, the Texas Commission on Human Rights recommends that victims use any employer complaint mechanism or grievance system available.

In a March 12, 2009 Equal Employment Opportuntity Commission (”EEOC”) Press Release, the federal agency announced that it filed an harassment lawsuit against an Austin packaging producer and distributor, alleging, in part, that a female manager sexually harassed male employees by subjecting them to unwanted sexual comments and unsolicited physical contact of a sexual nature and that she conditioned more favorable terms and conditions of employment based on acquiescence to her sexual advances and overtures.  See, http://www.eeoc.gov/press/3-12-09 .  An EEOC trial attorney quoted in the EEOC Press Release stated that it is hard to imagine that in the 21st Century sexual harassment is still so widespread in the workplace.  Id. 

As described at http://www.twc.state.tx.us/crd/facts , prevention is the best tool to eliminate sexual harassment in the workplace and employers are encouraged to take steps necessary to prevent sexual harassment from occurring, including, for example, establishing effective complaint and grievance procedures and taking immediate and appropriate action when an employees complains about sexual harassment.

As written in the Houston Chronicle, a Harris County grand jury recently indicted a Bellaire police sergeant who shot a black man in the driveway of his own home while responding to what turned out to be an erroneous stolen vehicle report.  See, Turner, Allen and Lindsay Wise, “Officer Indicted In Bellaire Case,” Houston Chronicle, 4/7/09, p. A.  According to the article, if the officer is convicted of the charge of first degree aggravated assault by a public servant, the officer could be sentenced to life in prison for the December 31 shooting of 23-year-old Robert Tolan.  As further reported in the article, attorneys for the victim repeated their claim that the incident constituted racial profiling, saying, in part, that “The only crime Robert committed was driving while black in Bellaire.”  Id. @ p. A6.  The shooting occurred six months after a Harris County jury acquitted two Pasadena police officers of criminal charges relating to the fatal beating of a 51-year-old hispanic man who suffered eight broken ribs and a punctured lung in July, 2007.  Id.

Whether incidents of racial profiling or police brutaliy occur in Bellaire, Houston or Pasadena, victims of police misconduct or abuse may make a written complaint to internal affairs for the police department in order to document the offense and place the department on notice of potential wrongful behavior.  Further, victims may contact an attorney to determine whether an excessive force or racial profiling lawsuit may be ultimately be appropriate under the facts and circumstances of the potential case.

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