How one citizen, AI, and the Texas Public Information Act exposed a crony network at Houston Metro.
Built entirely from documents obtained through TPIA requests, official board minutes, public audit records, and IRS 990 nonprofit filings. No anonymous sources. No speculation.
In early 2024, a routine observation about Houston Metro's new board chair raised a simple question: does she have ties to the nonprofit that just received a no‑bid contract?
Using the Texas Public Information Act, a single citizen requested communications, contract details, and ridership data. Metro released several hundred pages—most inconsequential—appealed to the attorney general to keep some documents private, and sent an itemized bill for $600 for the rest.
When those documents were fed into an AI research tool, it surfaced red flags in minutes that manual review would have taken weeks to find. Chief among its suggestions: contact the local District Attorney's Public Integrity Division.
The answer to that simple question would unravel a $6 million shell game.
Elizabeth Gonzalez Brock was appointed Houston Metro's board chair in February 2024. Her only background in transit: she was a "founding" board member of Evolve Houston—the nonprofit that received the no‑bid, sole‑source microtransit contract.
Her day job? Vice President at CenterPoint Energy, one of Evolve's founding corporate sponsors. When she left Evolve's board to lead Metro, her boss at CenterPoint took her seat—where he and another CenterPoint colleague remain today.
Metro's ethics code states board members should disclose conflicts and abstain when their participation "could reasonably create the impression" of improper influence.
Brock filed no disclosure. Didn't abstain. She voted yes.
The contract was never competitively rebid. They kept adding extensions. Watch the numbers climb.
Evolve Houston doesn't even provide the service. It manages the contract and subcontracts to Ryde LLC for actual operations. The financial structure is deliberately layered.
Of Evolve's contract costs, 77%—$758,000—went to just three line items: $108,000 in legal fees and $650,000 to two consulting firms. Metro's own auditors called these fees "excessive and unsubstantiated."
LDR Consulting, owned by an Evolve board member, received more than $500,000 across two tax returns. LDR shares an address with Evolve and its principal sat on the Houston First Corporation board alongside Brock.
The most damning finding was hiding in plain sight. A simple cover sheet to a year-old audit showed that Evolve's rate was 47 percent higher than Metro's internal operating costs and 65 percent higher than another contractor.
The board chair's former organization was overcharging taxpayers—and somehow this hadn't disqualified them or been made public.
An internal EY consulting binder prepared for Metro in December 2025 reveals the full scope of the service failure. These are Metro's own consultant's findings.
The service ran as an "extended pilot" to avoid FTA oversight. The ILA structure with the City of Houston limited Metro's direct accountability.
After a Houston Chronicle investigation, board members began expressing concern over the contract's rapid escalation and potential procurement violations. Local television stations started asking questions.
At Metro's final board meeting of the year, they announced they would end their relationship with Evolve Houston. They offered no explanation for the abrupt reversal—weeks after approving a contract extension.
No one at Metro—including the chair—has explained why they reversed course on a program she called a "crucial lifeline."
The implications extend beyond Houston. Municipal governments nationwide operate with procurement processes designed for an era when document review was expensive and time-consuming. That asymmetry protected opaque dealings. It doesn't anymore.
This investigation used AI, public records, and one concerned citizen. Your city has the same records.
File a TPIA Request → Read the Houston Chronicle Investigation →