Continuing to play into Joseph F. Prevratil’s deceptively soft hands, the city council of Corpus Christi, TX, voted Tuesday to negotiate with the man who drove the Queen Mary into bankruptcy on a contract to redevelop its city icon. Read the story in the Corpus Christ Caller-Times here.

Several former Long Beach officials-such as ex-Mayor Beverly O’Neill and ex-city managers James Hankla and Henry Taboada and ex-Redevelopment Agency chairman Don Westerland-who abetted Prevratil’s self-enriching stewardship of the Queen Mary by presiding over loophole-laden rental agreements and look-the-other-way oversight, continued their mysterious support of the dapper man who abused those agreements and still owes the city at least $4 million. Excerpts from the glowing endorsements they sent to the Corpus Christi council were read into the public record at Tuesday’s meeting.

Prevratil is seeking a contract with Corpus Christi to redevelop Memorial Coliseum, a 1950s-era auditorium on the waterfront—and that contract is structured similarly to the one that he finagled from Long Beach officials. It has a base rent that can be reduced through the use of credits based on various improvements he performed. In Long Beach, Prevratil took so many credits—often, outside the scope of the agreement—that he sometimes paid no rent at all.

Prevratil had threatened to withdraw his offer to redevelop the Memorial Coliseum unless the Corpus Christi council moved forward Tuesday.  Meanwhile, the current Long Beach city council—operating under the same kind of veiled threat from developer Tom Dean—rushed into a deal to swap valuable city property for 33 acres of his polluted and unappraised oil land.

Tags: bankruptcy, Beverly O'Neill, Corpus Christi, Don Westerland, Henry Taboada, James Hankla, Joseph F. Prevratil, Memorial Coliseum, Queen Mary, rent credits, TX