But an ongoing FBI investigation targeting Southwest's dealings with Dallas officials and an Express-News examination of the company's relationships with several Housing Authority of Bexar County commissioners raise questions about how Southwest may have exerted its influence to get projects built here.

The board has asked for a full audit of the agency's two partnerships to build apartment complexes with Southwest, which can qualify for substantial tax breaks.

Housing Commissioner Carlos Madrid Jr., who submitted his resignation from the board earlier this month, received thousands of dollars in contract work from Southwest. He said his work with Southwest did not affect his public role and that he did nothing wrong.

Records and interviews show that Southwest and two other then-commissioners had private relationships, as well.

Southwest forged a housing partnership with a nonprofit run by Commissioner Dario Chapa while he was still on the board and continued to make decisions in his official capacity regarding Southwest Housing's business.

Additionally, in the same month that Commissioner Ken Brown resigned from the board, Southwest hired him to do lobbying and legal work.

Both commissioners say they violated no legal rules; nevertheless, other board members and some members of the public were left with the perception that Southwest might have influenced public business.

"It just doesn't look right, and if it doesn't pass the smell test we don't want to do it," said Rudy Rodriguez, the housing authority's current board of commissioners chairman. "That's the kind of stuff we don't want."

County housing authority officials, for instance, say they had no idea until recently that Southwest Housing and a nonprofit that Chapa runs as executive director entered into a partnership to build a major $20 million apartment complex in fall 2003 after he had voted as a board member to approve two county joint building ventures with the company.

The county housing authority began that year as partners with Southwest Housing on two major government-subsidized apartment complexes, Rosemont at Miller's Pond and Rosemont at Palo Alto, both now built. Chapa resigned last year.

While board chairman in 2002, Chapa had pushed for both projects, voted to approve them and threw his weight behind Southwest when neighborhood opposition erupted over Miller's Pond.

Less than a year later, in September 2003, Southwest quietly formed a partnership with a small San Antonio nonprofit organization that was near and dear to the board chairman's heart, Our Casas Resident Council.

Nonprofit group

The Southwest Housing deal with Our Casas put the nonprofit in general partnership with the state's largest affordable housing company to co-own an 11.5-acre senior living complex then known as Jefferson Plaza, and now operating as Primrose at Monticello Park in the 2800 block of Fredericksburg Road.

Chapa recalled that Southwest Housing initiated the idea.

"They came to us," he said.

According to records of the deal, Our Casas stands to take in a portion of the more than $2 million development fee ? which industry experts say typically amounts to about 25 percent. Our Casas also would get an unknown additional fee at closing, a portion of the apartments' cash flow and eventually management fees.

State conflict of interest laws hold that no county housing commissioner in Texas may act in their public role on a project in which they hold a private financial interest. They have disclose such an interest and remove themselves from all discussion or deliberation in any board matter involving that interest.

Chapa said his nonprofit's partnership with Southwest didn't fall under those rules because Our Casas does not pay him beyond traveling and gas reimbursements and isn't a for-profit company. And he said the prospect of his nonprofit benefiting did not influence any action he took as a board member.

"I did pretty good due diligence. I questioned everything," he said. "I'm a volunteer. They were not paying me. I was not going to realize anything. I never felt I was doing anything wrong."

David Marquez, Southwest Housing's paid representative consultant in San Antonio at the time, did not return calls seeking comment about the deal.

Properly disclosed

There is no record that Chapa ever provided a written disclosure of the deal to the county housing authority, although he said he vaguely recalls telling a paid adviser to the board.

But the county's own law firm, Gale, Sanchez & Wilson, knew about the deal. In fact, the firm earned thousands of dollars doing the legal work on Our Casas' Monticello housing project, records show.

The firm's spokesman, Woody Wilson, said the law firm never reported Chapa's involvement in the Southwest deal because "I don't see a conflict."

"As executive director," of Our Casas, Wilson said, "he wouldn't benefit."

Linda Morales, the authority's executive director, said she wasn't sure if Chapa's deal with Southwest violated any rules but that question should have been asked.

Board Commissioner Nancy Busch, however, said she would have wanted to know of the deal as Chapa went about making decisions and deliberating on other Southwest business.

"I'd want to know, yes. I'd want to know very much, not just in the past tense," she said. "I want to know now."

Commissioner Robert Grau, when told of the Chapa deal, said it raises questions in his mind about whether Southwest influenced decisions regarding the two housing authority partnerships.

In fact, Southwest did find a friend in Chapa when one of the two projects, Miller's Pond, came up against stiff opposition in 2002 and through much of 2003 with neighborhood and school district opponents.

Chapa appeared at City Council meetings and at the state housing board to speak in favor of the project. He also actively participated in all board business related to the two projects long after his nonprofit got its own deal until his resignation from the board for health reasons last year.

Divided loyalty?

In the midst of that fight, on Oct. 9, 2002, Brown resigned and soon went to work as a paid lobbyist for Southwest Housing. He continues to do legal work for the company.

A key question remains. At what point when Brown was still serving on the board was the prospect of him going to work for Southwest broached?

Brown said he doesn't recall exactly when the topic of his coming to work for Southwest came up.

The timing left neighborhood activists like Carol Abitz suspecting Brown was influenced by the promise of a lucrative job. Abitz was so concerned she complained to then-state Rep. Ken Mercer and the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs.

She said the smell lingers years later.

But Brown said that he made sure he was in line with ethics rules by leaving the board before beginning legal work for Southwest. His former law partner, David Earl, confirms that Brown's engagement letter with Southwest was dated after Brown's Oct. 9 resignation.

"If people think that everyone's a crook, that's what they're going to think," Brown said. "It isn't me. It never has been. I sleep very well at night. I didn't do anything wrong. I know I didn't."

FBI probe

FBI subpoenas for records in Dallas have listed the names of city council members and planning commission appointees in whose districts Southwest Housing has built and whose decisions on zoning and permitting matters were crucial. The FBI has raided the homes, offices and cars of those public officials, as well as the homes of contractors and nonprofit agencies linked to the public officials.

Through it all, Southwest has maintained it did nothing wrong and will be vindicated.

But the facts of one questionable relationship in North Texas have emerged.

When Southwest Housing was facing strong neighborhood opposition on one of its Dallas apartment proposals in 2001, it enlisted the help of State Rep. Terri Hodge. The state lawmaker went against her own constituents, testifying in favor of the housing project and penning crucial letters of support the company needed to gain valuable tax credits.

Not long after it was built, Hodge moved into the complex. According to internal Southwest Housing records, the company paid most of her rent and utilities for more than three years, a $33,000 benefit she never disclosed on required financial disclosure statements.

Southwest Housing has declined to comment on the rent arrangement, and Hodge, while acknowledging receiving the benefit, maintains she did nothing wrong in accepting it while using her legislative position to help Southwest Housing's business.