Texas Rangers investigating city of Clear Lake Shores for possible insurance fraud

CLEAR LAKE SHORES, Texas - Clear Lake Shores is an upscale community of about 1,300 residents about an hour south of Houston.

This city owned front-end loader police boat and a public works golf cart made it through Hurricane Harvey unscathed.

Yet, the city of Clear Lake Shores got almost $33,000 from its insurance company.

"It bothers me to no end it's embarrassing said Cleat Lake Shores Police Chief Kenneth Cook. "It's criminal, it's a felony."

Cook is obviously upset over the apparent insurance fraud. Clear Lake Shores Mayor Mike McNamara, not so much.

"It was just a mistake," the mayor said.

When we asked on whose part, he said he didn't know.

The police chief says he found out last year someone with the city filed an insurance claim for the police departments boat and two other items falsely claiming they were damaged during Harvey.

"Who in the world claimed that there's nothing wrong with the police boat? You've got to send that money back," Cook said. "It just recently went back just a few weeks ago after the investigation was on-going.

We asked the mayor why it took so long to return the money.

"Well it just wasn't on our radar," McNamara said.

We also asked the mayor if all the money was returned.

That's correct," said the mayor.

But the police chief says that's not the case.

Cook told us $5,000 wasn't returned.

In addition to the Texas Rangers, the police chief says the Galveston County D.A.'s office is also investigating.