The Louisiana Board of Ethics has responded to a request for an advisory opinion from Richard Arceneaux, the city attorney in Welsh, on whether the town’s chief of police and an officer can reside in a housing authority apartment complex at a reduced rate in exchange for security services. In short, the board says the chief cannot but the officer can.
Citing section 1111c(1)(a) of the Code of Governmental Ethics, Aneatra P. Boykin, writing on behalf of the ethics board, informs Arceneaux that state law "prohibits a public servant from receiving a thing of economic value, other than his salary or benefits, for services devoted substantially to the responsibilities, programs, or operations of the public servant’s agency.” In other words, it’s already the chief’s job to provide security at the complex. But the board also informs Arceneaux that a different section of the code allows the officer to provide security in exchange for a reduced rent in the same way members of law enforcement can moonlight as security guards at private businesses and events.
There will soon be a whole lot of shakin’ going on at Benny’s Sportshack Supplement Depot, a new concept by Opelousas native Benny Nele. Located at 2002 Johnston St., the supplement shop, smoothie bar and café, featuring hot off the press paninis and wraps, plans to open in late May.
Philip deMahy Sr., a once respected New Iberia ad exec, was sentenced May 2 to spend the next two years (he faced up to 100 years) in a state penitentiary after state and federal investigators found dozens of images depicting children engaged in lewd sexual acts on his personal computer.
This year’s Cool Town issue is all about people who are not native to South Louisiana but made a conscious decision to be here, to be among us, to participate in our culture and contribute to it.
A shelved ordinance transferring $200,000 from a northside drainage project to a south Lafayette development may not break any laws, but it stinks to high heaven.
An effort to restore a shuttered dancehall and document other vacant or razed honky-tonks could serve as a model for saving an endangered species of entertainment.
Lafayette’s gene pool has been host to a long line of eccentric characters who have blurred the lines between crazy, genius, disturbed and curiously entertaining.
Subscribe to this comment's feed