The Louisiana Board of Ethics has put the kibosh on the tourist coordinator for the city of Scott earning side income by giving tours of the city using her own touring company. In a recent advisory letter to Scott Mayor Hazel Myers, Deidra L. Godfrey, writing for the board, says such the state ethics code “prohibits a public servant from accepting anything of economic value from a person who has or is seeking to have a business or financial relationship with the public servants agency.”
Myers had requested an advisory opinion from the board on whether Redell Miller, who is employed as the city’s tourist coordinator, could conduct a one-day bus tour of the city that included stops at Bourque’s Social Club and the Floyd Sonnier Art Gallery. Proceeds from the tour would have been split between La Maison de Begnaud, a cultural center and gift shop owned by the city, and Miller. Godfrey adds:
Such arrangement would be a violation of Section 1111C(2)(d) because her company would be a prohibited source of income by virtue of the contract with her agency. The arrangement would also represent a prohibited transaction under 1112(B)(2) as Ms. Redell would be participating in a transaction involving the city and her company, an entity in which she has a substantial economic interest. Also, Section 1113 prohibits Ms. Redell’s company from entering into any contract or other transaction with her agency (the City of Scott).
In an unrelated opinion, the board gave the green light to James McFaul, a part-time compensated consultant to the Lafayette Association of Retarded Citizens, Inc., to accept an appointment to the Region IV Human Service District Board — as long as LARC doesn’t have or seek a contract or other business with the HSDB.
David Calhoun and Elizabeth “EB” Brooks are the first two employees of Lafayette Central Park Inc., the nonprofit charged with turning Lafayette Consolidated Government’s 100-acre Johnston Street Horse Farm property into a passive public park. Calhoun was named executive director, and Brooks is director of planning and design.
At Thursday's State of the Economy luncheon, LEDA President and CEO Gregg Gothreaux said PXP has already quietly hired 180 people for its Broussard expansion.
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.
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.
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