Louisiana state departments and cabinet agencies spend more than $5 million annually on press secretaries and media relations.
Is it political overkill or worth every penny?
By Jeremy Alford
The responsibilities of a Louisiana governmental press secretary extend far beyond fielding requests from reporters. Some duties aren’t in the job description, as Marsanne Golsby learned during her stint as former Gov. Mike Foster’s top media liaison.
The Republican wunderkind has failed Louisiana as a fiscal steward.
By JEREMY ALFORD
When Gov. Bobby Jindal took office in January 2008, he inherited a state budget that included a $1 billion surplus. During these tough economic times, that seems like a distant memory, almost a fairy tale, yet it was only four years ago.
From ridding the system of poor-performing principals to getting kids ready for kindergarten and yanking Butler buildings from our campuses, Superintendent Pat Cooper lays out his six-year turnaround initiative.
By Heather Miller • Photos by Robin May
If former N.P. Moss Middle School Principal Ken Douet had been working under Superintendent Pat Cooper last year when the middle school was shuttered to avoid state takeover, the six Lafayette Parish School Board members who blocked Douet’s promotion to a high-performing high school would have never been compelled to do so following Moss’s closure.
We don’t need national surveys to tell us what we already know: Festival International de Louisiane is pure gold, baby.
Is there a better time to be Lafayette, La.? That’s a rhetorical question. There is not. As you read this on Wednesday, April 25, or thereafter, I’m on vacation — my annual “stay-cation” devoted to doing virtually nothing but Festival International de Louisiane. I’m hoping for mild, dry weather — knock on wood. But if it’s hot and steamy and the heavens open up, I don’t give a damn. It’s Festival week.
Cover Photo by: Philip Gould
The winners of this year’s INDesign Awards share a passion for excellence in their craft.
By The Independent Staff
It’s time again to honor the brightest and best among Acadiana’s considerable constellation of architects, interior designers and the array of professionals who support their creative efforts to make our offices like homes and our homes like heaven, and who ensure that our unique architectural history is both preserved and celebrated even as it evolves.
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
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