Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Mark Hudspeth hasn’t coached his first Cajun football game yet, and there’s already talk about raising more money to keep him here. That’s how optimistic Cajun fans fed up with mediocrity are about his ability to turn the program around. By Dan McDonald
There’s an aura of intensity constantly whirling around Mark Hudspeth.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
On the heels of the one-year anniversary of the oil disaster, coastal residents say they’re coming down with mysterious and frightening illnesses. By Alex Woodward
“This is the best-hidden secret perhaps in the history of our nation.”
Dr. Mike Robichaux speaks into a microphone while standing on a truck bed parked in the shade of a massive tree in his yard in Raceland. He’s wearing a blue polo shirt and jeans, and his white-gray hair is parted neatly. The former state senator, known affectionately as Dr. Mike, is an ear, nose and throat specialist in Lafourche Parish and self-described “too easygoing of a guy.” Today, he’s pissed.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Board member one month, recipient of its largesse the next, a local real estate investor maneuvers government regulations for housing the poor into a pending $2.5 million payday for himself. By Leslie Turk
On Dec. 2, 2005, Greg Gachassin notified his fellow Lafayette Public Trust Finance Authority board members that the state’s annual allocation of tax-exempt bonds for low-interest home buying programs was not being fully utilized and that few — if any — of these loans were being originated in Lafayette Parish.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Lafayette state Rep. Joel Robideaux aims to become the first speaker of the House to hail from Acadiana in 50 years — and the first ever with no party affiliation.
By Nathan Stubbs Photos by Robin May
Two weeks before the Legislature convened for its spring session last year, state Rep. Joel Robideaux received a letter in the mail from Noble Ellington, his legislative colleague from Winnsboro. At the time, Ellington was also Robideaux’s chief rival in a heated campaign for speaker pro tempore, the state House of Representative’s No. 2 leadership position. Both Robideaux and Ellington had their respective blocks of support among legislators — House members elect both speaker and speaker pro tem — and while historically the position is decided in closed door meetings well in advance of the session, this race increasingly seemed headed toward a potentially divisive showdown.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
If a penny saved is a penny earned, some of Lafayette’s most affluent property owners are making a killing, and they’re doing it at the public’s expense.
By Heather Miller Photos by Robin May
The ever-expanding commercial playground known as the southside of Lafayette is as urban as it gets for city dwellers here. From Camellia Boulevard to Kaliste Saloom Road to Ambassador Caffery to the Mall of Acadiana and beyond, the area has been consecrated by a continuous boom of restaurants, retail centers, financial institutions, a traditional neighborhood development — and an abundance of “farmland” nestled cozily in between.
MAY 23 Here's a story in the Picayune about some statistics that must come as a blow to folks who believe that any private school can do a better job of educating kids than any public school: Danielle Dreilinger reports that only 30 percent of the voucher kids are passing. That's less than half of the state wide average, she says. It's an interesting statistic because most of the schools (if not all) taking voucher kids have never had their students' standardized test scores released to the public before.
MAY 23 Stephen Sabludowsky blogs on Bayou Buzz about auditor requests here. Recently the state GOP started crowing about a request from the Legislative Auditor, claiming they were being targeted because of their anti-tax stance. (Uh, your what?) Denial and hyperbole aside, the state Democratic party blew holes in that theory with an email announcing they'd received the same request, Sabludowsky writes here.
MAY 23 Jim Brown blogs about the senate race in this post. He says that, given Bobby Jindal's "lack of traction" on the national stage, it might make more sense for the governor to consider running against Mary Landrieu for the senate seat. Since Tim Teeple left the Cassidy team, it makes sense he might land on a Jindal for Senate team, Brown opines.
MAY 23 In this Louisiana Voice post, blogger Tom Aswell writes of rumors that his nemesis, state Superintendent of Education John White, may be soon departing Louisiana for a federal post. It's hard to believe, given his performance, Aswell says, but stranger things have happened. An anti-White BESE member says that, if true, White is quitting before he can be fired.
MAY 23 In this post on American Zombie, blogger Jason Berry writes about the Mother's Day shooting. Mayor Landrieu said that "this is not who we are," but the fact is, this is New Orleans, Berry writes. The violence infused in the city is the result of a culture created by "sins of omission or sins of commission," Berry writes. It's not a problem that can be solved by legislating, policing, praying or publicizing, he says: Someone's got to understand what's happening first.
MAY 23 This post in the Westside Journal tells us what Port Allen Mayor Deedy has been up to lately: vetoing ordinances, apparently. This story is most interesting, however, when it delves into a petition that has been circulating around the city lately. It accuses the former mayor of a lot of nasty things; the former mayor says it is full of lies and "broken syntax" which may be a larger offense in his eyes.
MAY 23 This editorial posted in The Advocate is a bit confusing. The writing is poor - definitely not up to the usual editorial writing standard there - and the point is hard to grasp. Apparently, the writer is saying that privatization of state efforts is OK, as long as there is oversight and transparency, but Jindal's not good at that, and the legislature shouldn't over-react. Okey Dokey. Can't they get one of them Pulitzer-winning people to write an editorial?
MAY 23 This post on The Lens gives you links to a new Google Earth tool that allows you to see any spot on earth transform over the past 30 years. Bob Marshall, who covers the coast for the paper, says that in the case of Louisiana's coastline, it's possibly something you don't want to see, because it's not a pretty picture. There are several clips here, showing critical areas erode away. For Marshall, it was vindication for all those times he was met with eye-rolling when he talked about erosion.
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