Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Can anyone knock out frontrunner Fred Mills in the District 22 state Senate race? By Nathan Stubbs
After Troy Hebert announced in June that he would not seek re-election to the District 22 state Senate seat this fall, the three state reps from Hebert’s Iberia and St. Martin Parish district — Taylor Barras, Simone Champagne and Fred Mills — got together to discuss which of them might run for the open seat. Politicians discussing upcoming elections is hardly uncommon, and Mills says the small delegation of three enjoys a good relationship and is generally supportive of the others’ efforts.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Chosen for his integrity and attention to detail, Lafayette City-Parish Attorney Pat Ottinger is leaving LCG after seven years of service marked by some major legal victories. By Walter Pierce
Photos by Robin May
When Pat Ottinger goes fly fishing in Texas’ Hill Country — the only pastime he says he is devoted to — he goes alone. A rod, a reel, the wind and the murmur of the Guadalupe River. The buttoned-down city-parish attorney says he goes alone because the fly fishing follows business trips to Houston....
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
The controversial piles of sand that Gov. Bobby Jindal built in the wake of BP’s oil disaster are now becoming bigger piles of sand, but with greater potential benefits this time. By Jeremy Alford
“From a long-term coastal restoration perspective, the berms may indeed be a ‘significant step forward,’ as Governor Jindal has claimed, but they were not successful for oil spill response.” — National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, Dec. 16, 2010
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
A rundown of all the biggest New Year’s Eve parties happening in Acadiana
By Dege Legg
Fact: people like to party. From cavemen to the spacemen — it ain’t just protein pills they’re popping these days. HOIYO! And there is no better excuse to party than New Year’s Eve. It’s the end of the year — another one down with however many more to go. You may as well make the best of it while you can and enjoy your time spinning round on this third stone from the sun and bring the New Year in with a bang.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
It’s good, it’s bad and it’s just crazy. By The Independent Staff
The holidays are tough for us newspaper folk. Schools and courthouses shut down, other public bodies meet less frequently — generally less news is generated. And like everyone else, we’re stressed out by the shopping, crazy uncle tolerating and over eating. Plus, our deadlines are not mindful of the extra time off.
That’s why it’s been an unwritten rule of publishing to roll out a year in review issue. This is ours.
MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
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