Everyone is okay with the city-parish taking a dump on the big, out-of-town corporations because, well, they're big, out-of-town corporations. It doesn't seem to matter to anyone that some of this will land on you and your neighbors. Nor does it seem to occur to anyone that if the city-parish gets away with this, you and your neighbors could be next.
The city-parish president has promised that this will not cause an increase in utility rates. He must make a contradictory promise that he will raise rates, if necessary to pay off these bonds. Only one of these promises is legally binding. The other is based on his presumptions about the future, which no one can know. There is no way any of us can know the unintended negative consequences of this government usurpation of the free-market. All we do know is that the people of Lafayette are the forced guarantors on this liability.
Do any of the proponents know anyone who can't even afford a computer and struggles just to pay their utility bill? Has it occurred to anyone that there is a very real possibility that the least among us could end up with higher rates just so that the rest of us can surf the 'net faster?
The only sure winners in this are the bondholders, because the people of Lafayette guarantee that they'll get their money, and the city-parish government, whose power expands. Not only would the city-parish now have a larger slice of the local economic pie, it would also now control a significant segment of the information we're allowed to have. The city-parish might not abuse this power, but it would certainly be within its reach.
In my opinion, a successful vote would not make this right, but to move forward with no vote at all would certainly be worse. If this does go forward, I suggest the people of Lafayette hedge their position by buying some of these bonds.
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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