After nearly 50 years in business, Hamilton's Place hosted its last dance on Sunday night. Hundreds of dancers packed into the dance hall and spilled out onto the porch and the parking lot to dance to the music of Geno Delafose & French Rockin' Boogie, along with Keith Frank and the Soileau Zydeco Band. William Hamilton's father opened the nightclub ' sometimes called the Hamilton Club ' on Verot School Road in 1956.
Hamilton says it's become increasingly difficult to make a living with the dance hall, citing dwindling crowds and increasing expenses. In January, due to rising insurance premiums, the club stopped serving alcohol. Hamilton wants to sell the club, but says the owner would have to move the building off of the Hamilton family's property. ' RRF
MALL OF ACADIANA HAS BUYER
Mum was still the word at press time Monday afternoon from officials at the Mall of Acadiana, but a source close to the mall confirms that a deal is on the table to sell the 26-year-old shopping center to CBL & Associates Properties of Chattanooga, Tenn.
Katie Knight, director of investor relations for CBL, a real estate investment trust, also would not release any information on the pending sale. CBL is a REIT listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The company primarily owns regional malls like the Mall of Acadiana that are the dominant retail facility in middle market areas.
The 1.1 million-square-foot Mall of Acadiana is owned by Robert B. Aikens & Associates of Troy, Mich. Lafayette developer Dwight Andrus Jr. began working on the mall project seven years before the mall opened, securing the land and commitment from anchor tenant Sears. "Realizing I was small compared to the enormity of that business, what I did was seek a partner," Andrus says. "I knew I needed help." Andrus sold his interest to Aikens in the late 1990s. ' LT
CAILLIER PLEADS NOT GUILTY
Larry Caillier's arraignment last Friday could mark the beginning of a long line of court dates for the veteran Opelousas Police Chief. On Wednesday, June 22, a St. Landry Parish grand jury was set to reconvene to consider more state charges against Caillier. The grand jury will likely be considering evidence from a state auditor's report issued in January that identified more than $200,000 of funds and equipment that went unaccounted for in the department from 2000 to 2003. In May, the grand jury indicted former Opelousas Police Maj. Ronnie Trahan on 17 counts stemming from the audit report including criminal conspiracy, payroll fraud and money laundering. Last Friday, Caillier's attorney, Elbert Guillory, entered Caillier's written plea of not guilty for five state charges of malfeasance. The charges allege that Caillier ordered his officers not to respond to calls about fights breaking out at a Battle of the Bands event that sheriff's deputies were supplying security for. A pretrial trial hearing for that case is set for Sept. 29. ' NS
CONTRACT SHORTENED
A preliminary ruling in the lawsuit filed by Iberia Parish Government against Mosquito Control Contractors Inc. has reduced the contract length between the parish and MCCI from five years to three ("Foggy Contract Breakdown," June 1). Based on a request by Assistant District Attorney Wayne Landry for summary judgment, the court found that the contract for 2003 through 2008 was in violation of the parish's home rule charter, which only allows a three-year term. The contract for mosquito spraying is now scheduled to end on April 30, 2006, unless MCCI appeals. Meanwhile, the trial, based on issues of overfilling and CPI misapplication, which was scheduled to begin on June 7, has been continued until Aug. 10. ' MT
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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