Alvin Kimble, a member of the flagship system’s governing board, told the newspaper Lombardi was asked by some board members to resign but refused. Kimble says Lombardi told him Thursday of the impending firing, according to the paper.
The move would end a rocky tenure that began with much jubilation in the summer of 2007 but has since been marked by struggles over priorities and budgeting within the multicampus system. ...Read the T-P story here.
Kimble said Lombardi’s refusal will force the board majority, most of them appointed by Gov. Bobby Jindal, to take a public vote to remove him. Lombardi was hired when the board was controlled by appointees of governors Kathleen Blanco and Mike Foster.
“I certainly hope we get some answers for why they want to do this,” Kimble said, adding that pressure on Lombardi has mounted from members of the Flagship Coalition, a group of business and civic leaders who want LSU’s Baton Rouge campus to be clearly identified — and supported financially — as the state’s top higher education priority.
Political pressure from the Jindal Administration is behind Lombardi’s ouster, Kimble said. “John is very single-minded; he does what he thinks is best for the university without having any concern for the politics... He hasn’t made friends with the administration.”Independent readers might recall one controversial incident involving Jindal, Lombardi and the LSU System board that hit close to home. In mid-2010, the board voted to replace the newly appointed chairman of the New Orleans University Medical Center Management Corporation Board, Lafayette attorney Elaine Abell, only days after she was named to the key post by Lombardi. The Jindal administration’s fingerprints were all over that decision, too, which replaced Abell with Robert Yarborough, a Baton Rouge businessman and at the time the most recent Jindal appointee on the board. Read more here.
Kimble said he expects most of former Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s appointments to the board will not support Lombardi’s termination, while most or all of Jindal’s appointees will vote to remove him.
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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