The Independent Weekly has just learned that the Lafayette Housing Authority official in charge of the embattled Disaster Housing Assistance Program, which had an annual budget of $1.8 million, drives an LHA-owned vehicle despite that his driver’s license has been suspended since July 12, according to the Louisiana Office of Motor Vehicles.
The 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, which covers Iberville, West Baton Rouge and Pointe Coupee parishes, requested that LHA Deputy Director Jonathan Carmouche’s license be suspended after he failed to pay a speeding ticket he received in February of this year. Carmouche was cited in Iberville Parish for driving 75 in 60 mph zone, apparently while traveling on a bridge, the ticket indicates. He was scheduled to appear in Iberville Parish court in Plaquemine on April 26 but did show up and did not pay the $171 fine. The DA’s office asked the state Office of Motor Vehicles to suspend his license.
Carmouche was driving an LHA-owned vehicle, a 2006 Ford sports utility vehicle, when he was ticketed. It’s unclear what kind of LHA business Carmouche was conducting at the time.
The penalty for driving with a suspended license is severe, commanding a $335 fine in the 15th Judicial District with a mandatory court appearance. Conviction results in the loss of driving privileges for one year, according to a local prosecutor. More critical, however, is the liability Carmouche’s poor decision presents for the LHA. Should Carmouche get into an accident, his not having a valid driver’s license would likely void the LHA’s insurance coverage.
Carmouche’s alleged mismanagement of the disaster housing program led to the dismissal of five case managers, Chris Williams, Beatrice Wilson (aka Porsha Evans), Charlie Esie, Linda Jefferson and Myra Parker, on Aug. 13. The pay of those managers, who started out making $11 an hour to help the down-and-out get back on their feet after the 2005 and 2008 hurricanes, skyrocketed 236 percent to $37 an hour from the time of the contracts’ inception in late 2007. They also got a $600 monthly car allowance.
Carmouche, who makes $85,000 a year, says when the workload for case managers increased in 2008 after hurricanes Gustav and Ike, he recommended the existing case managers get more compensation rather than hire more workers. After repeated public records request for the current contracts of the case managers, those that would have been in place up until the time the contractors were fired, Carmouche finally acknowledged that the contracts were not up to date. In fact, the contracts are in such disarray that the one the LHA sent to us for Linda Jefferson, purportedly for the period March 2, 2009, to February 28 of this year, was for $12 an hour. Jefferson, like the other four case managers, was making $37 an hour when her contract was canceled Aug. 13. “Because of the continual extensions of the DHAP-Ike/Gustave [sic] program and the recurrent needs of the families, time did not permit to update the contracts with each extension," Carmouche wrote in an email response.
The Independent Weekly’s investigation into the program revealed that Carmouche himself was getting a piece of the DHAP action, inspecting homes in the program “on Saturdays” for $75 a pop. He got an extra $20,000 from the LHA for inspecting homes in six parishes in 2009 and another $11,300 so far this year. He began inspecting DHAP homes in May 2009; the figures from LHA did not give a breakdown of how much he got from that program alone. Carmouche double-dipping on the DHAP may have constituted a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development violation. He is no longer inspecting homes for the LHA.
Read more about the DHAP debacle in The Independent Weekly’s Aug. 18 cover story, “Self Serving.”
The LHA office and the LHA’s automobile insurance agency, Bayou Classic Insurance out of Shreveport (the insurance is with Progressive), were both unaware that Carmouche’s license is under suspension. LHA Executive Director Walter Guillory first learned of the suspension from our inquiry and assured us he would meet promptly with Carmouche and get back with us.
Carmouche did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
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.
Most Read
in case you missed it
Subscribe to this comment's feed