External agencies that provide social services were also winners Tuesday as the council voted to accept a plan submitted by the Durel administration that consolidates funding for those agencies – heretofore social service and arts/culture agencies were separate line item budget expenditures – within the Community Development Department, which will enlist a five-person committee to review social service agency applications and award $256,000 in grants annually on a competitive basis.
A council majority beat back a series of amendments by serial “fiscal hawks” Jared Bellard (District 5) and William Theriot (District 9) that would have eliminated or significantly slashed funding for both arts/culture and social service agencies that are external to LCG.
But in a case of two steps forward, one step back, the council approved an amendment offered by Councilmen Kenneth Boudreaux (District 4) and Brandon Shelvin (3) that will give the council the authority to review how external agency grants are allocated through the AcA (for arts organizations) and Community Development (for social services); the overarching aim of City-Parish President Joey Durel’s new model for funding those agencies was to free the funding process from council politics. At first glance, the Boudreaux/Shelvin amendment does the opposite, giving the council veto power over funding priorities set by the grant-awarding panels of the AcA and Community Development.
As it stands, the council approved a $500,000 downpayment on LCG’s purchase of the 100-acre horse farm property on Johnston Street, which also includes a land swap in which UL gets the Youth Park property adjacent to campus behind the Johnston Street fire station. (The land has been appraised at roughly $5 million; LCG will enter into a cooperative endeavor agreement with UL and Community Foundation of Acadiana to purchase the land over 10 years and to develop it into a passive public park.) Additionally, the AcA will receive $285,000 in funding for its operating expenses, plus an additional $59,000, which will be awarded in grants to arts/culture providers in Lafayette Parish. The external grants awarded by the AcA will also be distributed by a grants panel through a competive process.
The votes on funding of the horse farm purchse and arts/social service agencies was part of the finalization of Durel’s $611 million LCG budget for fiscal year 2010-2011, which commences Nov. 1.
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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Pure hyperbole.