The Louisiana Ethics Board is expected to reduce the $360 fine assessed against Lafayette Parish School Board member Tommy Angelle for filing a campaign finance disclosure form late in connection with his successful bid to become the District 2 LPSB rep. Angelle, who beat Cajundome Director Greg Davis for the seat, filed the form on Oct. 12, nine days beyond the deadline.
The board is meeting Thursday to consider dozens of issues related to campaign finance disclosure and other matters. A board attorney has already recommended that Angelle’s fine be reduced to $100 following a letter sent to the board by Angelle’s accountant, Chris Rainey, who urged the board to consider extenuating circumstances:
Originally Mr. Angelle campaign activity was under the amount for both expenditures and contributions that would require the need to file any disclosure reports. It was not until he received $500 From the Louisiana Association of Educators Fund PAC on September 30 that the need to file was mandatory. This led to some confusion as to what reports actually needed to filed.
Furthermore the race was won by only a four vote margin. Mr Angelle had already prepared to make his concession speech to his supporters when he received a call advising him that with the absentee voting he had actually won the election. This of course led to recounts and authentication of death notices with respect to the absentee votes as well as much controversy coming from his opponent.
All of this was taking place while his mother’s health was taking a rapid decline. Tommy’s mother, Jeanette C Angelle, passed away on the morning of Sunday October 10 2010 and was laid to rest October 12, 2010.
It was the sincerest of oversights that EDEP Report wasn’t filed timely. There were no expenditures to be reported for that disclosure report In light of the series of events that occurred during the last few days of Mr. Angelle campaign to serve his constituents as a school board member we are hopeful that the Ethics Board will see way to waive the late fees assessed.
MAY 21 Gambit columnist Clancy DuBos writes about the Mother's Day shooting, and how the stages of shock and blame and healing mirror those traveled by the same city following Hurricane Katrina. The city will recover, just as it did following the storm, by reaching out to help the people injured most seriously by the event, DuBos writes. It's how we heal, he says.
MAY 21 Here's a post on the Advocate (but buried on a subpage, not on the front) that reports something Louisiana Voice reported some time ago: a top DOE official lives in Los Angeles and "commutes" to Baton Rouge. The positioning of the story caused a stir on Facebook Monday, with several posters asking if the Advocate was covering someone's hiney. Sentell's stories on DOE are notoriously soft, and this one is no different: don't expect any hard questions in here.
MAY 21 Here's another post from blogger Tom Aswell about the "course choice" program. He's already reported on kids being signed up without their consent or knowledge, and has more here: For example, he tells of a six-year-old who was signed up for high school Latin. He also digs a little deeper into the sister companies of the main one operating in Louisiana; all of them seem to have complaints against them. Stinky.
MAY 21 Given the 80 percent cut in higher ed funding since he's been in office, it's clear Gov. Jindal would rather give tax cuts to out of state companies than have a functioning system, blogger Dayne Sherman argues in this post. The cuts have been such a disaster, Sherman says, that it will take 30 years to fix what's been broken. He says he believes the aim is to shut down most of the schools before Jindal leaves in 2016.
MAY 21 Blogger CB Forgotston says there are too many elections in Louisiana, and they're costing us too much money. The proof is in the pudding: turnout for most of these nonsensical pollings gets worse and worse, CB opines, even as millions of dollars that could be spent on health care or higher ed go down the tubes. The legislature must take action to stem the tide of pointless elections, he says.
MAY 21 Here's an interesting investigative piece by WVUE on the retirement benefits of some Jefferson Parish public employees. According to the story, the taxpayers are paying 100 percent of the retirement contributions of employees who started work prior to a certain date in April 1986 -- and have done for more than 30 years. It costs the parish millions annually, and might not be legal, the story reports.
MAY 21 This post on Bayou Buzz provides insight from Louisiana's intrepid pollster, Bernie Pinsonat, on the winners and losers from this year's legislative session. But to hear Bernie tell it, there's almost nuttin but losers: Jindal, the Republican party, the Fiscal Hawks all get big goose eggs in his win column.
MAY 20 This post on The Lens takes a look at a huge (either $500K or $250K) bill that one NOLA charter now has for school lunches. The RSD says the charter group didn't fill out the proper paperwork for federal reimbursement, but the story details how the RSD didn't ensure the people running the charter had the proper training, despite requests from hapless charter employees trying to fill out forms. Either way, somebody's asleep at the wheel.
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