Rarely known for being politically correct, City-Parish President Joey Durel now has a role in pushing the Lafayette Housing Authority saga to a new low, referring to former Lafayette City-Parish Councilman Chris Williams as a “piece of garbage.”
In today’s Daily Advertiser, Durel, apparently frustrated at being called a liar by Williams — who is also threatening a lawsuit — had this to say about Williams’ allegations: “To have a piece of garbage like that make those comments should be expected.” Think what you will of Williams' rhetoric, but the C-P president was out of line — and should have taken the high road.
Williams has offered no specifics for his allegations about lies Durel told or the basis for any slander lawsuit.
On KPEL this morning, Durel didn’t back down from the comment or apologize for it but did, so it seemed, acknowledge it was not his finest moment. In a phone interview at about noon today, Durel expressed regret at allowing himself to be pulled into the controversy by Williams. "This is not about Chris Williams. I'm disappointed that I let myself get distracted. ... I shouldn't express my opinions like that," he said, noting that the work of the LHA and the assistance it should be providing to low-income residents has taken a back seat to the attention being paid to Williams.
Williams has come out swinging since Monday, when the state legislative auditor publicly released its findings on the LHA, in particular the disastrous Disaster Housing Assistance Program that prompted the investigation. Williams, who was a case manager for the program since 2007, was terminated along with four other contractors in August. The audit paid specific attention to Williams’ role, noting 91 hours that overlapped between his two jobs at UL (one is full-time, the other a night job teaching) and work on the DHAP. For example, on a Sunday in 2009, Williams claimed to have been working overtime from 2 to 9 p.m. at UL and also claimed four of those same hours on the DHAP, where he was paid $37 an hour. The DHAP checks were actually written to his nonprofit, but he signed the time sheets as Chris Williams, case manager, and LHA officials believed he was the only person doing the work; former LHA Executive Director Walter Guillory says Williams was hired for the job because he has a Ph.D. It’s unclear whether Williams also got time and half at UL for the Sunday work, and the audit does not stipulate what he was doing for UL that Sunday.
Williams also was found to have claimed 59 of the 91 hours on the DHAP while he was teaching a political science night class at UL. Williams says employees of his nonprofit Lafayette Training and Career Development Center worked on the DHAP. It seems more than coincidental that none of Williams’ hours for his full-time job with UL’s Department of Special Services were shown to conflict with the DHAP work, which raises the question of why his employees did not perform DHAP duties during the weekday. When auditors asked, Williams was unable to produce any LTCDC records or time sheets showing the specific hours his employees worked on the DHAP. In fact, the audit points out that he had no records of specific hours worked by any of his employees. Williams responded that such documentation was not necessary because the hours worked by him and his employees far exceeded the maximum 40 per week allowed by the contract.
Williams also told KLFY TV-10 that Durel, state Rep. Rickey Hardy and LHA board member Donald Fuselier lied about his involvement in the alleged improprieties that took place. In his perplexing response to the audit, Williams claims his employees did so much work on the DHAP that the LHA actually ended up making $1.5 million on the taxpayer funded program. KLFY checked out the claim with the HUD monitor who is serving as interim executive director of the LHA; Dan Rodriguez told the TV station he had no idea what Williams was talking about.
Read more about the DHAP and Williams’ role in this week’s lead news story.
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.
Most Read
in case you missed it
Subscribe to this comment's feed
--------------------------------
Finally, someone says it.