The DA is charged with enforcing the state law.
In mid-November City-Parish President Joey Durel dismissed, for the second time, LHA commissioners John Freeman, Joe Dennis and Leon Simmons, citing several violations of the state’s open meetings law after the three went into executive session in a special meeting Oct. 26. Present at the meeting were television and newspaper reporters (including this reporter), along with state Rep. Rickey Hardy, LHA Human Resources Director Lydia Bergeron, and LHA Administrative Assistant Danielle Carmouche, wife of former LHA deputy director Jonathan Carmouche. On Jan. 28 Harson issued subpoenas for Hardy, Bergeron and Danielle Carmouche to testify at a 10 a.m. hearing on Feb. 14. Retired Judge Arthur Planchard, who has been appointed judge pro tem by the state Supreme Court, is scheduled to hear the case, according to the Lafayette Parish Clerk of Court’s office. Planchard will temporarily hear cases assigned to District Judge Ed Broussard, who is presiding over a major medical malpractice lawsuit, according to the clerk's records.
The October executive session meeting was held the day after LHA Executive Director Walter Guillory and his deputy resigned. Members of the media and others were asked to leave the building so an executive session could take place, and they waited outside of the LHA’s Section 8 building on Kattie Drive for 30 minutes before being invited back in.
Board member Dennis adamantly denied in a letter to Durel that the board went into executive session that day. After inviting the media back into the meeting, the board members informed those present that they only discussed giving Freeman authority to sign checks for the LHA. While they had intended to discuss Guillory and Carmouche’s employment, that was no longer necessary because they had resigned, the media were told. The minutes summary of the meeting, prepared by Danielle Carmouche, reflect that an executive session did take place. But they contradict Durel’s contention that the session was not lawful. While the meeting was tape-recorded, the tape mysteriously turned up blank.
In his complaint, Durel claims the board did not openly vote to go into executive session, did not state the purpose for the executive session (what personnel matter it would take up) and failed to vote to go back into open session, all clear violations of state law. Additionally, Durel noted in a Nov. 19 letter to the three board members that they failed to indicate on the agenda the precise purpose for the executive session and that a copy of the open meetings law is not posted at the offices of the LHA, as is required by law.
The open meetings law calls for fines of up to $100 per violation, Harson is suing the trio for four separate violations.
Durel removed the three board members in August after an independent audit revealed widespread mismanagement at the LHA and led to state and federal investigations. The three board members are again appealing their dismissal; they were reinstated after their first removal by District Judge Ed Rubin. Lafayette City-Parish Council Chairman Kenneth Boudreaux, who took their request for an appeal off the council agenda, is awaiting the outcome of Harson's case against them before allowing them move forward with an appeal to the council, the first step in their potential reinstatement.
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.
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Leslie, hear is your chance to exercise your investigative journalistic bonafides. Just ask Hardy the question. Just ask!
After he tells you how he paid all of his business taxes, go to the northside and talk to the people who worked for him and you will know what I know which is that this guy is a major fraud.
Leslie, Northsidian just questioned your journalistic abilities-show your stuff now.