Testifying in the federal bribery trial of former New Orleans tech vendor Mark St. Pierre, Lafayette Consolidated Government Chief Administrative Officer Dee Stanley said that four wireless routers were purchased by LCG in 2005 from St. Pierre’s firm, NetMethods, for more than $22,000. At the time, Lafayette city officials had no idea the devices had been donated, but serial numbers on them now reveal that they were among 50 donated to New Orleans by Tropos Networks of California in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, The Times-Picayune reported.
These wireless nodes, or routers, that transmit data were purchased under a state of Louisiana contract that set the price at that time. The price was neither set nor negotiated by LCG.
When the equipment was donated to help after the storm, another of St. Pierre’s firms, Imagine Software, was a subcontractor in the New Orleans technology office. Read more from the T-P here.
LCG’s involvement with St. Pierre led the city to fire Chief Technology Officer Keith Thibodeaux in October of last year after U.S. Attorney Jim Letten filed a motion alleging St. Pierre paid kickbacks to Thibodeaux in exchange for work. It was revealed at that time that St. Pierre had hired Thibodeaux’s wife, Celeste, in 2005 and paid her $80 an hour to work on his contract with the city of New Orleans. St. Pierre billed New Orleans about $100,000 for Celeste Thibodeaux’s work. About the time Celeste was hired, NetMethods won a $45,000 consulting contract with LCG, followed by another $141,000 contract for crime cameras.
Neither Thibodeaux nor his wife were ever charged in the alleged kickback scheme.
Now in its second week, the high-profile public corruption trial took a shocking turn Monday, the T-P noted, when St. Pierre’s gofer, Jimmy Goodson, testified that his boss asked him to lavish public officials with booze, vacations, illegal campaign donations and hookers, among which was:
• Entertainment and sex on a yacht, and later in a Warehouse District condo, for former New Orleans technology chief Greg Meffert, who testified last week.
• Maintenance and repairs to Meffert’s Park Island home.
• Maintenance to former Mayor Ray Nagin’s property, also on Park Island.
• Illegal contributions to help Nagin’s 2006 re-election campaign and the 2004 Jefferson Parish School Board campaign of Ray St. Pierre, Mark St. Pierre’s father and the pair’s high school football coach.
• A Napa Valley vacation and hotel rooms in New Orleans for Baton Rouge technology chief Don Evans.
Read more in today’s T-P here and here.
JUNE 19 Former Saint Steve Gleason, who is paralyzed by ALS, released a statement Tuesday in response to the Atlanta radio station's skit making fun of him and the disease, this Picayune post reports. What did he say? He said he'd accepted the apology of the DJs who did it, notes that at least the incident has got people talking about ALS, and asks anyone who is burning to take action about it to do so -- by helping him fight ALS.
JUNE 19 Blogger Ian McGibboney takes a look at the Gleason incident in this post. He makes a good argument about the difference between having free speech and being free from consequences for your speech (which none of us is). He also admits that many of us got upset before we listened to the skit -- but lets us know that the reality is far worse than we can imagine. It was the incredibly bad judgment, even more than the actual speech, that probably got those DJs fired, he opines.
JUNE 19 Washington Post blogger Aaron Blake writes about Sen. Guillory's switch to the GOP in this post. He writes what most political watchers in Louisiana know: Guillory was a Republican before he decided to run for the senate seat in a mostly-D St. Landry district, and has switched back now that he plans to run for Lt. Gov. in a mostly-R state. But how come Blake missed Guillory's appearance on a TLC pageant show? Now that is a video we'd like to see. (Again).
JUNE 19 Here's another Washington Post blog post about a Louisiana politician, and it's just plain scathing. Ezra Klein says Jindal's Politico post was "insulting" to the intelligence of voters, and adds that Jindal is personifying the "stupid" he's railed against, by being an "elite" who convinces GOP activists of "things that aren't true." Me-ow.
JUNE 19 Here's Gov. Jindal's post in Politico, in which he asks the GOP to get over losing to Obama (again) and stop "the bedwetting." (Uh, what?) He gives his Republican buddies what is probably a nerd's idea of a coach's motivational talk, which starts with a list of accomplishments that they can't seem to exploit and ending with an absurd description of liberals that sounds like a character treatment for a Fox "News" movie scripted by Gordon Liddy. Sure, he's preaching to the choir, but even the choir's not this gullible.
JUNE 19 Lamar Parmentel read Gov. Jindal's post on Politico, but thinks it was so dumb it probably was published in the wrong paper. This post by Lamar on the Daily Kingfish opines that possibly Jindal's post was destined for the Onion -- because the governor couldn't possibly be serious here. If you listen closely, you can hear the staff of the Kingfish giggling.
JUNE 19 Blogger Robert Mann posts from Turkey, a country he has visited several times in the past few years. Mann gives an interesting overview of the current political and societal climate of the country, which -- if you're living under a rock and don't know -- is experiencing protests and turmoil these days. Mann promises to post as much as he can during his trip, which should be fascinating reading.
JUNE 19 Blogger CB Forgotston says the legislature is keeping the vicious cycle going with its funding of new buildings for the community college/technical college system. Universities across the state need maintenance and improvement on existing buildings, and the solution is to build new buildings at other schools? By the time the bonds are paid off, those buildings will be falling down, too, CB says.
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