Reggie Tatum wasted no time retaliating against the person he thinks was responsible for removing him as mayor pro tem of Opelousas after Tatum blew the whistle on questionable city contracts.
On Friday District Judge Donald Hebert reinstated Tatum as mayor pro tem, saying a revised June 14 meeting agenda failed to adequately alert Tatum of a discussion and vote on his removal. It was Mayor Donald Cravins Sr. who asked to add the item to the agenda, and Cravins who broke the tie vote to remove him. Actually aldermen Julius Alsandor, Louis Butler Jr. and Jacqueline Martin voted for Tatum’s removal, and the three remaining aldermen (yes, there are six) abstained.
Tatum’s return to the post was a political blow to the former state senator turned mayor, but Tatum wasn’t done after Friday’s ruling. He teamed up with three of Cravins’ other adversaries, state Sen. Elbert Guillory (whom Cravins now says he may oppose this fall), state Rep. Rickey Hardy and Opelousas Alderman at Large Joe Charles in asking U.S. Attorney Stephanie Finley to investigate the city in the wake of a troubling state legislative audit of its operations and those of the Opelousas Housing Authority. The audit is already in the hands of DA Earl Taylor and the state attorney general.
“We have identified a pattern of illegal behavior for both governmental units and involving many of the same persons, with the same person directly in control,” the four men, who make up a self-appointed task force looking into problems with the local housing authority, write in a letter to Finley. The housing authority is already under federal investigation.
The task force expanded its scope after the state legislative auditor released a compliance audit of the city’s operations earlier this month. “All of the audits and investigations reach the same conclusion: Opelousas City Government and the Opelousas Housing Authority have become dominated by illegal practices, driven by politics that are costly to taxpayers,” they added.
The task force members reiterate troubling findings of the legislative auditor’s report on the city, including felony theft of scrap metal sales, a common practice by the mayor of granting fee waivers for city workers and friends to use public buildings, bid law violations, lack of a competitive selection process for contracts and no written contracts detailing the duties of several people receiving monthly retainers.
The task force, however, says it has identified problems the state auditors missed, including a no-bid contract awarded to Tibberly Richard to develop a website for the city. “After several months of payments and no work, the [aldermen] rescinded the contract and directed the City Attorney to recover the funds. The aldermen also discovered that someone else built the website,” they wrote. Tatum says it was he who began questioning Richard's contract, one the main reasons he fell out of favor with the mayor. Tatum says he asked a representative of the company that built the site if Richard was doing any work on the site to justify getting $800 a month. "When I told them she was getting $800 a month, they were in awe," he says. "The lady told me they had to show her how to turn on the computer."
In a phone interview with The Independent several weeks ago, Cravins said it was the city’s comptroller, not he, who hired Richard for the work. Richard also was contracted to do work for the OHA, and those contracts were questioned by legislative auditors as well. The housing authority hired Richard’s Vital Communications to develop and publicize what was called a “Pilot Program for Homeownership,” paying the company $73,335 in monthly installments from December 2006 to October 2009. An addendum to one of two contracts with Vital indicates one was implemented retroactively, the auditors pointed out. Vital Communications also used a housing rental unit as its office — without HUD’s approval.
Cravins said he had nothing to do with Richard getting the work at the city or the housing agency. “Absolutely, unequivocally never even mentioned her,” he said.
Read more about the OHA audit and Richard here.
The task force also alleges that city grants and loans were made in exchange for kickbacks and maintains that an alleged victim, Cora Isaac, is willing to cooperate with federal investigators. It also claims city employees close to the mayor are paid a monthly vehicle allowance and given gas cards.
The mayor did not a return phone call seeking comment for this story.
Read the full legislative auditor’s report, which investigated certain aspects of the city’s operations from July 2007 to September 2010, and management's response to it 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.
Most Read
in case you missed it
Subscribe to this comment's feed