The state Office of Public Health this week will begin posting online certain portions of inspection reports for restaurants, bars and residential and day-care centers.
The website, according to The Advocate, will allow the public to see specific “critical” and “noncritical” public health violations found in restaurants — but the data will not be posted until seven days after an inspection takes place.
Also included in the database will be info on 8,800 stores, 4,700 bars, 2,500 day-care and residential facilities, and others. Not included, though, will be overall number or letter grades of the businesses, a practice DHH tried in 2005 and later abandoned:
The agency is responsible for licensing and permitting nearly 32,000 retail food establishments through its food safety certification program. Restaurants account for 50 percent of the total.
Other parts of the site would provide the public with food safety information, such as tips for: tailgating parties, preparing a child’s school lunch, and alerts when there are food-related scares.
State Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Bruce Greenstein said people should have convenient access to public records, and today’s technology allows that to happen, rather than making people wade through reams of paper.
The website announcement follows an investigation by The Daily Advertiser that maintains the website was launched only after the daily’s extensive probe of inspections. Its report finds that Louisiana is one of only 10 states that doesn’t post inspections online, and says that even after the info is posted publicly, it won’t include the full reports:
The DHH has gone with a new, objective approach to inspections, simply listing restaurants’ critical and non-critical violations. “There’s no way to say what the best restaurant is in the government’s point of view,” Greenstein said.
Critical violations, or immediate health hazards, are listed first. These violations might have to do with cross-contamination of raw and cooked food, a rodent or insect problem or improper food temperatures.
Non-critical violations are listed next. These violations could become critical if not repaired. These violations include dirty utensils, improper food storage and unclean floors.
MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
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