Along with registered lobbyists like Lafayette’s Randy Haynie and former U.S. Rep. Bob Livingston, a slew of high profile individuals appears on a list of people identified as “lobbyists” by the embattled Jefferson Parish landfill company.
That list, seized by government officials when they raided River Birch’s Gretna offices last year, was obtained by The Times-Picayune. Among those on the list were Timmy Teepell, Gov. Jindal’s chief of staff, and Garret Graves, his executive assistant for coastal activities. Both deny any financial relationship with River Birch owner Fred Heebe.
Lafayette’s Henry Mouton, 54, admitted this summer to using his position as a Wildlife and Fisheries commissioner to lobby public officials statewide in an attempt to keep the Old Gentilly Landfill closed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. He admitted to receiving 170 checks totaling $463,970 from an unidentified “co-conspirator” in return for his efforts, which also included trying to prevent the Two Rivers Recycling Landfill from opening in Catahoula Parish.
Mouton could spend up to five years in prison and a receive a maximum $250,000 fine after pleading guilty Wednesday afternoon to federal charges of conspiracy to receive bribes and illegal payoffs.
In its story published late last night, the T-P reported:
The list, obtained by The Times-Picayune, is a compendium of lawyers, consultants, journalists, political officials and some actual lobbyists who, at least tangentially, orbited the waste management issues that plagued the New Orleans area during the tumultuous months after Hurricane Katrina.
The list offers further evidence that Heebe’s River Birch Inc. ran a complex and concerted campaign to close the Old Gentilly Landfill in New Orleans, which had been shut down decades earlier as a possible environmental hazard but was reopened to collect construction and demolition debris after the 2005 storm.
Many of those on the list said this week they had never worked for Heebe or River Birch, indicating the list might be more a compilation of those who could exert some influence over the public perception of the Old Gentilly Landfill than a list of paid lobbyists.
Perhaps the most familiar name on the list is Garland Robinette, the WWL radio on-air personality who received $250,000 from Heebe in 2007 after using his talk show to question the environmental integrity of rival landfills.
Read the T-P story here and reporter Stephanie Grace’s analysis of Robinette’s ethical dilemma here.
MAY 21 Gambit columnist Clancy DuBos writes about the Mother's Day shooting, and how the stages of shock and blame and healing mirror those traveled by the same city following Hurricane Katrina. The city will recover, just as it did following the storm, by reaching out to help the people injured most seriously by the event, DuBos writes. It's how we heal, he says.
MAY 21 Here's a post on the Advocate (but buried on a subpage, not on the front) that reports something Louisiana Voice reported some time ago: a top DOE official lives in Los Angeles and "commutes" to Baton Rouge. The positioning of the story caused a stir on Facebook Monday, with several posters asking if the Advocate was covering someone's hiney. Sentell's stories on DOE are notoriously soft, and this one is no different: don't expect any hard questions in here.
MAY 21 Here's another post from blogger Tom Aswell about the "course choice" program. He's already reported on kids being signed up without their consent or knowledge, and has more here: For example, he tells of a six-year-old who was signed up for high school Latin. He also digs a little deeper into the sister companies of the main one operating in Louisiana; all of them seem to have complaints against them. Stinky.
MAY 21 Given the 80 percent cut in higher ed funding since he's been in office, it's clear Gov. Jindal would rather give tax cuts to out of state companies than have a functioning system, blogger Dayne Sherman argues in this post. The cuts have been such a disaster, Sherman says, that it will take 30 years to fix what's been broken. He says he believes the aim is to shut down most of the schools before Jindal leaves in 2016.
MAY 21 Blogger CB Forgotston says there are too many elections in Louisiana, and they're costing us too much money. The proof is in the pudding: turnout for most of these nonsensical pollings gets worse and worse, CB opines, even as millions of dollars that could be spent on health care or higher ed go down the tubes. The legislature must take action to stem the tide of pointless elections, he says.
MAY 21 Here's an interesting investigative piece by WVUE on the retirement benefits of some Jefferson Parish public employees. According to the story, the taxpayers are paying 100 percent of the retirement contributions of employees who started work prior to a certain date in April 1986 -- and have done for more than 30 years. It costs the parish millions annually, and might not be legal, the story reports.
MAY 21 This post on Bayou Buzz provides insight from Louisiana's intrepid pollster, Bernie Pinsonat, on the winners and losers from this year's legislative session. But to hear Bernie tell it, there's almost nuttin but losers: Jindal, the Republican party, the Fiscal Hawks all get big goose eggs in his win column.
MAY 20 This post on The Lens takes a look at a huge (either $500K or $250K) bill that one NOLA charter now has for school lunches. The RSD says the charter group didn't fill out the proper paperwork for federal reimbursement, but the story details how the RSD didn't ensure the people running the charter had the proper training, despite requests from hapless charter employees trying to fill out forms. Either way, somebody's asleep at the wheel.
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