Despite that area mayors have asked him to set the record straight, by this morning Billy Nungesser had yet to pull down a post from his facebook page with inaccurate information concerning area mayoral endorsements of him.
His spokeswoman, Amy Jones, has yet to follow through on her word that she would be back in touch with this paper to explain the mix-up.
“It’s clearly not an honest mistake,” says Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne, whom Nungesser is challenging for the second highest seat in the state. Nungesser is president of Plaquemines Parish.
Tuesday at 12:14 p.m. The Independent received an email from Nungesser’s campaign claiming that 15 mayors from communities throughout Acadiana and the Louisiana Gulf Coast had come together for breakfast at Café Des Amis in Breaux Bridge to endorse the Plaquemines Parish president for lieutenant governor. Within hours of posting the story, we started getting calls from local mayors, including Glenn Brasseaux of Carencro, Hilda Curry of New Iberia, Jack Dale Delhomme of Breaux Bridge and later Billy D’Aquilla of St. Francisville. All four said they had only been asked to hear Nungesser speak and maintain there was no mention of an endorsement.
“It’s another example of misrepresentation and deceitful action,” Dardenne says. “They were lured there under the pretense to meet Billy.”
On Wednesday, Dardenne issued his own list of 23 mayors' endorsements (at least one endorsement touted by Nungesser, D’Aquilla, is now on Dardenne’s list):
• Mayor Barney Arceneaux, Gonzales.
• Mayor Clarence Beebe, Hornbeck.
• Mayor Mike Cooper, Covington.
• Mayor Billy D’Aquila, St. Francisville.
• Mayor Jimmy Durbin, Denham Springs.
• Mayor Clarence Fields, Pineville.
• Mayor Mayson Foster, Hammond.
• Mayor Cedric Glover, Shreveport.
• Mayor Lawrence Henagan, DeQuincy.
• Mayor Jackie Johnson, Winnsboro.
• Mayor Burke Jones, Greensburg.
• Mayor Jamie Mayo, Monroe.
• Mayor Wayne McCullen, Natchitoches.
• Mayor Glen McGlothin, Ferriday.
• Mayor Robert Myer, New Roads.
• Mayor Tommy O’Con, Robeline.
• Mayor Betty Olive, Bastrop.
• Mayor Ron Roberts, DeRidder.
• Mayor Bill Robertson, Minden.
• Mayor Robert Rose, Leesville.
• Mayor Jacques Roy, Alexandria.
Since The Independent posted the story Tuesday, the only apology of sorts came via a tersely worded statement from Mayor David Camardelle of Grand Isle, who had invited most of the mayors to Tuesday’s gathering. “I organized this morning’s breakfast with Billy Nungesser. Some of the mayors were simply there to meet Billy. These elected officials were not identified to the campaign. It was a simple misunderstanding,” Camardelle wrote.
Dardenne also has received support from The Shreveport Times, The Monroe News-Star, The Times-Picayune, Gambit, Baton Rouge Business Report, The Daily Comet and The Courier of Houma. He also earned the endorsement from the Alliance for Good Government, the National Rifle Association, the Baton Rouge Area Chamber's FuturePAC and several other industry and political groups.
View Nungesser’s facebook page here; this morning the post was less than half way down the first page.
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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