In what may go down as one of the worst bungles of the Jindal administration, the state has apparently lost for good an $80 million grant that would have helped extend broadband access to poor, underserved rural areas of Louisiana. Newspapers across the state reported Thursday that despite outcry from the Louisiana Public Service Commission, the Commerce Department said Wednesday that the decision to pull the funds from the state is final.
While the Jindal administration insists it did nothing to sabotage the grant application as a favor to private telecom interests, it has acknowledged that it opposed the project on the basis that it puts government in competition with private businesses.
Education Commissioner Jim Purcell, who accompanied Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater to a heated PSC meeting Wednesday, blamed the Legislature and a contractor hired by the Board of Regents (which applied for the grants) for the delays, The Times-Picayune reported:
“In my opinion, the biggest issue was ... the inability of the design contractor to meet deadlines,” [Purcell] said.
But Philip Meyers, executive vice president of the consulting company -- GEC, headquartered in Baton Rouge -- said that it was on target to get the job done in time, and that its termination during the summer had nothing to do with missing any deadline.
"I think there were other forces at work," he said. ...
[PSC Commissioner] Campbell said the only way to save the grant now was for Jindal to fly to Washington and meet with President Barack Obama "eyeball to eyeball" with "his hat in his hand" and Sens. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and David Vitter, R-La., in tow.
Read the T-P story here and The Advocate story here.
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.
Most Read
in case you missed it
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Go, Bobby, go!