Wednesday, May 9, 2012
C'EST BON
Nearly 15 years in the making and created out of the tragedy of beloved Lafayette musician (and physician) Tommy Comeaux’s death in a cycling accident in 1997, a bachelor’s degree in traditional music — read, Cajun and zydeco — is nearly a reality at UL Lafayette.
PAS BON
Local officials appear to have been simply doing their jobs in the case involving allegations of inappropriate touching by a Lafayette teacher — except for the police department’s decision to arrest Katie Champagne, 30, for indecent behavior with juveniles before collecting more evidence.
COUILLON
How quickly will the St. Martin Parish School board burn through $88,000? Infinitely more quickly than it took the 450 acres of cypress and tupelo trees in a swath of the Atchafalaya Basin to grow into a harvestable commodity.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
C’est Bon
We have a feeling the success of INNOV8 Lafayette will be felt for some time to come — and far beyond what its organizers even imagined.
Pas Bon
Gov. Bobby Jindal and his Economic Development Secretary Stephen Moret are flying high through the corporation-lined clouds as they tout the state’s low unemployment figures and stable economy as reasons for supporting big-business tax breaks and other corporate exemptions that the Jindal administration has been steadily handing down.
Couillon
State news outlets have been quick to harp on Gov. Bobby Jindal’s extensive out-of-state travels since he took first office in 2008, but even frequent-flyer Jindal hasn’t racked up the 41 days of national and international travel that state Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon has acquired since March 2011 — more than $20,000 worth of free trips paid for by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, a national group with established ties to the insurance industry.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
C’est Bon
A controversial bill that critics say would have given privately run, publicly funded charter schools the right to discriminate against gay students is all but dead in the Legislature.
Pas Bon
A Rayne mother is facing four counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of four of her five children, ages 8 and younger, who died late Saturday night in a fire that consumed their mobile home.
Couillon
There’s little dispute the “New Orleans Saints have produced countless exciting and magical moments for the city of New Orleans, the state of Louisiana, the Gulf Coast region, and the entire country,” as Metairie Republican state Rep. Cameron Henry’s House Concurrent Resolution 50 emphatically states, but Henry’s bid to get National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell to re-reconsider the arguably harsh punishment levied on the Saints in connection with Bounty-gate is pointless at best.
Wednesday April 18, 2012
C'est Bon
The coalition of independent civic groups working to improve public education in Lafayette Parish has increased its membership with the addition of three new member organizations — the Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office, the Pugh Family Foundation and the Upper Lafayette Economic Development Foundation — joining the Lafayette Parish Public Education Stakeholders Council.
Pas Bon
If the last week is any indication, it’s going to be a very muddy late summer and early fall. Although he hasn’t formally announced yet, it’s clear U.S. Rep. Jeff Landry, R-New Iberia, will go after Lafayette Republican Rep. Charles Boustany’s seat in what promises to be an ugly campaign.
Couillon
When Vincent Pierre, now a state representative for Lafayette, announced last summer his intention to challenge incumbent Rep. Rickey Hardy in the October 2011 election — an election he won in a November runoff — he signalled he would run a campaign focusing on improving the educational and economic fortunes of his relatively impoverished district.
Wednesday April 11, 2012
C'est Bon
A portion of the “racino” revenues state Treasurer John Kennedy says “rightfully belongs” to the St. Landry Parish School System has been restored to the struggling district after Gov. Bobby Jindal unsuccessfully tried to funnel the money to the state’s Medical Assistance Trust Fund (read DHH).
Pas Bon
Three of The Daily Advertiser’s longtime newsroom employees — a wealth of institutional knowledge — have accepted early retirement offers and will leave the company mid-month.
Couillion
Steve Dimmick, owner of The Wild Salmon, a Foreman Drive bar and welcome addition to Lafayette’s live music scene, was outed as the man with a plan from a can following a recent profile in The Times of Acadiana.
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
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