C’EST BON
Louisiana — Lafayette in particular — continues to outperform much of the nation in weathering the recession. The Hub City is ranked ninth in the latest annual list of America’s 25 best-performing cities. The Milken Institute, an independent think tank, ranks cities based on a number of factors including job creation, salaries and industrial/economic activity. Baton Rouge landed at 18th on the list and Shreveport-Bossier came in at 24th. All three metro areas showed improvement over last year’s rankings: Lafayette moved up from 14th; Baton Rouge from 40th; and Shreveport-Bossier from 67th.
PAS BON
Lafayette may be riding out the recession relatively well, but it’s been a bumpy ride for many of our community’s non-profit agencies as individuals and companies pull back their charitable donations. Acadiana Outreach, which helps individuals and families affected by substance-abuse transition to healthy, productive lives, is one such agency in desperate need of help. One estimate that crossed our collective desk has AO’s donations down 50 percent in the last several months. Tomorrow’s Palates & Paté fundraiser could be a make-or-break event for the non-profit. For more, see this week’s LivingIND cover story.
COUILLON
Just when we think we have state Rep. Rickey Hardy figured out, he hits the enigma button. The colorful, quotable Lafayette lawmaker and former school board member last week found the sweet spot where legislative power and hurt feelings converge, sticking it to the Lafayette Parish School System to the tune of $746,000 in Louisiana Educational Excellence Fund money. The funding, drawn from the 1998 court settlement with Big Tobacco, is distributed to public school systems for drop-out prevention and other programs. The LPSS apparently failed to honor the protocol of contacting its House representative (Hardy) to supplicate, “Please? Pretty please? With sugar on top?” In a pique, Hardy offered a motion during a joint House-Senate Education Committee hearing to distribute the funding to all parishes except Lafayette. Twenty-four hours of crackling brouhaha later, Hardy softened his stand and suggested he may revisit the funding in December. Heretofore, Hardy has proven himself a champion of public education, but this latest episode has left us scratching our head.
In rendering his ruling, District Judge John Trahan all but called the real estate developer a liar for inconsistencies in his accounts of what prompted him to punch a school teacher unconscious.
Frank’s Casing Crew, now doing business as Frank’s International, will make its final appearance on ABiz’s list of the Top 50 Privately Held Companies in Acadiana this year, and once again, it will likely be at the top with more than $1 billion in annual revenues. The 75-year-old company specializing in tubular fabrication and installation services to the oil and gas industry plans to go public this year.
The defeat, or rather highjacking of House Bill 420 in the final days of this year's Legislative Session, say Reps. Vincent Pierre and Terry Landry, is the result of the propaganda spread by one unidentified local media outlet and an unnamed former state Representative, but nothing to do with the original legislation's lack of checks, balances or details.
City-Parish Council Chairman Brandon Shelvin heaped steady doses of condescending ire on a Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Louisiana executive while failing to reveal his financial ties to a BC/BS rival.
Abbeville native David Primeaux was a popular professor until his death late last year, and while he was successful at camouflaging a dark past, he couldn’t outlive it.
Tehmi Chassion’s failure to recuse himself in the school board’s selection of a group health benefits provider raises ‘serious questions’ on whether he violated state ethics law.
He’s a singer. A songwriter. A piano man. A family man. He’s even got his own Wikipedia entry. He’s David Egan. And he knows ancient secrets about the monolithic stones of Stonehenge that he’s not willing to share.
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