Sometimes the answer is so obvious it would seem absurd to even ask.
But ask he did.
Sen. Conrad Appel (R-Metairie), he of the $345 per month Pentagon Barracks apartment (Nov. 29 post), has been thwarted by the Louisiana Ethics Board in his effort to bid on contract work with the Louisiana Recovery School District.
Appel requested a determination as to whether his company may bid on work with the Recovery School District.
The Recovery School District was established by R.S. 17:1990 “to provide an appropriate education for children attending any public elementary or secondary school.” The district is funded with state and federal funds and is administered by the Louisiana Department of Education, subject to approval of the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE).
The Louisiana Legislature, of which Appel is a member, passed R.S. 17:1990 and also appropriates funding for the Department of Education, BESE, and the Recovery School District.
In A Dec. 20 opinion, ethics board attorney Tracy Barker informed Appel that “the Code of Governmental Ethics would prohibit your company, if you own an interest greater than five percent, from bidding on or entering into a contract with the Louisiana Recovery School District.”
Barker added that state statute “prohibits a legislator and any person who has been certified by the secretary of state as elected to the legislature or the spouse of such person (or) any legal entity of (such) person from entering into any contract with state government.” (Emphasis ours.)
State government, Barker said, is defined as any branch, agency, department, or institution of state government. “The Louisiana Recovery School District was created by the legislature under the administration of the Department of Education, subject to the approval of BESE,” she said. “As such, the Louisiana Recovery School District is an agency of the Department of Education.”
Louisiana Voice 
Hooray. Tracy Barker, you’ve restored at least much of my confidence in the State Ethics Board. Keep up this good work.
And as for you Conrad Appel, at least you asked for a ruling. That’s more than I fear many of your cohorts in the legislature would do.
Keep up the watchdog efforts Louisiana Voice. We need you to continue to play your important role in keeping insider greed in check.
Dear Mr. Sachs,
The article that you responded to makes it appear that I am somehow being “greedy” or, worse, trying to take advantage of my position. I frankly resent the tone of this article as well as the author not giving me the courtesy of at least asking for my side of he issue.
The facts are that the cited school construction projects are wholly funded by Federal funds through FEMA not the state. I had asked the Ethics staff to advise me on whether my company working on a project funded in this manner fell under the law and they told me that I had to request a formal decision from the Ethics Board. This I did and you see the result. Actually if the staff had just told me that then the issue would have stopped there but clearly they felt that the law was unclear on such as case. Therefore an accusation that the answer to this issue was obvious is just wrong! Just the opposite, to clarify special cases in law is precisely why we have an Ethics Board!
I have every right as a citizen of this state to operate my business in a lawful manner and I will do so. There is no “greed” involved in building a company from scratch and doing whatever it takes, as long as it is lawful, to operate it so that it and its employees are successful and prosper. I believe that that is what has made America great.
If the author of this blog was sincere in trying to create a good climate for our people then he wouldn’t try to make such good faith efforts, as mine was, to abide by the rules sound like something that it was not. In fact by dragging honest people like me through the dirt he creates the very atmosphere that we have worked so hard to undo. That is, if honest people can’t serve in government and still, in a legal and ethical manner, operate a good business then who will want to ever enter politics? The answer is those who would want to twist and work around the rules and that is exactly where we had been for decades. I refuse to allow anyone to drag us back into that morass, just as I will never cave into accusations or innuendo .
Public transparency is important but so is legitimate discourse.
Conrad Appel
Senate
[…] THE READ: Tom Aswell over at LouisianaVoice.com noted in a post on the ethics ruling, “Sometimes the answer is so obvious it would seem absurd to even ask. But ask he did.” After a snippy remark in the readers’ section, Appel himself weighed in and explained he was only trying to do the right thing: “…if honest people can’t serve in government and still, in a legal and ethical manner, operate a good business then who will want to ever enter politics?” (https://louisianavoice.com/2010/12/29/legislator-told-he-cant-do-business-with-state/) […]