By now, thanks to the Internet and network TV news, virtually everyone in the U.S.—and apparently some foreign countries—knows about the ham-handed manner in which the Vermilion Parish School Board shut down one of its teacher’s comments during a recent board meeting.
The manner in which Kaplan middle school English teacher Deyshia Hargrave’s was cut off from speaking and subsequently manhandled by a city marshal was carried out with all the tact, consideration, delicacy, and diplomacy of Donald Trump discussing immigrants from $*%#hole countries.
And the fact that the school board employed the CITY MARSHAL who was previously accused of using excessive force against a 62-year-old man in poor health to carry out the handcuffing and arrest of Hargrave certainly didn’t help matters in what overnight brought national and international negative attention to Louisiana.
And the announcement by the city prosecutor that Hargrave would not be prosecuted only enhances her chances of reaping a financial settlement subsequent to the lawsuit she is almost certain to file for her rude treatment and public humiliation.
To provide a little background for anyone who may not have heard, Hargrave was at the board meeting to protest a $30,000-per-year proposed salary increase for School Superintendent Jerome Puyal (from $110,190 to $140,188) while teachers, cafeteria workers and, support staff received no salary increases. School Board President Anthony Fontana, an Abbeville attorney who has been on the board about a quarter-of-a-century, promptly gaveled her into silence, proclaiming her comments were not germane to the board’s agenda.
One report had Fontana referring to Hargrave, parish’s 2015-2016 teacher of the year, as “the poor little lady” in an INTERVIEW subsequent to the meeting. That charitable reference is almost certain to absolve him of any culpability in what has become a public relations nightmare sufficiently grievous to attract the attention of the ACLU and teachers’ unions, not to mention network television news.
But that all could have been avoided had Fontana simply consulted in advance with the good folks at Gravity Drainage District 8 of Calcasieu Parish Ward 1. Not those folks know how to shut a dissident up quietly and efficiently.
The secret is to get an attorney who isn’t afraid to threaten the dissident and a judge who can ignore the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and issue an order that the dissident may not make public records requests nor have any contact with any members or employees of the gravity drainage district.
Or, better yet, have a gaggle of judges file suit against a newspaper to prevent it from seeking public records from the court.
Problem solved.
Never mind that the gravity drainage district hired with Billy Broussard to remove debris from drainage canals following Hurricane Rita under a FEMA contract and then instructed Broussard to remove older pre-storm debris and that he would be paid to do so.
But when FEMA said the older debris was not part of the project, the drainage district flat-out refused to pay Broussard about a million dollars that was due him for the work. Moreover, some of that older debris consisted of large cypress logs—still very much useful in construction—which mysteriously disappeared.
So, when Broussard attempted unsuccessfully to get reimbursed for his work, RUSSELL STUTES, Lake Charles attorney for the drainage district, wrote a testy letter to Broussard in which Stutes, elevating himself to judge status, threatened Broussard with jail time “the next time any Calcasieu Parish employee is contacted by you or any of your representatives with respect to the project…”
Stutes even filed a petition for injunctive relief to bar Broussard from contacting members or employees of the drainage district and from seeking public records. Incredibly, 14th Judicial District Judge David Ritchie signed the order for the INJUNCTION that bars Broussard from his constitutionally-guaranteed right to seek answers from a public body. That right is also guaranteed under Louisiana R.S. 42:4.1 et seq.
Likewise, the judges of the 4th JDC up in Monroe filed SUIT against the Ouachita Citizen newspaper in West Monroe in order to stymie the newspaper’s efforts to obtain public records from the court.
So, you see, Mr. Fontana, it really wasn’t necessary to shoot yourself in the foot by having the city marshal strongarm Ms. Hargrave, your defense that he was authorized to do so notwithstanding. That just brought unwanted attention to a board what was already contentious in its membership makeup—some of that disharmony stemming from the performance of the very superintendent to whom you trying to give an extra $30,000 per year.
All you had to do was have the board attorney (and you are an attorney yourself) to find a judge who would sign an order for injunctive relief which, while questionable in its legality, would nevertheless have shut Ms. Hargrave up.
For a minute, anyway, to borrow a phrase from Ron “Tater Salad” White, one of my favorite stand-up comics, which he tags at the end of this joke but which is deleted from this VIDEO.
Louisiana Voice 
Wow, Tom! This is QUITE a post!!
The bottom line is these public officials are scared to death of a camera and transparency! For instance, if you simply examine the documents on Broussard (they’re all available here: http://www.soundoffla.com/?p=630), how incredible that they would place him under a restraining order on obtaining public documents KNOWING FULL WELL that he was gathering documents for LSP to ostensibly conduct an investigation (he would later document via video that, regarding FEMA fraud, “We’re not even going to discuss that!”).
Also, if you click on the email I sent simply asking for several critical questions of concern to me to be answered (# 6 on the link), what transpires? Both Stutes and Gabb block my email address! Unreal, huh?
Again, great post, Tom!
I simply cannot overemphasize how scared these public officials are of a camera.
A case in point, I attended a public hearing of a state agency for the first time today. It is the ALL TIME BEST video footage I have EVER gotten in the history of my blog, and one of the state officials begged and pleaded with me NOT to videotape her!! While SHE was very familiar with me, the remainder of the attendees at the meeting did not know me from Adam. This one young lady, however, should have known that her pleas would fall on deaf ears!
Everything in me wants to release the video via a post immediately; however, we continue to gather more evidence, so I’ll release it at the time it is most damning and effective to do so in tandum with other material I expect will accompany the video footage.
Keep of the great work, Tom!
I look forward to your sure-to-be entertaining video, Robert.
Like I reminded all the good Troopers. VIDEO, VIDEO, VIDEO it all. The real rats are fearful to be exposed. No one should fear a camera while doing PROPER WORK, but it looks like we have many top officials fearing the VIDEO Camera. Why is that??? They don’t have an answer to that question.
So, the key to committing injustice is effective use of the justice system that is supposed to protect us from it. What a country, as Yakov Smirnoff says. I loved that Tater Salad joke, btw.
I think y’all are “missing the boat” in this particular case.
This case involves Ms. Hargrave, attempting to override, subvert, circumvent the assigned duty of a legally authorized governmental body, ie, the Vermillion parish school board. The subject matter concerning Puyau’s salary increase was not on the school board’s agenda that evening. As such, bringing the subject matter up, after Fontana “ruled” against her, made her out of order. Yes, it was a denial of Free Speech, but it was a legal, judicially accepted denial of Free Speech.
Over the years, the Supreme Court has carved out areas of free speech not covered by the First Amendment. Essentially, Free Speech does have limitations. For example, speech directed toward the overthrow of the government, ie, treason, or speech that falsely and unfoundly defames and injures another person, ie, libel and slander, are just a couple of examples.
In this case, the Vermillion parish school board, like every other governmental body in existence, has the right and responsibility to establish the agenda concerning the subject matter for discussion, ie, protocol. It is not up to nor can a citizen change the stated agenda without the approval of the body in question-plain, simple, end of story. Such behavior would not be condoned by any governmental body, local or state.
Furthermore, I would ask, what would Ms. Hargrave do if she had an unruly, screaming, uncontrollable child in here class room? A child that would not respect her, ignore her, in essence, prevented her from teaching other children in her class. I dare say she would tolerate such a situation-analogous as it may be-and defend the child’s Right to Free Speech. Under such conditions, Ms. Hargrave would be unable to perform her duties.
The same can be said with respect to a governmental body meeting.
I assume you’re the defense attorney who will be defending the inevitable lawsuit on this pathetic situation.
Here’s me being tossed out when I was simply trying to ANSWER a question posed OF ME by a Board Member (Karen Hazel, wife of State Rep. Chris Hazel) and after it was ME who got shouted at BY the Executive Director of the agency, Sandy Edmonds, who had been committing (and these are NOT my words but those of Patrick Lowery, the then-head of Accountability of Civil Service) “blatant payroll fraud.”: https://youtu.be/VTCPhwpAjh4.
Despite all this, I have no doubt that if Hargrave files her claim in State District Court, she will come up empty because the VAST, VAST, VAST majority of those judges side with the governmental agency no matter what the facts of the case are.
Anyway, good luck, and even if you “win,” the defense costs are going to be through the roof, and oftentimes I wonder if incidents like this are welcomed because attorneys then know the billable hours clock is about to start ticking!
BTW, if you’re interested in just what all transpired and how HELL-BENT the Interior Design Board (including Karen Hazel) was to permit Ms. Edmonds to perpetrate the payroll fraud, visit here: http://www.abolish-idb.com/toss_out.htm.