There are so many ways a public agency can waste your taxpayer dollars. Some are out there for everyone to see like when contracts are awarded to a favored vendor even though that vendor didn’t have the low bid.
Or when a contractor is paid $175 per 100-square-foot tarps on rooftops in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina only to have the contractor (Shaw Group) subcontract the work to A-1 Construction for $75 a square and to have A-1 hire a second subcontractor, Westcon Construction at $30 per square, who finally pays workers $2 per square.
Other times, the waste is concealed from view and without someone doing a little digging, no one ever knows how thousands or dollars are frittered away by bureaucrats who nothing better to do than to quietly spread the spoils around among the politically-connected.
So it was in March of last year that Southern University’s Grievance Committee held hearings on the appeals of four professors who had been terminated. When the four professors indicated that they wanted the hearing to be in open meeting as opposed to executive session, their request was rejected out of hand.
The state’s open meetings law [R.S. 42:14 (A), (B), and (C)] allows for all personnel matters to be discussed [without any official vote being taken] in executive session unless the employee(s) being discussed requests that discussion be held in open session. Such request by the employee(s) would supersede any move for executive session.
But the Grievance Committee’s chairperson announced—without benefit of a public vote by the committee [also a violation of the open meetings statute] that a private vote had been conducted prior to the convening of the committee meeting at which it was decided to hold the executive session to discuss the professors’ grievance.
I was there to cover the hearing and the four professors and I promptly filed suit against Southern for violation of the open meetings law. The trial was held in 19th Judicial District Court in Baton Rouge.
Southern presented the unique argument that the school’s grievance committee was not a public body—even though every member was an employee of Southern and the committee was acting on behalf of Southern’s administration. Unique indeed.
Even more bizarre, Southern attorney Winston DeCuir, Jr., in his cross-examination of yours truly, tried to question my right to be a party to the suit by asking how many other events I’d covered for LouisianaVoice at Southern. The answer was none—as if that had any legal bearing on the matter at hand. He then asked why I picked that hearing to cover and I replied truthfully that I had been alerted that the hearing might produce an interesting story for LouisianaVoice.
The presiding judge had little problem in ruling for the four professors and yours truly, awarding a total of $5,000 ($1,000 per plaintiff), plus attorney fees and court costs. So, counting the award, court costs and attorney fees, we’re already looking at something approaching $8,000-$10,000 all because DeCuir did not provide proper legal counsel to the committee when it decided to break the law. [He was there and should have advised the committee that it was treading on thin legal ice.]
But Southern wasn’t finished. Rather than cut its losses and pony up the money, DeCuir appealed to the First Circuit Court of Appeal. Nothing like throwing good money after bad.
In January, the FIRST CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEAL handed down its decision. The lower court’s decision was upheld without a dissenting opinion. Unanimous, in other words.
Moreover, the First Circuit assessed additional attorney fees of $1,400 and additional court costs of $1,804. And that’s not counting what DeCuir will bill the university for his solid legal advice.
So, Southern learned its lesson, right?
Not quite.
At DeCuir’s advice, the university has now taken writs to the Louisiana State Supreme Court—all to argue that Southern University and its Grievance Committee are not public bodies.
Your tax dollars at work. Not a lot of money in the overall scheme of things, but an example how quixotic legal battles by state agencies make thousands upon thousands of dollars disappear into contract attorneys’ bank accounts.
Which also raises another question: Can defense attorneys always be counted on to give the best advice to clients when that advice might conflict with the attorney’s financial advantage of keeping the meter running?
Louisiana Voice 
Kudos, Tom. The government boondoggles will continue until and unless more like you stick-up for the taxpayers. SU should never be allowed to charge-off its expenses in this case. If SU is not a public body, then stop the public money immediately.
Jim Rogers: I agree. I would never know the inner workings of the corruption and waste of our tax money, were it not for Tom and reporters. However, what is it that we as voters can do? It seems we elect new public servants, etc. and as soon as they get to the “political swamp” they get sucked in or eagerly seek it. American corruption in government seems to run deep and wide and knowing about it and not knowing what to do about it somehow makes me feel complicit….nothing ever seems to change no matter who is elected. Perhaps it goes back to follow the money to see why such conduct is so prevalent…I have been asking this question for years and years and nothing seems to change. Sorry for the depressing rant.
Tom, I know Winston and I can’t believe he is still pushing the matter. I hope Winston isn’t following the lead of the executive director of the Bridge Center, who initially argued, after a public records request for a copy of the lease agreement between the operator of the Bridge Center and Collis Temple, that the lease was not a public record, because the Bridge Center is not named in the lease. However, no taxpayer funds were used to defend a suit, because Mr. Temple voluntarily released a copy of the lease. How could the lease not be a public record?
Good job!!
Congratulations! “Are you tired of winning yet?,” to quote our Dear Leader. Most of the management people in our public higher ed systems, like most of our politicians, are great examples of the Peter Principle. Not all, but many. The citizenry is so tired of this incompetence and corruption that they voted for our Dear Leader four years ago. And now they are voting for my cousin, Brooklyn Bernie. Do you think the establishment has gotten the message yet?
Re: SU 4 professors terminated
After reading this I disagree the reference Decuir Jr is the blame for any bad representation in fact the finger should be pointed to an employee who works with title of General Counsel and is housed in the President’s office. That particle person must -should always abide and follow NOT change the written approved bylaws but during the tenure of then employee who served at that time DID NOT. There is where problems originated wrongly!! Change happened much like how former governor Jindal practiced and it violates constitutional rights. I’m proud the professors stayed focused on their course and proved how good employees should be treated too because unclassified terminations increased a lot at SU.
I was one of the five plaintiffs and I can attest to the fact that Winston stumbled all through the lawsuit we brought against SU for the illegal executive session. He even asked me on cross examination how many times I had covered an event at SU, knowing full well that had no relevance to anything. Whether I had covered one meeting or a thousand, this was still an illegal executive session. That was a stupid question in every way imaginable and showed that he went into the trial completely unprepared. Further, he tried to make the absurd argument that the committee was not a public body when its sole purpose in being created and in meeting was to address personnel issues at SU as a board representing the university.
As a side bar to this controversy, the four professors and I won the trial and were awarded $1000 each – which the university still has yet to pay after several years. Meanwhile, judicial interest is accruing daily.
We can wait.