Louisiana Voice

LouisianaVoice is 10 years old!

We started out way back when with a long story about all the perks legislators receive – including those select few who get to rent apartments in the state-owned Pentagon Barracks across the street from the State Capitol at bargain basement rates.

We were unable, of course, to give you a discreet peek behind the walls of those apartments to learn what occurs in all those after-hours parties but we were able to give you a bird’s eye view of how legislators collect per diem payments for days when neither the House or Senate is in session – like weekends.

We were there when they tried to sneak that illegal retirement pay raise for State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson back in 2014 and that one story spawned dozens of follow-up stories about abuses in the Louisiana State Police administration that eventually forced Edmonson into retirement (minus that aborted pay raise).

We’ve pointed out the blatant HYPOCRISY in the manner in which the LSU Athletic Department is run, comparing the coddling of jocks and coaches with the hair-trigger firings of people like dental school faculty member Dr. Randall Schaffer, biomedical researcher Steven Hatfield, coastal scientist Ivor van Heerden, associate professor Teresa Buchanan, and Drs. Roxanne Townsend and Fred Cerise.

Recently, LouisianaVoice pointed out the decade-long ruse by Congress in pretending to be on the side of victims of a quirk in the SOCIAL SECURITY regulations that could be fixed so very easily – if those in Congress were only serious about the lip service they pay to efforts to change the law.

LouisianaVoice has given extensive coverage to legal and humanitarian problems experienced by a private prison company headquartered in Ruston, Louisiana.

We were the very first to call out a couple of SHERIFFS in St. Tammany and Terrebonne parishes who tried to invoke a law declared unconstitutional in 1964 in order to punish critics of the two sheriffs. Those two incidents have prompted a bill in this year’s legislature to finally expunge the voided statute from the Louisiana lawbooks.

We devoted so many stories to former Iberia Parish Sheriff Louis Haik (including a video of deputies turning vicious dogs loose on helpless prisoners in a holding area) that we eventually lost track but did note that during his 12 years in office, Ackal was paying out an average of $10,000 per month in settlements and judgments.

In fact, our coverage of wayward sheriffs actually grew into a book entitled Louisiana’s Rogue Sheriffs: A Culture of Corruption which in turn is evolving into a sequel: America’s Rogue Sheriffs: A Culture of Corruption.

All this is to say we did this the first seven years free. We don’t accept advertising (except for Cavalier House Books whose owner, John Cavalier, built our web page) and we don’t charge a subscription fee. But there are, unfortunately, bills to pay. We have to pay for copies of records, gasoline (travel has become more frequent and more distant in recent years as we expand our coverage statewide), and not least of all, legal fees.

We recently were called on to pony up nearly $5,000 in legal fees – for a single investigation. It wasn’t litigation; it was just legal research into a major project we’re still working on.

And when public agencies refuse to comply with the state’s public records law, we sue. Suing costs money in terms of court costs and (if we should lose – and we did lose one), attorney fees.

With that in mind, LouisianaVoice holds two fundraisers each year – April and October. Last April, in the face of growing unemployment as a result of the pandemic, we deferred. Since then, I’ve asked that readers contribute only if they feel comfortable in doing so.

I’m not like the televangelist who insists that viewers contribute regardless of their financial situation – that any gift will be rewarded by the Almighty. I can’t con people that way. I simply ask you to give what you can – but only if you can.

You may contribute by credit card by clicking on the yellow DONATE button in the column to the right of this post. It will take you to my PayPal page and you may enter your credit card information there. (It’s not necessary that you have a PayPal account to contribute in this manner.) Go to the icon to the right of this post. If you prefer, you may simply send a check to LouisianaVoice, P.O. Box 922, Denham Springs, Louisiana 70727.

For those contributing $125 or more, you may select your choice of a signed copy of one of my two most recent books: Louisiana’s Rogue Sheriffs: A Culture of Corruption, or Bordello on the Bayou (a novel based on a true story of a Baton Rouge madam who catered to Louisiana’s politically powerful). Be sure to state your preference and to provide your mailing address.

As always, your support of our efforts is appreciated more than you know.