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Archive for the ‘Ethics’ Category

Conflict? What conflict? Just give me the money

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Contract, Contracts, Ethics, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Transparency on March 30, 2011| 2 Comments »

The nation’s “most transparent” and “most ethical” administration is becoming more transparent with each passing day but the ethical part is looking a little shaky.

A Hammond firm that has one $380,000 contract with the state and another to oversee a $20 billion claims fund resulting from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 men last April and spewed nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico hosted a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser for Gov. Bobby Jindal on Tuesday of this week.

The $1,000 is just to attend the event. If one wanted to be listed as a “host,” the ante was $5,000.

Worley Catastrophe Response, which also has had contracts with the Louisiana Office of Risk Management, was the primary host, and even made its Hammond training facility available for the event.

The Louisiana Code of Ethics, which apparently does not apply to elected officials, forbids state employees from accepting gifts from vendors.

But not to worry. Worley CEO Mike Worley was careful not to push the envelope insofar as the state ethics laws are concerned. He contended the event was on the up-and-up and that no ethics protocol had been breached because the function was held after business hours.

Apparently Worley’s contracts are rendered null and void after 5 p.m.—or at least placed in a state of suspended animation.

And, of course, Jindal ceases being governor “after business hours.”

Horsefeathers.

This is simply another case of Jindal’s twisting the rules to suit his needs and apparently those needs are all monetary. His campaign already has $12 million in the bank with no opponent in sight. The only candidate even mentioned thus far, Caroline Fayard, attempted to self-destruct in Bogalusa earlier this week with some off-the-cuff venom directed at Republicans in general. To say anyone, even Republicans, “eat their young” is a bit over the top and likely not to play well in north Louisiana.

But back to Piyush and his new take on the code of ethics. Remember: he was fined $2,500 back in 2008 for his failure to disclose $118,000 in expenditures by the state Republican Party on his behalf.

And now he allows a fund raiser in his behalf to be hosted by a firm holding fat state contracts. And he sees no conflict of interest.

Beautiful. Just beautiful. Sometimes even smart people learn slowly.

“People who support us are supporting our agenda and not the other way around,” the governor said. Now, if someone could just tell us what he meant by that ….

“I’m a resident of the state of Louisiana, and I support the governor,” Worley said. Apparently that overrides any silly old ethics laws. Erlichman and Haldeman supported Nixon, too, not that we’re drawing any comparisons.

Jindal’s press lackey Kyle Plotkin said the governor saw nothing inappropriate about the fund raiser. “Obviously, the governor is running for re-election, and he wants the support of all people in Louisiana,” he said.

Jindal and Attorney General Buddy Caldwell in February filed papers in U.S. District Court in New Orleans asking a federal judge to oversee the oil leak claims process.

Louisiana Democratic Party spokesman Kevin Franck called the fundraiser a conflict of interest for the governor who he said “is essentially taking money from somebody who works for BP at the same time he’s supposed to be holding BP accountable.”

State Rep. John Bel Edwards (D-Amite) was at a loss in trying to understand how Jindal did not see what Edwards said was a clear conflict in complaining about the claims process while attending a fundraiser at the headquarters of one of the claims adjusters.

He said Jindal should avoid any appearance of a conflict, regardless of whether or not he has an opponent. He added that because he has no opponent, however, “It may mean that he’s able to get away with it.”

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Seafood Promotion Board wants consultant to promote seafood; Angele Davis wants part of the BP $15 million

Posted in Contract, Contracts, Ethics, Governor's Office, Transparency on March 22, 2011| 2 Comments »

A routine opinion of the Louisiana Ethics Board has raised red flags over the involvement of former Commissioner of Administration Angelé Davis and an international public relations firm with a checkered past that wants a lucrative contract with the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board.

Fleishman-Hillard, headquartered in St. Louis but which has more than 80 offices on six continents, apparently has partnered with Davis to take advantage of Davis’s state experience in efforts to secure a consulting contract with the board that could ultimately be worth millions of dollars.

Davis, who was appointed Commissioner of Administration by Gov. Bobby Jindal, resigned last August to accept a position with infrastructure and construction services company Arkel International of Baton Rouge. She served as deputy commissioner under former Gov. Mike Foster and headed up the Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism under former Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu during the administration of former Gov. Kathleen Blanco.

She is still employed by Arkel, but attempts to contact her on Monday reached only her office voice mail.

Now, it seems, she has formed a company called the Davis Kelley Group to freelance efforts to negotiate with a consulting company seeking a government contract. Kelley is her husband, 19th District Judge Tim Kelley.

The Davis Kelley Group’s corporate papers were registered and filed on March 3, less than a month ago, according to the Louisiana Secretary of State’s Office.

The business address of The Davis Kelley Group is the same as her and Judge Kelley’s residence, records show.

In Baton Rouge, any business run from a residence requires an occupational license. A check with the City Revenue and Taxation Office revealed no such occupational license has ever been granted to that or any other business at that address.

Davis is barred by state law from entering into contracts with state agencies for herself for a period of two years but the Ethics Board said she is not prohibited from contracting with a consulting firm that in turn is seeking such a contract.

At stake is a share of up to $15 million of the BP Oil Spill Rebranding/Market and Perception Recovery Fund established to assist the state’s seafood market in its recovery from last year’s catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil spewed freely from the BP Deepwater Horizon well from April 20 to Sept. 19 before the flow was finally shut off.

The Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board has issued a 95-page request for proposals (RFP) for a consulting contract to assist the board in promoting Louisiana seafood.

The submission deadline for proposals is April 3 and the deadline for reviewing the proposals is April 19.

The top three firms will make their presentations on April 25 with the final selection of a consulting firm to be made later that week, according to the RFP.

In a letter dated March 21, the Ethics Board responded to Davis’s inquiry as to the propriety of her firm providing consulting services pursuant to a proposal anticipated to be submitted by Fleishman-Hillard.

“As part of your agreement with Fleishman-Hillard, if the contract is awarded to the company, you will provide consulting services and assist the company in its contract with the….board,” the letter said.

“You also stated that you would not enter into a contract with the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board and would not assist Fleishman-Hillard in any transactions with the Division of Administration, an agency with whom you terminated your employment relationship as Commissioner in August 2010.”

The letter informed Davis that she was not prohibited from providing the consulting services “in the manner described” if the firm is awarded the contract.

“Since you will not be entering into a contract with a state agency or assisting Fleishman-Hillard in transactions involving the Division of Administration, the Ethics Code does not prohibit you from assisting the company if it is awarded the contract…”

Fleishman-Hillard, founded in St. Louis in 1946, has enjoyed many lucrative federal contracts, beginning with a minor $39,000 contract in 1998. From there, the firm’s federal contracts ballooned to $33.6 million the next year.

Among the federal agencies that have awarded Fleishman-Hillard contracts are the Social Security Administration, the Library of Congress, the EPA, and the Department of Defense.

But all has not been rosy with the firm’s history.

In 2005, the City of Los Angeles sued Fleishman-Hillard for flagrant overcharges to the city’s Department of Water and Power between 1998 and 2004. In 2005, the public relations firm paid the city $5.7 million to settle the litigation after one former employee testified that she routinely billed about 10 fraudulent hours per week at a rate of $180 per hour. “You had to fake your hours or you weren’t billing enough time to be profitable,” she said.

The publisher of one trade publication blamed the pressure to overbill on Omnicon, the advertising parent of Fleishman-Hillard. He described Omnicon as being “manic about max hours being billed out to clients.”

Before that, in 1990, G.P.U., the New Jersey utility that owns the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, paid Fleishman-Hillard, its only outside PR firm, about $600,000 to supplement the company’s lobbying efforts. Fleishman-Hillard was retained by Standley Hoch, who left General Dynamics Corp. to become the G.P.U. CEO. In 1991, Hoch hired Susan Schepman away from Fleishman-Hillard. Only later was it learned that the two had an intimate relationship and Schepman had influenced Hoch to hire Fleishman-Hillard while she was a Fleishman-Hillard executive responsible for the General Dynamics account during Hoch’s tenure there.

In 2008, the firm secured a contract with the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy to “debunk the misconception that marijuana was harmless.” That was a full one-eighty from its position seven years earlier, in 2001.

It was a 2001 promotion that led to the real damage to Fleishman-Hillard’s credibility last year when the State of Ohio awarded the PR firm a $400,000 contract to run its campaign to reduce fatal drug overdoses despite the firm’s having once been a paid consultant for Purdue Pharma, manufacturer of one of the highly addictive painkiller Oxycontin. It was in 2001 that Fleishman-Hillard spearheaded a PR campaign to convince the public and regulators of the benefits of the drug while downplaying its dangers.

In 2007, Purdue Pharma and its three CEOs, Michael Friedman, Howard Udell, and Paul Goldenheim, pleaded guilty in federal court to misleading physicians and patients about the addictive and abusive qualities of Oxycontin.

So now it all comes down to this:

A former high official in the Jindal administration and wife of a state district judge is moonlighting to take advantage of her knowledge of state government in an effort to help secure a potential multi-million-dollar contract for a firm with a past record of overbilling, conflicts of interest, back-door deals, and questionable PR campaigns to promote a dangerous drug.

But, hey! It’s just another day at the office in Louisiana state government.

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Public records? We don’t need no stinkin’ public records

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Ethics, Governor's Office, Public Records, Transparency on March 19, 2011| Leave a Comment »

If one has a fetish for dizzying double-talk and head-spinning subterfuge, the office of the governor of Louisiana is the place to be. If that is impractical, as it is for most of us, then an attempt to communicate with Bobby Jindal’s office would probably rate a close second.

Capitol News Service (CNS) recently made such an attempt and the results would have been comical were it not for the fact that this is supposed to be the office of state leadership and inspiration. But if your idea of leadership and inspiration is Larry, Moe, and Curly, then you would probably find the results satisfying and fulfilling.

First of all, let’s be clear on two points right up front: one should never expect promptness in getting an answer and when you do get a response, don’t expect an intelligent answer.

We started in January with our attempts to obtain an accounting of the number of days that Gov. Jindal was absent from the state during 2010 for campaign appearances on behalf of other Republican candidates, for his own campaign fund raisers, and for promotions of his book, Leadership and Crisis.

That’s it. How many days was the governor out of the state during 2010? Period.

The request seemed simple enough for our purposes. Little did we know we needed to dumb it down for the governor’s office.

After four more official requests, we finally received a response but only after we found it necessary to give his staff a refresher course on the Louisiana Public Records Law. And even then, the response was mystifying.

A letter dated March 4 arrived by email from Deputy Executive Counsel Elizabeth Baker Murrill. In her letter, she demanded a check in the amount of $5. Okay, that’s not going to break us. We’ll pay that.

In her letter, she made a vague reference to “privilege, exception, exemption, or other limitations” and then alluded to financial records for campaign-related travel, which she said were not kept in the governor’s office.

Now, any paper shuffler in a position as high as deputy executive counsel to the governor should know that a simple accounting of the number of days the governor was gone from the state is in no way subject to “privilege, exception, exemption, or other limitations.”

Moreover, not once did CNS request financial records for campaign-related travel in any shape, form or fashion. Not once.

So, we dutifully remitted our $5 check along with a letter or our own. In our letter, we reminded Ms. Murrill that we were not seeking a financial accounting of the campaign trips—just the number of campaign trips on behalf of other candidates, book promotion trips, and personal campaign fundraising trips. That’s all.

We subsequently received a letter dated March 11 by traditional mail. In that letter she said, “On March 3, we notified you that the public records we could locate that were responsive to your requests were ready to be copied or reviewed.”

Well, first of all, it was March 4, not March 3, that I was first contacted by Ms. Murrill and secondly, the only records she said were available at that time was a list and cost of state-issued cell phones in use by the governor’s staff. That was in an earlier, separate request and the information had been previously provided. Maybe she was just having a bad day.

But then she reiterated, “We further advised that we do not have custody of campaign-related records, which are not public records.”

Besides her insistence on her office’s not having records for which we never asked, she is dead wrong in the last part of that sentence. Campaign expenses certainly are public record. In fact, politicians have been fined for failure to be forthcoming with complete campaign finance reports. Gov. Jindal himself was the subject of one of those fines. In 2008, he paid a $2,500 fine for his failure to report more than $100,000 spent on his behalf by the state Republican Party.

Let us know how that non-public campaign records theory works out for you, Ms. Murrill.

She then said, “Your requests seek a compilation of information, some of which is not contained in public record. Moreover, a legal mandate to manufacture and compile information in response to a request is not required pursuant to the public record laws. Nevertheless, in an effort to be cooperative, we searched for records that might be responsive to your request.”

Again, we beg to differ, Ms. Murrill. Nothing we requested would fall outside the definition of public record. And as far as a “legal mandate” to manufacture and compile information in response to a request “not being required pursuant to the public records laws,” we can only suggest that you take a remedial law course–or perhaps Civics 101– because again, you are dead wrong. You might start with a thorough reading of LA. R.S. 44:1-41. That should clear up any questions you might have about the public records law.

Then, along with what appears to us to be an incomplete accounting of the number of out-of-state trips the governor made during 2010, Ms. Murrill inexplicably included three pages that contained some type of financial accounting. There was no explanation, so there is no way of knowing what the payments, which totaled $65,898.85, were for.

With this kind of stellar legal advice, one would have to wonder what’s in store for the state as this administration continues to blunder its way through its bizarre policy decisions like selling off state assets in exchange for a quick but oh-so-temporary financial fix.

Just don’t bother the governor with pesky public records requests.

After all, when staffers questioned the legality of a proposed action by the Division of Administration last year, they were told, “Don’t be bound by the law.”

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Louisiana Voice introduces Jindal Bingo

Posted in Civil Service, Education, Ethics, Governor's Office, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Privatization, Taxes, Transparency, Vitter on February 17, 2011| 1 Comment »

Okay, readers, LouisianaVoice is introducing a new game for everyone to play. It’s called JINDAL BINGO.

You play it just like you play regular bingo except instead of letters and numbers, Jindal catch-phrases will be called out and when you have a square that is labeled with the catch-phrase that is called, you cover it with a kernel of pure corn. The first person to complete a vertical, horizontal, or diagonal line with five straight kernels is the winner. The prize, we’re sorry to say, is another four years of Jindalisms.

Okay, get your cards ready and let’s play:

We’re in the state 90% of the time

Transparency

Stop whining

I have the job I want

Do more with less

Will be forthcoming

Veterans’ medals

A great idea!

Privatize

Three things:

Leadership and Crisis

Absolutely

BP

Merge UNO and SUNO (No one in New Orleans voted for me anyway)

Berms

No pay raise for classified employees

More berms

Gustav

Merge Tech and Grambling? No way. North Louisiana loves me.

Screw up State Employee Health Insurance Contract

Blame the moratorium for everything

Will not take stimulus money

Took stimulus money but didn’t tell anyone

FREE SPACE: DID NOT ENDORSE VITTER

Most ethical administration

Student-based budgeting

Building a better Louisiana

Race to the Top. No, wait. TOPS. I meant TOPS.

Chicken plant

Vitter who?

North Louisiana Protestant church testimony

Veterans Honor Medals

Deep Water Horizon

Photo-op

Hands-on leadership

Accountability

Tax breaks

No tax increase

P.S. Please feel free to log on and add any other Jindalisms you can recall. We need as many as possible to make the game competitive.

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Legislator told he can’t do business with State (but at least he asked)

Posted in Contract, Contracts, Ethics, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Recovery School District, RSD on December 29, 2010| 3 Comments »

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.”

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