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Even after being tagged for $800 and costs, Kristy Nichols, DOA continue to withhold records sought by LouisianaVoice

Posted in Boards, DOA, Ethics, Governor's Office, Lawsuits, Layoffs, Public Records, Transparency on May 6, 2015| 8 Comments »

As an illustration of the arrogance of Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols and the Division of Administration (DOA), one need only examine the most recent “compliance” to our request for public records in the matter of former Louisiana Housing Corporation (LHC) Executive Director Frederick Tombar, III. https://louisianavoice.com/2015/04/21/frederick-tombar-a-key-jindal-appointee-resigns-260k-job-at-lhc-following-internal-investigation-of-sexual-harassment/

Even as the parties to our lawsuit against Nichols and DOA were awaiting the start of our case in District Judge Mike Caldwell’s courtroom on Monday, DOA’s legal counsel asked our attorney about our post of Sunday, May 3, in which we revealed that DOA was sitting on another request of ours. We made simultaneous requests, we explained, to DOA and to an office under DOA (LHC). The office responded with the records but DOA still had not complied nearly two weeks after our request was submitted. https://louisianavoice.com/2015/05/03/louisianavoice-v-la-doa-goes-to-trial-monday-we-need-your-help-to-defray-legal-costs-that-will-continue-on-appeal/

But don’t just take our word for it. Here is a column by Robert Mann from nearly two years ago:

http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2013/05/louisiana_government_is_making.html

The attorney for DOA, upon being told what records we had requested, promised us we would have the records on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, apparently buoyed by only a partial victory by us, DOA responded with partial compliance as some sort of weird game of gotcha.

The records we received from the LHC contained 16 pages. The records provided Tuesday by DOA contained four pages.

DOA insisted in the trial of our earlier lawsuit against DOA (also before Judge Caldwell, who, in that case, ruled against LouisianaVoice altogether—do we see a pattern here?) that we were not being singled out for deliberate non-compliance or the withholding of records despite DOA’s historically taking weeks and even months to provide requested documents.

Yet, withholding 12 pages of a public record (the LHC board, with the concurrence of legal counsel, had previously decided that the investigative report into allegations of sexual harassment against Tombar was indeed public) certainly appears to us to be deliberate—and against the law.

Here’s the gist of the investigative report:

LHC board Chairman Mayson Foster asked the DOA Office of Human Resources to conduct an investigation on April 13 into claims by two female employees (one, a contract employee and the other a full-time employee of LHC) that Tombar, who lives in New Orleans, had pressured each of them to spend nights with him in his hotel room when he was in Baton Rouge for board meetings.

(The report, as it should, withheld the names of the women and LouisianaVoice has never requested that information. We respect the employees’ privacy; we only wanted the investigative report.)

The harassment of the first employee, a contract worker, began on Nov. 19, 2014, the report said, when Tombar and the employee separately attended a luncheon for the agency. Immediately following the luncheon, he “friended” her on Facebook and Instagram and made repeated requests for her to join him after work for drinks.

The employee made excuses to avoid doing so but then his advances became even stronger as he began to request that she spend the night with him in his hotel room during his stays in Baton Rouge. Specifically, emails provided LouisianaVoice by LHC (with the name of the employee properly redacted) show that Tombar asked her to spend the night with him on Feb. 10, 2015, the night before an LHC board meeting.

Even though she was a contract employee, Tombar promised her in his emails that she would be “safe” from layoffs and then asked her again to spend the night with him on April 7, 2015.

Eventually, the woman blocked his calls and filed a formal complaint and asked that she continue working but away from Tombar.

The second woman, an employee of LHC, said she attended a conference in New Orleans on Feb. 7-9, 2015 and that on March 19, she received an email from Tombar saying he would be staying overnight in Baton Rouge and asking her to stay with him overnight in his hotel room, a request she declined.

He repeated the request on April 7 before she sought relief in the form of a formal complaint in which she said she wished to keep her job but to work “away from Mr. Tombar,” the report said.

In one Instagram message provided LouisianaVoice as part of the record, Tombar asked one of the women, “You’re cool with my having a wife at home?”

The report’s conclusion said:

“Inform

  • “Information gathered from claimant interviews as well as a subsequent review of electronic messages sent to both claimants by Mr. Tombar clearly establish a pattern of sexual harassment and hostile work environment. Specifically, Mr. Tombar’s declaration that (the first claimant’s) position would be protected from layoffs while (simultaneously) trying to establish a sexual relationship with her presents clear evidence of quid pro quo sexual harassment. Additionally, the use of sexually explicit content in electronic messages to LHC employees and contractors presents clear evidence of a hostile work environment.”

The report further said the women “should have been more direct and forceful” in putting Tombar on notice “that his advances were unwelcomed and unwarranted, which they acknowledged in their interviews.” At the same time, the report pointed out that the women were fearful of losing their positions because of Tombar’s position as Executive Director and Appointing Authority within LHC.

Attempts to interview Tombar by DOA’s Human Resources Department “to provide him an opportunity to refute and defend those claims” were thwarted when Tombar abruptly resigned his $260,000-a-year position on April 21, the report said.

Tombar was appointed to head LHC after passage of Senate Bill 269 by State Sen. Neil Riser in 2011. The bill, which became Act 408 upon the signature of Bobby Jindal, consolidated three former agencies into one: the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency, the Road Home Corp., and Louisiana Land Trust. That consolidation became effective on Jan. 1, 2012 and Jindal named Tombar to head the new agency shortly after that.

Tombar earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Government from Notre Dame University and later attended Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government where he earned a Master in Public Policy degree.

He directed the Road Home Program following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Road Home served as the largest single housing recovery program in U.S. history.

LHC currently is house in an elaborate structure on Quail Drive across from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center just off Perkins Road in Baton Rouge. LOUISIANA HOUSING CORP.(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE)

The agency has 125 employees and a payroll of more than $7.9 million. Besides Tombar, eight other employees make more than $100,000 per year, according to State Civil Service records.

http://doa.louisiana.gov/boardsandcommissions/viewEmployees.cfm?board=273

In an April 6, 2015, message to one of the women, Tombar said, “Jindal has a claim to my time until 5. Any plans after are negotiable.”

The employee, in an apparent effort to put him off, responded, “Maybe next time.”

In the most explicit message provided by LHC, Tombar sent a message that gave the definition of “sunrise surprise” from the online Urban Dictionary: “To wake someone up at exactly 6 am by having rough anal sex with them.” There was no response to that message.

As for DOA’s pattern of non-compliance with our requests, our attorney has suggested that we pursue criminal charges against Nichols in addition to our civil petitions.

It’s certainly an option we’re keeping open although Attorney General Buddy (or is it Bubba) Caldwell (no relation to the judge) has certainly revealed his reluctance to pursue the interests of the citizens of this state over such mundane matters as public records.

So, it would fall to the East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore.

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Judge splits the baby in LouisianaVoice public records litigation; Nichols held personally liable for fine, costs

Posted in Contract, Contracts, Courts, DOA, Ethics, Governor's Office, Judges, Lawsuits, Media, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Public Records on May 5, 2015| 9 Comments »

It’s curious how a judge can look directly at a clear violation of a law, yet somehow concoct a ruling favorable to the violator and completely disregard the rights of more than 4 million citizens of Louisiana.

That, in our humble (but admittedly biased) opinion was what occurred in the Baton Rouge courtroom of 19th Judicial District Judge Mike Caldwell on Monday.

At the risk of sounding like Bobby Jindal in calling a ruling that went against him “wrong-headed,” we will at least attempt to lay out the details of the case along with the reasons for Caldwell’s ruling so you may decide for yourself if justice was done.

Our lawsuit against the Division of Administration (DOA) and Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols was based on four separate public records requests with which DOA took its sweet time in complying—and, in the case of the most egregious violation, did not comply for three full months and then only after we filed our lawsuit.

Caldwell did throw us a bone which, to our satisfaction, had a little meat on it. He held in our favor on one of the four requests, assessed $800 in fines plus court costs and (best of all) held Nichols personally liable.

So, unless there is an appeal, Nichols, and not the state, will be required to write a personal check and the money will not come out of the taxpayers’ pockets (of course the salary of DOA’s staff attorney is picked up by John Q. Public).

But back to the one that sticks in our craw and leaves us perplexed and angry at the manner in which Caldwell bent over backwards to let the state off the hook for the most flagrant violation, one that had he ruled differently, could have cost Nichols thousands more in fines.

In that case, we submitted a rather detailed request for public records on Oct. 14, 2014 relative to the state’s $500 million contract with a California outfit called MedImpact, which is contracted to administer the Office of Group Benefits’ pharmaceutical program.

At the same time, we had a legislator to make a nearly identical though somewhat less detailed request through the House Legislative Services Office (HLSO).

HLSO received an email at 3:15 p.m. on Oct 23 to the effect its records were already downloaded to a CD and would be delivered by DOA. Here is the content of that email:

“You requested the MedImpact contract, Notice of Intent to Contract, ratings, and recommendations for awarding the contract. Please note the contract contains some proprietary and/or confidential information that has been redacted under La. R.S. 44:3.1. We have scanned these records. They are too large to email, so I can bring a CD over. I heard you’re out of the office. Do you want me to drop it off for you or wait until you get back?”

The records were actually delivered to the House offices on Oct. 24, 2014.

For our part, we found it necessary to send a second request on Oct. 19 because DOA had failed to respond to our initial request as required by law. Here is that section of the law, courtesy of the Public Affairs Research Council (PAR):

  • “If not in “active use” when requested, the record must be “immediately presented.” The custodian is required to delete the confidential portion of a record and make the remainder available. If it is unreasonably burdensome or expensive for the custodian to separate the public portion of the record from the confidential portion, the custodian must provide a written statement explaining why. If the record is in “active use,” the agency must “promptly certify this in writing” and set a day and an hour within three working days from receipt of the request when the record will be available.” http://www.parlouisiana.com/citizensrightscard.cfm#exempted

 

Remember that part about “unreasonably burdensome and the requirement for a written statement from the custodian of the record. We will be referring back to that part because Judge Caldwell took it upon himself to determine the unreasonableness of our request even though the state never made that argument. Thus, Judge Caldwell made the state’s argument for them.

When I made my second request, I received a response on Oct. 21 estimating the records would be available “on or before October 31, 2014.” Here is a copy of that email:

  • From: Tameika Richard
  • Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2014 12:21 PM To: ‘azspeak@cox.net’
  • Subject: PRR re: Pharmacy Benefit Management RFP

“Mr. Aswell,

Pursuant to your public records request, we are still searching for records and/or reviewing them for exemptions and privileges. Once finished with the review process, all non-exempt records will be made available to you. It is estimated the records will be available on or before October 31, 2014.

Public Records Requests

Division of Administration

State of Louisiana

Email: doapublicrecords@la.gov”

 

We still had not received the records by the time we filed our lawsuit on Jan. 16, 2015, but almost miraculously, they were delivered to our attorney’s office on Jan. 23, precisely one week after the lawsuit was filed.

So, taking DOA’s promised delivery date of Oct. 31, 2014, and projecting it out to Jan. 23, 2015, discounting about 10 holidays and several weekends (which don’t count), DOA still should have been looking at penalties of upwards of $5,000 on just that one request.

But, Caldwell mused, our request was “broad,” making it difficult for DOA to comply in a timely manner. “I’ve had experience in other cases involving voluminous requests for information where much redaction had to be done (nothing was redacted from the records we received), so I know how difficult it can be for the state to drop everything and meet your demand,” he volunteered. Accordingly, he disallowed our request for damages—again, despite the state’s never having put forward the burdensome argument. But then, why should they when an obliging judge will do it for them?

Moreover, the $800 fine he did assess against Nichols was far less than it should have been for that one violation. The records in that case (travel records for OGB personnel) were first made on October 4, 2014, and we were told the records did not exist. We re-submitted our request in December, but the records were not made available until Feb. 18, 2015.

That fine should have been in excess of $3,000, not $800.

There are several conclusion we can draw from this:

  • Judge Caldwell completely missed—or ignored—the part where DOA promised the records “on or before October 31, 2014;”
  • His honor overrated the difficulty in producing records that already existed and were in the possession of DOA;
  • The judge has little concern for the public’s right to know what its government does, nor he have any sympathy for those who work to report those actions;
  • He simply could not bring himself to impose such a heavy fine against Nichols personally despite the clear intent of the law—so he arbitrarily set a low fine for the one request and simply denied the others.

At this point, we don’t know if the state will appeal Caldwell’s judgment. We can’t imagine Nichols rolling over so easily and writing a check for $800, plus costs and attorney fees. After all, the attorneys work for the state, not her, so what does she have to lose with an appeal?

As for us, we still must meet with our attorneys to decide how to proceed with a partial victory coupled with a stinging loss.

But the question here is just what will it take to get the courts to pay attention to what the state is doing and use the power of the bench to force compliance with the law? How long will the courts simply look the other way to the detriment of the citizenry’s right to know?

We’re told that Judge Caldwell is a good judge and a fair man but we certainly don’t feel as though we received fair treatment before him.

No, we didn’t go to law school and we don’t hold a law license. But we can read and the law is quite clear on the demands placed on governmental agencies to comply with public records laws. There is no ambiguity on that point.

And one other thing: If Kristy Nichols thinks we’re going to fold our tent and skulk away, she’s in for a rude awakening. We’re not going anywhere. There will be other requests and in cases of non-compliance, there will be more litigation.

That’s a solemn promise.

 

 

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LouisianaVoice v. LA. DOA goes to trial Monday; we need your help to defray legal costs that will continue on appeal

Posted in Corruption, DOA, Education, Ethics, Governor's Office, Lawsuits, Public Records on May 3, 2015| 10 Comments »

 

LouisianaVoice needs your support—moral and financial—now more than ever.

The trial on our lawsuit against the Division of Administration begins on Monday (May 4) as we try to hold the administration accountable on the production of public records so that we may keep you informed on events as they take place.

Unfortunately, this administration is trying to see to it—deliberately, we are convinced, that we are not able to provide vital information about the machinations of your state government in a timely manner.

We have already told you about the records request we submitted simultaneously with an identical request by the House Legislative Service Office. The legislature got its records—the same ones we requested—within 10 days; we didn’t get ours until three months later and then only after we filed our lawsuit.

The Division of Administration (DOA) is currently sitting on another request or ours. We again made simultaneously requests of DOA and an office under DOA. The office in question responded with the records within three days or our request. It’s been nearly two weeks and we’re still waiting for DOA to comply.

This is the battle we fight almost daily with the Jindal administration—and they have said in their response to our lawsuit that they do not deliberately delay complying with our requests, that they do not single us out for delay.

That simply does not square with what a former DOA employee told us: DOA routinely gets our requested records and simply stacks them in a corner for weeks at a time before notifying us that we may inspect them.

DOA has—and continues to—open defy us in violation of the state’s public records laws (R.S. 44:1 et seq.).

But even more absurd, in its response to our petition, DOA claims that I have not suffered monetary loss, so the court should not assess damages against the state. That is in direct contradiction to the statute which sets fines of $100 per day for non-compliance. Period. The statute makes no mention of any requirement that the one requesting the records suffer monetary loss as a prerequisite for the assessment of a fine.

Were it not for quick access to the legislature’s public records (which are readily available, with no delay tactics or word games) by LouisianaVoice, that $55,000-a-year retirement pay raise for State Police Col. Mike Edmonson would have gone through.

Were it not for acquisition of public records from the Department of Education (in another, successful lawsuit) by LouisianaVoice, private records of hundreds of thousands of Louisiana public school students would have been made available to Rupert Murdoch of Fox News.

This is what we do.

And it costs money and untold hours of dogged research.

To continue our legal fight, we need your help.

If we win on Monday, DOA is certain to appeal.

If DOA wins, we most certainly will appeal. They believe they can starve us out with legal costs but we won’t back down.

Either way, the costs are going to continue to climb from what we’ve already laid out in expenses.

Please click on the Donate Button with Credit Cards button (not here, but near the top right part of our web page) to donate by credit card.

If your receive e-mail notices to our posts, you will need to click on Read more of this post or pull up the full web site by clicking on https://louisianavoice.com/

If you prefer to mail checks or money orders, please make payable to:

Capitol News Service/LouisianaVoice

P.O. Box 922

Denham Springs, LA. 70727

 

Whichever way you choose to contribute, your help in our fight to make state government more transparent and accountable is both needed and appreciated.

Thank you.

Tom Aswell, editor

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LouisianaVoice launches May fundraiser to help defray costs of legal battle with Jindal administration over public records

Posted in DOA, Finances, Governor's Office, Lawsuits, Legislature, Media, Public Records, State Agencies, Transparency on May 1, 2015| 5 Comments »

LouisianaVoice is launching its third fundraiser during the month of May and while past support has been appreciated more than you could ever know, this one has a greater sense of urgency to it than before.

Where the previous fundraisers helped defray the costs of travel and paying for public records, etc., this one will be used for an even more expensive—and more important—endeavor: covering mounting legal costs.

We are currently engaged in a court battle with the Division of Administration (DOA) over DOA’s pattern of delay in complying with the state’s public records laws (R.S. 44:1 et seq.).

To illustrate DOA’s tactics, here is one glaring example:

Last October 14, we made an official FOIA request for information pertaining to the $350 million contract between the Office of Group Benefits and a California company called MedImpact.

Believing DOA was deliberately stalling in complying with our requests, we had a friendly (but unidentified) legislator make the identical request through the House Legislative Services Office. That request was submitted the same day (Oct. 14, 2014) as our request.

On Oct. 21, 2014, we received the following response to our request:

  • Pursuant to your public records request, we are still searching for records and/or reviewing them for exemptions and privileges. Once finished with the review process, all non-exempt records will be made available to you. It is estimated the records will be available on or before October 31, 2014.

The House Legislative Services Office spokesperson received the following response to its request from DOA two days later, on Oct. 23, 2014:

  • You requested the MedImpact contract, Notice of Intent to Contract, ratings, and recommendations for awarding the contract. Please note the contract contains some proprietary and/or confidential information that has been redacted under La. R.S. 44:3.1. We have scanned these records. They are too large to email, so I can bring a CD over. I heard you’re out of the office. Do you want me to drop it off for you or wait until you get back?

So we were promised the records eight days later than the House Legislative Services Office and while that illustrates a deliberate delay on DOA’s part, it was not completely unreasonable and was hardly a basis for litigation. It didn’t even upset us that DOA would hand deliver the records to the legislature but require that I drive in from Denham Springs to review them.

But the fact is we never received the records—until, that is, after we filed our lawsuit in January of 2015. Once the lawsuit was filed, of course, they were immediately delivered to our attorney’s office—nearly three months after they had been delivered across the street to the legislature.

That was just the most egregious case, but we actually filed our lawsuit on the basis of  shorter but nevertheless unnecessary—and purposeful—delays in compliance with other several other requests.

The records we have requested are for actions by agencies of the state which affect you, the taxpayer. Because most media outlets are concerned with only the surface treatment of news stories, we attempt to pry deeper into the cause and effect aspect of state government—relationships between vendor and vendee, between elected officials and campaign donors, between contributions and contracts and board appointments. In short, we follow the money.

Government in general is uncomfortable with this and this administration in particular abhors scrutiny. That’s why DOA had instituted a deliberate strategy of delay when it comes to complying with our records requests. One former employee of DOA told us that it was common practice for DOA to get the records we request and then simply let them sit in a corner for weeks at a time before finally allowing us to inspect them. This is not the way to build trust between the government and the governed.

And it is not acceptable to us.

That is the reason we filed suit.

Our lawsuit is scheduled for trial this month and no matter which way the judge rules, the decision is quite likely to move to the First Circuit Court of Appeal. It’s that important to us if we lose and apparently, it’s equally important that the administration hide its actions from public examination.

Either way, it has already cost us a lot of money in terms of legal fees. And an appeal is going to cost a lot more. If we win, DOA will appeal in an attempt to make it cost-prohibitive to fight them by forcing us to continue paying legal costs until our resources are exhausted and we allow the case to abandon. That’s what happened with the case of a dentist who was pursuing legal action against the State Dentistry Board. DOA has attorneys on staff being paid with your tax dollars; it’s not costing Kristy Nichols a dime to stay in the game.

That is why we need your help now more than ever.

Please click on the Donate Button with Credit Cards button near the top right part of our web page to donate by credit card.

If your receive e-mail notices to our posts, you will need to click on Read more of this post or pull up the full web site by clicking on https://louisianavoice.com/

If you prefer to mail checks or money orders, please make payable to:

Capitol News Service/LouisianaVoice

P.O. Box 922

Denham Springs, LA. 70727

Whichever way you choose to contribute, your help in our fight to make state government more transparent and accountable is both needed and appreciated.

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LSU Board member Rolfe McCollister plays publisher while working to conceal board records from public examination

Posted in Boards, Campaign Contributions, Courts, Education, Ethics, Finances, Governor's Office, Higher Education, Lawsuits, LSU, Media, PACs, Politicians, Public Records on April 27, 2015| 9 Comments »

You have to love Rolfe McCollister, Jr. The man has done the following:

  • Was an unsuccessful candidate for mayor-president of Baton Rouge;
  • Contributed $17,000 to the campaign of Bobby Jindal in 2003, 2006, and 2008;
  • Served as treasurer for Jindal’s 2007 gubernatorial campaign;
  • Served as chairman of Jindal’s transition team following Jindal’s 2007 election;
  • Served as a director of Jindal’s first fundraising organization Believe in Louisiana;
  • Currently serves as treasurer of Jindal’s super PAC Believe Again;
  • Been appointed by Jindal as a member of the LSU Board of Supervisors.

Moreover, McCollister’s Louisiana Business, Inc. partner, Julio Melara has:

  • Contributed $7,500 to Jindal’s campaigns in 2007, 2010, and 2011 (his wife also contributed $1,000 in 2007);
  • Been appointed to the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District (Superdome Board).

At the same time, McCollister, apparently with a straight face, attempts to pass himself off as an objective news executive as Publisher of the Baton Rouge Business Report, even publishing a story by his staff today (Monday, April 27) on the long-running court battle by real news organizations to obtain the names of 35 candidates for the LSU presidency. https://www.businessreport.com/business/along-alexander-lsu-board-considered-candidates-texas-alabama-east-carolina-presidential-search-2012

Before the finger-pointing begins, let’s set the record straight. While McCollister carries the water for Jindal on such issues as protecting what should obviously be public records, firing an LSU president (thus, making the new hire necessary) and giving away LSU hospitals to a foundation run by a fellow LSU board member, he also purports to be an objective chronicler of political news.

We at LouisianaVoice, on the other hand, make no pretense at objectivity. We are opinionated and we freely express those opinions—and invite readers to do the same, both pro and con. We spent a quarter-century working for the so-called objective publications. But a political blog is very much like an op-ed opinion piece. McCollister should be familiar with those; he’s certainly seen enough of them from Jindal in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal.

Louisiana Business, Inc., led by McCollister and Melara, is the parent company of the Business Report, so both men are in the news business but nevertheless have continued to curry favor from the man they apparently believe will one day occupy the big house at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, D.C.

What is so particularly galling about Monday’s story about the release of the documents by the LSU board attorney is that a reader unfamiliar with the story would have no way of knowing that the publisher was complicit not in attempting to shine the light of transparency on a secretive board, but in participating in the board’s harboring of the information. Nowhere was a single word devoted to revealing that the piece’s publisher was a party to attempting to hide information from the public—an effort, by the way, that cost the state tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars in legal costs and fines.

As if that were not enough, McCollister, in his ever-diligent vigil to defend the public’s right to know, turned his guns on an LSU faculty member who was bold enough to criticize the LSU board in print over its efforts to keep its business away from the public’s prying eyes.

On April 1, McCollister, in a column titled The Two Hats of Bob, attacked LSU journalism professor Bob Mann who also writes a political blog called Something Like the Truth, which is also published in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. “Man is one to take full advantage of free speech and faculty tenure as he pontificates in his columns on all that’s evil,” McCollister sniffed. https://www.businessreport.com/politics/rolfe-mccollister-survey-reveals-contradictions-confusion

He was writing about Mann’s blog and the accompanying column that ran in the Times-Picayune in which Mann said the LSU Board was more loyal to Jindal than to the students at LSU and that the entire board needed to resign or be fired. In that column, Mann quoted from another McCollister essay in which McCollister “chided those in the news media who ‘sound like Chicken Little. Let me predict here and now, the world will not end for Louisiana or higher education during the upcoming session. Solutions will be found.’ What those magic solutions are, McCollister does not say,” Mann wrote.

“I asked a former seasoned journalist about the ethics of a faculty member who has a second job as a journalist and (who) writes about his university,” the publisher continued in that April 1 column. “He said, ‘Every good journalist knows that you cannot ethically cover the institution that pays your salary and the people who supervise the work you do for that salary.”

Oh, really? And just who was that “former seasoned journalist”? And was he a former journalist or just formerly seasoned?

As for ethically covering “the institution that pays your salary” (or in this case, appointed you and your business partner to two of the more prestigious boards in state government), doesn’t McCollister provide Jindal glowing press coverage at every opportunity? (Of course, whether that can accurately be called real “coverage” is still open to debate. There’s another word for it in the reporting business. It’s called fluff.)

“The ethical equation doesn’t change if a reporter vilifies those people (for whom he works),” McCollister continued. “Who is to say the reporter’s self-interest isn’t involved. When journalists don’t recognize this fundamental aspect of journalism, everything they write, on any topic, lacks credibility.”

Wait. We’re confused. Is McCollister still talking about Mann—or about himself? It’s really impossible to tell, considering all the self-interest and conflicts of interests involved in everything McCollister writes about Jindal.

But let’s review. McCollister, it seems, was also a member of the LSU Board back in 1992 when the state was in the throes of another financial crisis and cutting budgets. At that time, McCollister, indignant over the cuts to LSU, called for the arrest of the governor.

The governor? Edwin Edwards. http://www.nola.com/opinions/baton-rouge/index.ssf/2015/03/higher_education_budget_cuts_l.html

Mann responded to McCollister, of course. Anyone would. But rather than delve into their “he said, she said” exchange, let’s look at what others are saying.

The Hayride blog, which is somewhere off to the right of Rush Limbaugh, trumpeted its headline: “Bob Mann goes after Rolfe McCollister, but doesn’t have the numbers on his side.”

http://thehayride.com/2015/03/bob-mann-goes-after-rolfe-mccollister-but-doesnt-have-the-numbers-on-his-side/

Repeating the Chicken Little quote by McCollister, it added a quote by him which it accused Mann of omitting: “Business is strong in Louisiana and getting even better. I hear from many company CEOs who had a record year and look to grow and expand in 2015.”

(Perhaps that’s why Louisiana continues to rank third in the nation in our poverty rate and why Louisiana’s colleges and universities are looking seriously at declaring financial exigency.)

We’ll get back to The Hayride momentarily.

Red Shtick, a Baton Rouge publication that specializes in parody, took its turn at lampooning McCollister for his obvious double standard. http://theredshtick.com/2015/04/03/jindal-crony-who-pens-pro-jindal-editorials-accuses-professor-of-unethical-journalism/

Likewise, the Independent of Lafayette, one of the state’s better political publications, noted with some irony that McCollister found it necessary to reach out “to an anonymous source” to obtain an opinion about journalistic ethics—after all, “hasn’t he run a newspaper for more than 25 years?” the Independent asked somewhat rhetorically, adding, “I’m sure that untenured, junior faculty at LSU will take note that one of the governor’s best friends, who serves on the LSU Board, has this opinion of academic freedom. http://theind.com/article-20612-rolfe-mccollister-faculty-who-criticize-lsu-in-print-are-unethical.html

“Did McCollister threaten my LSU job? The Independent quoted Mann as asking. “Not really. He just finds some gutless anonymous source to call me unethical for criticizing a group of public officials.”

As promised, we now return to The Hayride and one of its regular columnists who seems to fit comfortably in Jindal’s back pocket and who slings darts and arrows at anyone who dares criticize his governor.

We’re talking, of course, about one Jeff Sadow who works as…(ahem), ah…well, as a full time political science professor at LSU-Shreveport. Correction. Make that associate professor. And one who has (gasp!) a political blog.

Rather than go into a lot of Sadow’s qualifications to speak his opinion in a blog as opposed to those who would censure Mann, we’ll let yet another blogger lay it out for us.

https://lahigheredconfessions.wordpress.com/2015/04/02/biting-the-hand-that-pays-you/

But at the end of the day (to borrow a phrase from Bobby Jindal), we still believe in tolerance and we will defend with our last breath the First Amendment rights of McCollister, Sadow, and Mann. They have every right to voice their opinions, though two of those three do not appear to agree.

To sum it all up, it appears we have an LSU Board member who is a Jindal operative in every sense of the word and who just happens to own a news publication. But that board member/journalist steadfastly refuses to advocate for openness on the board (as would just about any member of the Fourth Estate), who votes to fire an LSU president only because the governor wants him to, who votes in favor of giving away teaching hospitals to a fellow board member, and who calls for the censuring of free speech by a journalism professor and newspaper columnist. And, coincidentally, we have an associate professor who does the same thing as Mann, but who gets a free pass because his opinions happen to dovetail nicely with those of  McCollister, Jindal, et al.

Okay, as long as we understand the ground rules.

But, Chicken Little, it appears the sky really is falling. And as for those solutions McCollister promised “will be found,” they now appear more distant than ever.

And meanwhile, he calls Bob Mann unethical.

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