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Angelle rallies Cajundome crowd in PSC TV spot, attracts campaign money from companies regulated by commission

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Ethics, Governor's Office, LSU, Politicians on October 21, 2012| 19 Comments »

Former Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources Scott Angelle, who resigned his post right in the middle of the deepening crisis with the Assumption Parish sinkhole to run for the District 2 seat on the Louisiana Public Service Commission, has been running a curious television ad in the 12-parish district.

He is running to succeed current commissioner James Field whose term ends on Dec. 31. Field, vice-chairman of the commission, is not seeking re-election.

The district includes all the parishes of East and West Feliciana, Iberia, Lafayette, Lafourche, St. Mary and Terrebonne, and parts of East and West Baton Rouge, Iberville, Livingston and St. Martin.

Angelle’s agency was aware of possible problems with a salt dome in Assumption Parish nearly two years ago, yet he never alerted local officials. The sinkhole in the parish’s Bayou Corne community began forming on Aug. 3 and 150 area families were forced to evacuate. Angelle resigned four days later to run for PSC.

Today, the sinkhole, which has been the site of several earth tremors, is the size of several football fields—and growing.

The Department of Natural Resources issued a permit to Texas Brine to begin exploration of the dome to see if it could be mined. That permit was issued in May of 2010, just about the same time that Angelle left DNR temporarily to become interim lieutenant governor.

As soon as the sinkhole developed in August, Angelle resigned.

And curiously, Gov. Piyush Jindal has yet to make an appearance at the site of the disaster which has displaced hundreds of residents. If there are no hurricanes or Gulf oil spills, there are no national television network news cameras; ergo, no Jindal and now no Scott Angelle.

Instead, what we have been treated to is a well-edited television ad depicting Angelle as the savior of the offshore oil industry.

In this ad, you are treated to sound bites from a fiery Angelle speech about the federal offshore drilling moratorium. It’s bad enough that he sounds like the stereotypical southern politician as depicted in so many uncomplimentary old movies (the only things missing are the bourbon, the string bow tie, the white cotton suit and the spats), but the speech never happened.

But we jumped the gun and we’re not above admitting when we are wrong.

Contrary to our initial skepticism over the validity of the ad’s content, it now appears that he did indeed make the speech as depicted in his cheesy ad. It was at Lafayette’s Cajundome and the 15,000 or so in attendance were worked into an emotional lather, albeit before Angelle had taken the stage. We concede as much now. The fact that he was only one of several speakers should not detract from his soul-stirring rhetoric that was enough to conjure up memories of the Kingfish, Earl Long and George Wallace.

But make no mistake about it, it is all cheap theatrics. And make no mistake about this: Angelle had precious little to do with fighting President Obama on the drilling moratorium or with Obama’s subsequent lifting of the moratorium. That fight was led by Jindal and Sens. Mary Landrieu and David Vitter in a rare cooperative effort.

But the ad certainly makes Angelle look like a champion of the people, a true demagogue.

When Jindal took office in 2008, he retained Angelle, who was appointed DNR secretary by former Gov. Kathleen Blanco in 2004. In 2010, Jindal chose Angelle to serve as interim lieutenant governor when former Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu was elected mayor of New Orleans.

Accordingly, it would not seem much of a stretch to assume that Angelle would remain loyal to Jindal should he be elected to the PSC in November, thus extending the governor’s reach into yet another state agency.

After all, as a couple of readers comment below, immediately after Angelle’s resignation as DNR secretary, Jindal appointed him to the LSU Board of Supervisors, thus tightening his control over the board even more.

Moreover, Jindal, as our readers so quickly pointed out, also made Angelle his legislative liaison to work on behalf of oil companies who were fighting the so-called “legacy lawsuits.” The resulting legislation weakened landowners’ power to force oil companies to clean up lease sites upon leaving the sites.

Now Angelle wants to “regulate” those same companies on whose behalf he worked so diligently to weaken landowner rights.

A closer look at just who is supporting his campaign is quite revealing and offers a much clearer picture of just where Angelle’s loyalties might lie if elected.

The Public Service Commission has jurisdiction over publicly-owned utilities providing electric, water, wastewater, natural gas, and telecommunication services, as well as all the electric cooperatives in Louisiana. The LPSC also regulates intrastate transportation services including passenger carrier services, waste haulers, household goods carriers, non-consensual towing, and intrastate pipelines.

No fewer than 85 such companies or persons affiliated with industries regulated by the PSC have contributed between $1,000 and $5,000 to Angelle’s campaign since his August resignation.

Altogether, those 85 have combined to pour more than $230,000 into his campaign coffers in less than three months.

Those contributors include energy, towing, communications and transportation companies, an ambulance service, oil and gas exploration companies, shale oil fracking companies and four companies owned by Jindal’s latest appointment to the LSU Board of Supervisors Lee Mallett of Iowa, Louisiana.

Does anyone see anything wrong with this picture?

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Governor's Office, Health Care, Layoffs, LSU, Notable Quotables on October 16, 2012| 3 Comments »

“The layoff is necessary after other budgetary measures were taken, as a layoff avoidance measure, that did not meet the total dollars needed to match the reduction.”

—Dr. Robert Barish, chancellor of University Medical Center in Shrevrport, justifying the layoffs of 41 employees of E.A. Conway Medical Center in Monroe in an Oct. 15 letter to State Civil Service Director Shannon Templet.

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Merry Christmas! E.A. Conway Hospital in Monroe receives word that 41 employees to be laid off effective November 30

Posted in Budget, Economy, Governor's Office, Health Care, Jobs, Layoffs, LSU, Revenue, State Agencies on October 16, 2012| 4 Comments »

A new survey by 24/7 Wall Street has revealed that the Monroe Metropolitan Area, which includes 11 northeast Louisiana Parishes, is the sixth-poorest metropolitan area in the U.S. and at 27.9 percent, has the eighth-highest percentage of households living below the poverty line.

Accordingly, The LSU Health Sciences Center in Shreveport sent out notices to 41 employees of E.A. Conway Medical Center in Monroe Tuesday that they will no longer have jobs after Nov. 30.

Merry Christmas to E.A. Conway employees who will soon be unemployed. Great timing.

University Medical Center (UMC) Chancellor Dr. Robert Barish simultaneously notified E.A. Conway employees and State Civil Service Director Shannon Templet that 25 of the 41 employees targeted for layoffs are nurses.

Others include four police officers, two nursing assistants, two administrative coordinators, and (one each) respiratory care therapist, speech/audiologist specialist, EKG technician, radiologic technician, social worker, electriction, mobile equipment operator and printing operator.

The layoffs, Barish said, are the result of a reduction in federal Medicaid dollars to the state and are necessary “after other budgetary measures were taken, as a layoff avoidance measure, that did not meet the total dollars needed to match the reduction.”

The overall impact of the layoffs and cutbacks to E.A. Conway will be $8.5 million, he said.

With such a high poverty rate, many of the 178,000 residents of the Monroe Metropolitan Area rely on Conway for health care. Now, those health care services will either be cut back drastically or delayed for many who need them most.

Merry Christmas to tens of thousands of northeast Louisiana residents who will soon find medical care more difficult to obtain.

While median income across the nation decreased by $642 per year from 2010 to 2011, it went into a free-fall in the Monroe Metropolitan Area, plummeting by $5,434.

At the same time, the area’s poverty rate rose by an eye-popping seven percentage points. Moreover, the 11.4 percent of households earning less than $10,000 in 2011 was the third-highest percentage of all metropolitan areas.

The cutbacks and layoffs at Conway would appear to have been implemented with no planning and little consideration given to the needs of the areas served just as other policy moves have been made.

The Jindal administration, for example, privatized the John Hainkel Home and Rehabilitation Center in New Orleans in 2011 and in June of this year, Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Bruce Greenstein quietly notified the facility that it was revoking its license, ostensibly because of deficiencies found during inspections.

A more likely reason for the action is that 73 of the home’s 82 patients pay for their care at the Hainkel Home through state Medicaid funding. Ergo, close the facility and if those 73 patients are unable to enter another facility that accepts Medicaid patients, Jindal gets to cut Medicaid costs in a furtive move that flies under the radar.

And it won’t be a simple task for those patients to find a new care provider. The Hainkel Home is one of the few remaining options in New Orleans for Medicaid patients and Veterans Administration patients. Most nursing homes will not accept Medicaid and V.A. patients and are actively purging current Medicaid and V.A. patients from their populations.

So, while Piyush Jindal continues to push for corporate tax breaks and exemptions for campaign contributors, he embarks on a campaign of slashing budgets and cutting services as a means of making up revenue lost by what can only be described as to poor—or perhaps contrived—administrative decisions.

Such are the methods of the Piyush Jindal administration.

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π-yush has the job he wants–again: absentee governor will serve as ‘leader’ of nation’s Republican governors in 2013

Posted in Budget, Campaign Contributions, Economy, Education, Governor's Office, Health Care, Legislature, Legislators, LSU, Transparency on October 15, 2012| 6 Comments »

Gov. Piyush Jindal had barely recovered from the bitter disappointment of being snubbed for a spot on Mitt Romney’s ticket than he was off and running for yet another national office—that of president.

His preference these days seems to be anything to avoid addressing the real problems that face Louisiana.

For a man who insists that he has the job he wants, he certainly seems to devote a minimal amount of time doing it.

Jindal’s travel miles this year alone have surpassed those of the James Brown extended post mortem farewell tour of a few years back.

Piyush is on the road again more than Willie Nelson.

His campaign appearances rival in number those of President Barrack Obama and Mitt Romney combined—and he’s not even an official candidate for anything. Yet.

He has the job he wants, which apparently is making more public appearances than the Harlem Globetrotters.

He’s more difficult to locate than Sasquatch.

When it comes to answering reporters’ questions, Jindal makes the late Marcel Marceau seem like a chatterbox.

So now, with the sound and fury of the vice presidential selection process behind him, he goes and gets himself picked to head up the Republican Governors Association next year—a job that will no doubt necessitate his absence from the state even more, if that’s possible.

The position is a plum in that it theoretically gives him a leg up on the Republican president nomination in 2020 (or 2016, should Romney lose in November).

He will chair the organization in 2013 and will be followed by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie the following year. The post is considered a springboard to higher office. Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry each served as chairman prior to launching their presidential campaigns.

The Associated Press speculated that the position could help Piyush gain momentum and support for a future White House bid, “if he’s interested.”

If he’s interested?

That’s like saying a hyena will attack a wildebeest if he’s hungry.

The same AP story notes that in five-plus years as Louisiana’s absentee governor, he has promoted his book, given campaign speeches, attended fundraisers and Republican events in 39 states and the nation’s capital. He has managed to pop up in key presidential primary or caucus states like New Hampshire and Iowa on numerous occasions—sometimes even being asked by the locals to leave. Quickly.

More than a third of his 160 or so out-of-state trips have taken place since January.

Ironically, most of his travels have been to support state candidates or Republican causes and to collect campaign contributions for Piyush Jindal.

His campaign trips on behalf of Romney, on the other hand, are merely an afterthought.

Rather like his occasional attention to matters in Louisiana—little insignificant matters like budget shortfalls, cuts to state hospitals, litigation over his education and retirement reform packages in Louisiana and growing resentment on the part of legislators over the closures of prison and health care facilities.

So basically, he believes he received a mandate in last year’s underwhelming re-election vote of 67 percent of 20 percent of the voters—against only token opposition, no less.

Piyush may want to consider the fact that 80 percent of the voters yawned their way to a state of languid indifference on the question of whether or not he should be awarded a second term.

And he’s going to try and parlay those results into becoming leader of the free world?

But he must first prove himself a leader of the nation’s Republican governors.

If his leadership of Louisiana is an indication of his capabilities, it should be fun to watch—if you like watching a delusional political wannabe.

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Governor's Office, Higher Education, LSU, Notable Quotables, Privatization, Public Records on October 15, 2012| 2 Comments »

“The deliberative process is being invoked by the clients with respect to the various drafts and any communication involving those drafts.”

—LSU attorney Lloyd Lunsford, parroting the Jindal party line in defending the denial of access to public records by invoking deliberative process.

“LSU administrators asserted the deliberative process privilege based upon my recommendation after independent research.”

—LSU attorney Shelby McKenzie, on denying media access to public records based on deliberative process.

“As executive counsel, I have discussions about the law with LSU’s legal counsel and other agencies. At the end of the day, it’s the agency’s decision to determine how they respond.”

—Elizabeth Murrill, Gov. Piyush Jindal’s executive counsel, attempting to claim that the administration does not have a hand in day to day operations of LSU. (Murrill, however, demanded to review LSU documents requested by LouisianaVoice before their release.)

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