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Emerging claims, lawsuits could transform Murphy Painter from predator to all-too-familiar victim of Jindal reprisals

Posted in ATC, Campaign Contributions, Computers, Ethics, Governor's Office, Politicians, Teague, Uncategorized on February 6, 2013| 39 Comments »

What at first appeared to be a slam-dunk sexual harassment case against former commissioner of the Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control (ATC) Murphy J. Painter is beginning to look more and more like reprisals on the part of Gov. Bobby Jindal because of Painter’s refusal to acquiesce to administration demands involving several major Jindal campaign contributors.

It wouldn’t be the first time Jindal has fired a subordinate or demoted a legislator because he or she had the temerity to disagree with him, of course. But it would be the first time such tactics were employed in conjunction with criminal charges.

Painter was indicted—somewhat belatedly—on 42 separate counts of computer fraud in connection with his conducting criminal records, background and driver’s license checks on 35 individuals over a three-year period but never on the sexual harassment claims. Nor was he ever indicted on charges that he stalked or conducted surveillance on individuals—even though that claim was given widespread publicity by State Inspector General Stephen Street on May 28, 2012, the day Painter was formally indicted.

That indictment, coincidentally, came down only days after the legislature voted to strip Street’s office of all appropriations for the current fiscal year. Funding for his office was restored only after Street testified before legislators and repeated details of his office’s investigation of Painter as justification of continued funding, Painter says in his motion to dismiss the charges against him.

Painter’s trial on the federal charges is scheduled to begin on April 22. Meanwhile, he has separate civil suits pending against the state and against the woman who accused him of sexual harassment—after she told an OIG investigator that Painter had never harassed her.

We’ll return to the allegations, denials and counter-accusations in due course, but the real issues swirling around Painter appear to be rooted deep in Louisiana politics and back door deals as only a saga of Louisiana political intrigue and corruption can be told.

It was in late summer of 2010 when a series of events in New Orleans and Baton Rouge—unrelated to sexual harassment, computer fraud or surveillance—would culminate in a meeting in the governor’s office which would end Painter’s 34-year career in law enforcement, 14 of which he served as chief criminal deputy under former Ascension Parish Sheriff Harold Tridico.

After losing the 1995 sheriff’s race to current Sheriff Jeff Wiley by fewer than 700 votes, Painter was appointed ATC commissioner by then-Gov. Mike Foster in February of 1996.

New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson had purchased the 26-story building once known as Dominion Tower, or CNG Tower, a year earlier in September of 2009. The building is located across the street from the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. As part of the deal struck between Benson and the state to keep the Saints from moving to San Antonio, the Jindal administration agreed to a 20-year lease of some 325,000 square feet of office space at $24 a square foot for various state agencies, some of whom were paying as little as $12 a square foot before being forced to move to Benson Tower.

At the outset, the state’s obligation was about $7.7 million a year, $2.6 million more than the $5.1 million the state was paying before the move.

Included in the Benson Tower purchase was a 60,000-square-foot plot encompassing a one-block section of LaSalle Street and part of what once was the New Orleans Centre shopping mall.

Champions Square opened on Aug. 21, 2010, with the Saints hosting a pre-season game against the Houston Texans. The facility provided a tailgate party atmosphere and gave up to 8,000 Saints fans who did not have tickets a place to hang out and party while cheering on the Saints.

Champions Square soon became the catalyst in the struggle that would erupt between Painter’s office, the governor’s office and Mercedes-Benz Superdome management firm SMG (formerly Spectacor Management Group). On the fringes of this growing dispute were parties who had more than a passing interest: Benson, the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District (LSED), Anheuser-Busch, brewers of Budweiser Beer, and local Anheuser-Busch distributor Southern Eagle Sales & Service.

LSED is a state political subdivision created to oversee operations of the Superdome, the John A. Alario Sr. Event Center, the New Orleans Arena, the Saints training facility, TPC Louisiana, and Zephyr Field, home of the Triple-A baseball team.

Benson, the seven LSED members (each of whom is appointed by the governor) and their families, businesses and business associates, SMG and Southern Eagle combined to contribute more than $203,000 to Jindal campaigns between 2003 and 2012.

In a lawsuit filed against Jindal, the State of Louisiana, the Department of Revenue and Taxation, its former secretary, Cynthia Bridges and Inspector General Street, Painter says that in May of 2010, some three months before Champions Square was officially opened, he met with representatives of SMG and its lobbyist about SMG’s request for a license to serve alcohol in Champions Square on Saints game days.

Budweiser and Southern Eagle stood to be the big winners if the license application was approved.

Painter says in his lawsuit that he informed SMG of several regulatory violations in its proposal and offered suggestions on bringing the proposal into compliance with state laws. SMG’s subsequent license proposal, however, failed to address a number of the problems Painter had outlined in their previous meeting.

When Painter rejected the proposal, SMG arranged a meeting between Painter and SMG attorney, Robert Walmsley, Jr., Painter says in his petition.

Walmsley is a member of the law firm Fishman, Haygood, Phelps, Walmsley, Willis & Swanson of New Orleans which also contributed $5,000 to Jindal’s campaign in October of 2008.

Walmsley, after meeting with Painter, agreed to provide “a written legal opinion to the ATC documenting how SMG’s proposal complied with, or was otherwise exempt from, Louisiana law,” the petition says.

That promised opinion was never provided to ATC, Painter or his counsel, according to the suit.

Within a matter of weeks, Painter was contacted by Jindal executive Counsel Stephen Waguespack, nephew of Ascension Parish Sheriff Wiley. Waguespack asked Painter to cooperate with SMG and to stop using ATC’s legal counsel to address concerns with the Champions Square project being pushed by SMG, Painter says in his petition.

Subsequent to that call, Walmsley sent Painter an email in which he outlined a purported rationale that would allow SMG to qualify for the sought after license but the email, Painter says, did not include Walmsley’s promised written legal opinion. The ATC legal counsel again advised that the SMG proposal did not satisfy legal requirements.

Painter advised Walmsley that the license would not be issued because SMG did not qualify for the proposed exception as had been suggested. Painter also advised SMG “that alternative legal means would be utilized to address any issues related to the forthcoming grand opening of Champions Square if a resolution was not reached,” according to the lawsuit.

Then, on Aug. 11, Waguespack again called Painter and advised that he, as executive counsel for the governor’s office, “saw no problem with issuing the requested license to SMG,” whereupon Painter said he would defer to Waguespack—if Waguespack was willing to issue a legal opinion in writing to the ATC as representing the governor’s position.

“The governor’s executive counsel refused and suggested that issuing such an opinion was not a good use of his time and/or position,” Painter says, adding that he understood from that conversation that he “was being ordered to issue the license requested by SMG in direct contravention of law.”

In more than 15 years as ATC commissioner, Painter said he had never received such a call from the governor’s office.

Painter and ATC again refused to issue the requested license and two days later, on Aug. 13, Painter was summoned to the governor’s office on the fourth floor of the State Capitol where he met with Waguespack, Louisiana State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson and another member of the governor’s legal staff.

Painter was advised that an unidentified law enforcement agency (later identified as OIG) was investigating him for alleged criminal violations, specifically sexual harassment, and that Jindal was asking for his resignation.

Painter said he asked if Jindal was asking for his resignation because it was his prerogative to do so or because of the criminal investigation and when informed it was because of the investigation, he refused to resign and was fired.

Despite, the manner in which his dismissal came about, it was subsequently reported to the media that he had resigned.

In what Painter described as another means of garnering publicity, an OIG investigator obtained a search warrant to search Painter’s office at ATC even though a previous investigation by the Department of Revenue had already cleared Painter of any wrongdoing.

The administration, through OIG, zeroed in on the sexual harassment charges for Painter’s former administrative assistant Kelli Suire. Suire did contact local news media in July of 2010 with claims of sexual harassment by Painter and on Aug. 6, an email purportedly sent from lindseyjarrrell@rocketmail.com to several media outlets outlined several complaints about Painter and ATC, including the alleged sexual harassment of Suire and that Painter stalked Suire by going to her home on several occasions. The email, Painter learned from his own investigation, originated from the Louisiana State Library near the State Capitol.

Painter also claims that Suire and ATC Deputy Commissioner Brant Thompson were cooperating with each other in efforts to undermine Painter’s authority.

Painter says he took his concerns to Thompson’s father, State Sen. Francis Thompson (D-Delhi) on Aug. 12 and the elder Thompson offered assurances that his son would cooperate with Painter in the future.

Painter then asked that Brant Thompson report to his office no later than Monday, Aug. 16, “to discuss his conduct and accept a suspension from his job duties.”

That meeting never occurred because Painter was fired the following day and Brant Thompson was appointed interim commissioner until the appointment of current commissioner Troy Hebert.

Almost a year before Painter’s dismissal, on October 16, 2009, Suire resigned her position at ATC. But three days later, on Oct. 19, Painter, on ATC business in Washington, D.C., received a call from his office informing him that Suire had been in his office for several hours that morning copying files, Painter says in a separate defamation lawsuit against Suire.

That suit was filed in 23rd Judicial District Court in Ascension Parish while his lawsuit against the state for wrongful firing was filed in 19th JDC in Baton Rouge. And while considerable coverage was given his firing and the subsequent charges of sexual harassment, minimal coverage has been given his lawsuits by Baton Rouge area media outlets.

Sometime following his Aug. 13 firing in 2010, Painter learned of a letter dated 11 days earlier, on Aug. 2, to LDR Deputy secretary Earl Millet, Jr. from Barry Kelly, assistant director of Revenue’s Criminal Investigations Division in which Kelly gave the results of his investigation of six accusations against Painter, including sexual harassment and stalking of Suire.

In that letter, Kelly said, an attorney was hired to conduct an investigation into the allegations and when questioned, “Ms. Suire admitted that there was no sexual harassment.”

Prior to that Aug. 2 letter, on March 29, the Department of revenue sent a letter to Suire reporting its findings. That letter said, in part, “The investigator met with yourself, Painter and other ATC employees. Based upon the information gathered during the investigation, LDR has determined Painter’s actions did not violate the LDR’s Anti-Harassment Policy…

“The finding is based upon information secured during your interview wherein you indicated Painter did not make unwelcome sexual advances toward you. You also indicated Painter did not request sexual favors or engage in verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature to you. Additionally, you also stated that your complaint against Painter was not one of sexual harassment.”

Despite that admission, the governor’s office, through OIG, proceeded with its investigation, accusing Painter of accessing the criminal records database 314 times in more than five years between February 25, 2005, and Aug. 13, 2010. Subsequent information obtained by Painter through legal discovery revealed that OIG received 1,063 complaints between June 20, 2009 and June 15, 2011 and determined that not all the complaints constituted a need for a law enforcement data base check.

Yet, during that same two-year period, three OIG investigators combined to access the criminal records database nearly 3,000 times—one of those more than 2,100 times.

Painter’s trial in federal district court in Baton Rouge on the computer fraud charges is scheduled for April 22.

And yet, despite the charges alluded to by Waguespack when he fired Painter, he has never been formally charged with sexual harassment, stalking or surveillance.

And charges of accessing the criminal records data bank 314 times over a period of more than five years—approximately five times per month—to most people would not appear excessive for the head of a law enforcement agency whose job it is to track criminal activity.

…Unless someone was looking for a reason to fire an uncooperative subordinate standing in the way of political expedience and opportunity—and inconveniencing campaign contributors.

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π-yush’s alter-ego Timmy Teepell denies knowlege of ALEC agenda while Foster Campbell rips his boss for tax proposals

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Budget, Campaign Contributions, Congress, Economy, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Lobbyist, Politicians, Revenue, Taxes, Vitter on January 23, 2013| 3 Comments »

Last March, Piyush Jindal’s alter-ego Timmy Teepell (or would it be the other way around?) was a guest on the Jim Engster’s Show on Baton Rouge’s public radio station WRKF and in the course of that interview he denied any knowledge of the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) agenda.

Another guest on Engster’s show, Public Service Commission Chairman Foster Campbell, this week took Jindal, the legislature and the entire Louisiana congressional delegation to task for not displaying sufficient backbone to back Jindal down on his proposals to eliminate the personal and corporate income taxes in favor of a 3 cent state sales tax increase.

Campbell instead called for the passage of a 3 percent processing tax on oil and gas which he said would generate $3 billion a year “and let the people who can afford a tax pay it.”

When one reads ALEC’s 5th anniversary edition of Rich States, Poor States http://www.alec.org/publications/rich-states-poor-states/, one has to wonder at the veracity of Teepell’s claim. The annual report devotes 15 of its 125 pages to demonstrating how bad personal income taxes for states’ economies—and that’s before it even gets to the five-page chapter entitled Policy #1: The Personal Income Tax.

Even after that chapter, state personal income taxes are mentioned at least once on 64 of the next 75 pages.

Likewise, corporate income taxes are also discussed on 10 separate pages before Policy #2: The Corporate Income Tax, another five-page chapter. Corporate income taxes are then mentioned on 56 of the remaining 80 pages.

As if that were not enough, Rich States, Poor States also zeroes in on its favorite tax, the sales tax. “We find that sales taxes have a neutral effect on state economies and therefore are a far preferable means for a state to raise needed revenue,” it said in the first paragraph of Policy #3, entitled (you guessed it) The Sales Tax.

In all, sales taxes are invoked on no fewer than 74 of the 125-page report which boasts that ALEC’s tax and fiscal policy is “to prioritize government spending, to lower the overall tax burden, to enhance transparency of government operations, and to develop sound, free-market tax and fiscal policy.”

And Teepell is unaware of this agenda. Really?

“When policymakers choose the levels and types of taxes for their state, they must confront not only the possible effects on the state economy, but the volatility of tax receipts as well,” the report says. “When tax receipts are volatile, that usually means an abnormally large shortfall of revenues when times are tough and spending needs are the greatest.”

Incredibly, the report claims that revenue generated from sales taxes “is the least affected by the boom and bust cycle—in fact, sales tax revenue changes only half as much as revenue from personal and corporate income taxes do.

“Not only does the sales tax do less to inhibit growth, it is a steady revenue source even during a recession,” says the report.

Then, ripping a page right of the Milton Friedman playbook, the report says, “Progressive corporate and personal income taxes do far more damage to the economy than do other taxes such as sales taxes, property taxes and severance taxes. In addition, they (income taxes) are substantially less reliable than those other taxes. How’s that for sound tax policy?”

Well, certainly inflicting a regressive sales tax on Louisiana’s poor is considerably more reliable than corporate income taxes when one considers all the tax breaks, exemptions and rebates this administration hands out to the tune of about $5 billion a year to corporate contributors.

But to address the sophomoric question, “How’s that for sound tax policy?” we turn to another publication entitled Selling Snake Oil to the States: The American Legislative Exchange Council’s Flawed Prescriptions for Prosperity.

A joint publication of Good Jobs First and The Iowa Policy Project, The November Snake Oil report takes ALEC to task for its Rich States, Poor States publication which, as might be expected, is heavily weighted in favor of its corporate membership.

“We conclude that the evidence cited to support Rich States, Poor States’ policy menu ranges from deeply flawed to non-existent,” Snake Oil says. “Subjected to scrutiny, these policies are revealed to explain nothing about why some states have created more jobs or enjoyed higher income growth than others over the past five years.

“In actuality, Rich States, Poor States provides a recipe for economic inequality, wage suppression and stagnant incomes and for depriving state and local governments of the revenue needed to maintain the public infrastructure and education systems that are true foundations of long term economic growth and shared prosperity,” it said.

The Snake Oil report said that results actually reflect just the opposite of the ALEC claims. “The more a state’s policies mirrored the ALEC low-tax/regressive taxation/limited government agenda, the lower the median family income; this is true for every year from 2007 through 2011.”

Jindal was elected in 2007 and took office in 2008 and his policies, Teepell’s denial notwithstanding, have certainly mirrored the ALEC low-tax/regressive taxation/limited government agenda and the state’s infrastructure and education systems just as certainly have suffered under staggering budgetary cuts.

Louisiana’s average median household income of $42,423 for 2010 was the nation’s 10th lowest and 29 percent of Louisiana’s children live in poverty, second only to Mississippi’s 32 percent.

The state’s working poor already pay little or no income tax, so elimination of the state income tax would have no effect on them. A sales tax increase, however, would hit the poor the hardest because they would be paying the same taxes on diapers, clothing, cars, gasoline, appliances and automobiles as the wealthy. Accordingly, they would be paying a much larger percentage of their income in sales taxes than higher income families.

Campbell, a former state senator and an unsuccessful candidate for governor in 2007, was elected chairman of the Public Service Commission last year.

Accustomed to being a political lightning rod for his candor, Campbell was in rare form on Engster’s show on Tuesday, saying that Jindal typically works for the benefit of big companies and corporations. “He’ll do anything he can to help those at the top end of the income bracket.”

Appearing to consciously avoid referring to Jindal as governor, he said, “Mr. Jindal knows the solution. When I ran for governor, I wanted to get rid of the income tax which I still think we ought to do. Progressive states like Florida and Tennessee don’t have state income taxes and neither does Texas. They seem to be doing better than us. But you have to replace it with something and Mr. Jindal knows what to replace it with but you couldn’t get him close to it.

“Mr. Jindal wouldn’t touch the oil companies and that’s where to get the money. We just need some politicians with some plain old-fashioned guts to ask ‘em to pay their fair share. I’ve never seen anyone stand up to the oil companies. We don’t have a congressman who’ll do it. Mary Landrieu won’t do it. David Vitter is joined at the hip with them and he absolutely won’t do it.

“Mr. Jindal would run out of the Capitol screaming if you asked him to touch Exxon with a tax,” Campbell said.

Campbell, a Democrat, then heaped praise on Louisiana’s first Republican governor since Reconstruction.

“The most honest governor by far, who tried to do the right thing, was Dave Treen. When he ran against Louis Lambert (in 1979), business and industry supported him but when he went after the oil companies, they all turned on him and put Edwards back in,” he said.

“He was absolutely right when he had the Coastal Wetlands Environmental Levy (CWEL) and he wanted some kind of fee from the oil companies for tearing up our coast.

“I like oil companies for furnishing jobs,” he said. “That’s great. But we have let the oil companies absolutely take over our state, damage our coastline and never asked them to pay for it.

The BP spill, bad as it was, was miniscule compared to the damage oil companies have done to our coastline and all our congressional delegation wants to do is go ask Obama to pay for the coastal restoration and Mr. Vitter (U.S. Sen. David Vitter is the leading cheerleader for that. The government didn’t drill the wells and Mr. Vitter knows that but he doesn’t want to ask the people he’s close to to pay for the damage. And neither does Ms. Landrieu. You see the ads on TV praising Ms. Landrieu. Do you know who’s paying for those ads? The oil companies.”

“We need to ask the oil companies who are making billions to pay something rather than asking the people of Louisiana which has (one of the) poorest populations in the nation. Rather than asking people at the bottom to pay the big end of the tax, why doesn’t Mr. Jindal ask companies like Exxon, Chevron, and Shell to pay their fair share? Fifty percent of the coastal erosion in this state is caused by offshore activity.

“In 1926, when we put it into the constitution, we could tax only domestic oil. That was fine back then when 95 percent of our oil was domestic. Today, it’s 96 percent foreign and 4 percent domestic.

“We have to tax oil and gas coming into the state of Louisiana,” he said. “I agree with Mr. Jindal that we need to eliminate the severance tax because it has been dwindling anyway since the ‘80s. Instead of the severance tax, charge a simple 3 percent processing tax which would raise $3 billion a year.

Campbell said former Gov. Buddy Roemer wants to tax oil that’s still in the ground. “That won’t generate the money. I asked Roemer, Edwards and (Mike) Foster (about the 3 percent processing fee) but they wouldn’t help.

“I guarantee you it would pass by 80 percent. Mr. Kennedy (State Treasurer John Kennedy) knows that, Mr. Roemer, Mr. Jindal and especially Mr. (Dan) Juneau, the head of LABI (Louisiana Association of Business and Industry), know it. Mr. Juneau cannot stand a processing tax because the people who pay his bills don’t want it.”

Campbell said, “It’s the LABIs of the world who represent the big companies doing business up and down the Mississippi. LABI is not worried about the Mindens, the Homers, the Farmervilles, the Ringgolds, the Mansfields or the Rustons of Louisiana. They’re worried about the Chevrons, the Dows, the Exxons. Those are the people who put up the big money.

“Legislators who consistently vote with LABI are not representing their districts because LABI could care less about them.

“That’s who Mr. Jindal is dancing to. That’s why he wants to raise the sales tax on the people. Don’t put it on the oil companies that make billions,” he said in mocking the administration line. “They can’t afford it. They might leave the state.

“How are they going leave the state when they have 50,000 miles of pipeline that deliver oil and gas all across America? And they have the Mississippi River! They can’t leave the state. We need politicians with backbone who’ll say, ‘Now listen, you’ve had a great day in Louisiana, but it’s over. We have crumbling roads, poor education, pollution, a torn-up coast and now you’re gonna pay your fair share. Now get out there and start crying that you’re gonna leave the state and we’ll see what the people believe.’”

At that point, Engster finally got to ask, “Are you a member of LABI?”

“Absolutely not. They don’t represent small business. They say they do but they represent the big boys. Never forget that. Mr. Juneau takes his orders from the boys that put up the most money. They don’t worry about the hardware store in Mansfield. They say they do, but they’re fooling those people. They represent the biggest of the big, nothing more, nothing less.

“That’s who Mr. Jindal represents. Look what he’s doing: raising the sales tax on the poorest people living in America—and make sure, by the way, to get rid of corporate taxes.

“You haven’t heard Mr. Jindal say one word about Exxon paying its fair share and you won’t because he’s in their back pocket.

“Mr. Vitter won’t say anything about fixing our coast because he’s in their back pocket.

“Ms. Landrieu won’t say that because she’s in their back pocket.”

LouisianaVoice did a quick check of campaign contributions and found that Campbell may have been onto something when he talked about a lack of courage by the legislature and the congressional delegation and Jindal’s being beholden to the oil and gas industry.

Oil and gas interests contributed more than $1.5 million to 143 state candidates, including legislators and statewide elected officials since 2003, including Jindal, Kennedy, Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne, former Lt. Gov. and current New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, Commissioner of Agriculture Mike Strain and former Secretary of Natural Resources and current Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle.

Moreover, oil and gas contributed more than $1.75 million to six of Louisiana’s seven congressmen since 2002 and $1.99 million to the state’s two U.S. senators since 1996.

The breakdown for the congressional delegation, with the dates each was first elected in parentheses is as follows:

Senate:

• Mary Landrieu (1996)—$940,174;

• David Vitter (2004)—$1.05 million’

House:

• Steve Scalise (2008)—$257,785;

• Charles Boustany (2004)—$641,605;

• John Fleming (2008)—$405,450;

• Rodney Alexander (2002)—$254,559;

• Bill Cassidy (2008)—$194,300;

• Cedric Richmond (2010)—$0

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Dispute in Winn Parish over 55,000-acre hunting lodge reads like a Grisham novel with cast of Mike Foster, Dick Cheney and imprisoned former Winn sheriff Bodie Little

Posted in Governor's Office, Grant, Grants, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians, Public Records, Revenue on January 15, 2013| 16 Comments »

A wrongful arrest lawsuit filed in 8th Judicial District Court in Winnfield names as defendants a former Louisiana Wildlife Commission chairman and a Department of Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries agent but the litigation is only the latest in an ongoing dispute whose roots go far deeper into the lush pine forests of Winn, Caldwell and LaSalle parishes.

Wyndel Earl Gough (pronounced “Goff”) and Gary L. Hatten filed the lawsuit on Jan. 10, naming William “Bill” Busbice of Broussard, former chairman of the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission during the administration of former Gov. Mike Foster, as one of the defendants.

Also named were Terry Carr, identified as an overseer or manager of Busbice’s Deer Management Assistance Program (DMAP) land, and wildlife agent Rusty Perry after Gough and Hatten were arrested by Perry in December of 2010 for illegally hunting deer on DMAP land without Busbice’s permission.

It was not until April of 2012, however, that a bill of information was issued by the district attorney charging the two with one count each. On Oct. 24, those charges were formally dismissed by the district attorney’s office.

Both Gough and Hatten deny ever having hunted on DMAP property.

Busbice began purchasing some 55,000 acres in the three parishes, mostly in Winn, after Louisiana-Pacific shut down its operations at Urania in 2002. Louisiana-Pacific initially sold the forest land to Barrs & Glawson Investments of Atlanta, GA, to Roy O. Martin Lumber Co. and to Martin-Urania Corp. for $74 million. Barrs & Glawson re-sold tracts totaling 50,383 acres in Winn, 6,068 acres in LaSalle and 4,800 in Caldwell to Six-C Properties, headed by Busbice.

Since purchasing the land, Busbice has erected eight-foot fencing around the property and constructed a hunting lodge on the land that caters to high rollers who don’t mind ponying up a few thousand dollars for the privilege to hunt deer.

Six-C subsequently donated 1,500 acres of the land to Make A Wish Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to granting wishes to children with life-threatening medical conditions.

Additional property owners in the area, including other members of the Gough family, claim that Busbice’s fencing in 55,000 acres in the three parishes, mostly in Winn, has deprived them of their hunting rights.

One of those, Michael Atkins, sued Busbice and his company, Six-C Properties, after Busbice erected a fence completely surrounding 10 acres of land owned by Atkins. His lawsuit, which he won at the trial court level but which was overturned in part on appeal, contended that the fence not only prevented him from hunting but also blocked access to his property.

The latest lawsuit, however, goes back more than a decade and involves principals other than Busbice and the two plaintiffs.

Names that have surfaced in what has become a conspiracy-laden story include imprisoned former Winn Parish Tax Assessor A.D. “Bodie” Little, former Gov. Mike Foster and former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Landowners, including the Goughs, maintain that Foster hosted Cheney on a hunting trip in 2002 and shortly afterwards a federal grant came through Foster’s administration which was used to purchase the land which eventually came under the control of Busbice and Six-C.

Efforts by LouisianaVoice to confirm that allegation have been unsuccessful, though an entry of more than $87.86 million was included on page 29 in Foster’s fiscal year 2003-2004 executive budget under the column heading of Federal Funds.

Marty Milner, fiscal officer for the Office of Facility Planning and Control, said in a 2008 email to investigator Art Walker that he had found the $87.86 million but some projects were funded through the Department of the Military and the Department of Transportation and Development but his office did not handle the accounting for those departments. Accordingly, he said, he was unable to determine the disposition of the money.

Michael Gough, one of the landowners in the area, likened the Six-C hunting camp to the state’s arrangement with the White Lake Preservation in Vermilion Parish. In that case, BP donated the 71,000-acre preserve to the state but retained mineral rights on the property—and received millions of dollars in tax breaks.

Foster, governor at the time, negotiated the deal with BP and subsequently appointed a board comprised of private citizens to manage the property.

Another controversy surrounding the Six-C property arose in 2008 when a group of Winn Parish taxpayers filed suit against then-assessor Bodie, claiming that the increase in their taxes was a direct result of their opposition to Bodie’s election as sheriff.

Bodie was sentenced to a 13-year federal prison term last August for drug possession with intent to distribute.

An Alexandria Town Talk investigation revealed that several of Bodie’s friends benefitted from under-assessments. Among those was Six-C, which was the beneficiary of an assessment that was $351,800 low, according to one local resident.

Under the $20 per acre forestland value, Six-C was billed $98,601 on its Winn Parish properties, then consisting of 31,600 acres. Winn Parish resident Grady McFarland, however, said Six-C should have paid taxes based on an $88.90 per acre value, or $450,410.

Almost as an afterthought to the whole affair, Glenn Austin, district conservationist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, accompanied Michael Gough on a tour of several locations around the boundary of Six-C property to inspect where “flood flaps,” made from old conveyor belts, were stretched across the bottom of the fence where it crossed streams and creeks in the area.

The flaps, installed to prevent wildlife from escaping, impeded the water flow, causing flooding and erosion. “There was sediment deposited within the channel banks at almost every location,” Austin said. “This increase in sediment load and increased turbidity in the water channels could be degrading the water quality” within the streams, he added.

Austin told Gough that if the area was deemed to be a wetland, then the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would have regulatory authority over the area.

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π-yush keeps communication lines open with talking points and voting instructions via text messages to legislators even during committee meetings and floor debates on key bills

Posted in Ethics, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Politicians, Transparency on November 28, 2012| 10 Comments »

When State Rep. Joe Harrison (R-Gray) was removed from his seat on the House Appropriations Committee earlier this month by Piyush Jindal through his surrogate, House Speaker Chuck “The Eunuch” Kleckley (R-Lake Charles), he offered an interesting revelation about the way the administration micromanages the legislative process.

“Everything they (legislative committees) do is scripted,” Harrison said in an interview with LouisianaVoice hours after his demotion. “I’ve seen the scripts. They hand out a list of questions we are allowed to ask and they tell us not to deviate from the list and not to ask questions that are not in the best interest of the administration.”

Harrison’s comments were made in the heat of the aftermath of his smack down by Piyush for having the temerity to vote against The-Man-Who-Would-Be-Vice-President (or at least a Romney cabinet member) on the proposed contract that called for Blue Cross/Blue Shield to become the third party administrator for the Office of Group Benefit’s (OGB) Preferred Provider Organization (PPO).

Strong words to be sure, but now they have been corroborated by yet another legislator who shall remain nameless for the time being though we will go so far as to acknowledge that the lawmaker is not a member of Jindal’s political party.

Not that that seems to matter, given the events that occurred in the wake of the surprising defeat of Republican president candidate Mitt Romney on Nov. 6.

Jindal turned on Romney like the self-serving hypocrite he is. (Well, after all, he never got his 30 pieces of silver—read: a cabinet appointment in the anticipated Romney administration—so why not?)

When we asked our legislator friend (we’ll just call him Kyle) if Harrison was accurate in claiming that committee members are given questions by administrative officials in advance of committee hearings, he responded with a quick, “Absolutely.”

But then he continued. “Not only that but they text committee members during committee meetings and even send text messages to legislators during floor debates on bills in the House and Senate telling them how to vote on certain bills.

“They’ll also send text messages to legislators instructing them to speak for or against a bill and even tell him or her on what to say and they’ll pop up out of their chair and immediately rush to the floor microphone,” Kyle said.

He said he occasionally speaks to school groups about how the legislative process is designed to work. “I always leave laughing at myself for trying to tell the kids that we have three branches of government—the executive, the legislative and the judiciary.

“We no longer have a legislative branch of government in Louisiana; we’re (the legislature) just an extension of the executive branch.

“The sad part is we have only ourselves to blame. When I say we, I mean the legislature as a body, not as individuals because there are some members who will stand up to Jindal when they feel he is wrong. But the legislature—the House and the Senate—have capitulated to the fourth floor and I lay the fault at the feet of our leadership, the Speaker Kleckley and Senate President John Alario (R-Westwego).

“They are both likeable men, very personable, but Alario’s looking out for Alario. If you don’t believe that, take a look at the Capital Outlay Bill and see how many projects are in it for Jefferson Parish. It’s loaded down with Jefferson projects and Alario wants to keep it that way,” he said.

He said he also did not understand the motivations of Sen. Jack Donahue (R-Mandeville). “Here is a state senator who had a state mental hospital in his district (Southeast Louisiana Hospital in Mandeville) closed by the governor who gave him no advance warning of his intentions and yet, as chairman of the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget, he did exactly what Jindal told him to do and steamrolled the Blue Cross/Blue Shield contract with OGB down everyone’s throat.”

Harrison and our friend Kyle weren’t the only ones to reveal the ongoing instructions to legislators. Yet another source (not a member of the legislature) said he witnessed a legislator receiving text messages from the governor’s office even as he testified not before a legislative committee, but before the New Orleans City Council. “They were letting him know they didn’t like what he was saying in his testimony,” the second unnamed source said.

LouisianaVoice sent separate emails to Piyush Press Pontificator Kyle (no relation) Plotkin and to Chief of Staff Paul Rainwater asking just two simple questions:

• Does the administration think it is appropriate to micromanage the legislative process in this manner?

• Would this (practice) not blur the lines between the executive and legislative branches of government?

We never receive an acknowledgement of either email.

Ah, transparency and accountability. Where would we be without ‘em?

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A report π-yush probably won’t post on the state’s web site: Louisiana is 10th worst-run state in the nation. Who knew?

Posted in Economy, Governor's Office, Higher Education, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians, Prison on November 27, 2012| 4 Comments »

Piyush Jindal loves to regurgitate reports that tell of Louisiana’s wonderful business climate (with all but non-existent corporate taxes, cheap labor and a glut of laid-off state employees looking for work, why would the climate not be pro-business?) but here’s a report we aren’t likely to hear him say much about or post on the state web page as is his custom when the reports are favorable.

Louisiana has the 10th worst-run state government in the nation, according to a study just released by 24/7 Wall Street, an independent research company.

While acknowledging that measuring the successful management of a state is difficult, 24/7, which each year conducts an extensive survey of all 50 states, considered data from a number of sources. These included Standard & Poor’s, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau, the Tax Foundation, Realty Trac, the FBI, and the National Conference of State Legislators.

Once all the data were extrapolated, each state was ranked on the basis of its performance in all categories, the study’s methodology report said.

“A state with abundant natural resources should have an easier time balancing its budget than one starved for resources,” the study said. “Despite this, it is the responsibility of each state to deal with the resources at its disposal. Each government must anticipate economic shifts and diversify its industries and attract new business.”

Those are particularly damning observations insofar as Louisiana’s ongoing fiscal crisis is concerned. Massive budget cuts have gutted the operations of many state agencies. Higher education, for example, once received two-thirds of its budget from state appropriations and the rest from tuition. That is completely reversed today as tuition increases of some 40 percent over the past several years coupled with budgetary cuts now has tuition providing two-thirds of all revenue for higher ed.

Another general criticism of poorly-run states that well may have been addressed specifically to Louisiana and the Piyush administration said, “A state should be able to raise enough revenue to ensure the safety of its citizens and minimize hardship without spending more than it can prudently afford. Some states have historically done this much better than others,” it said.

Piyush has steadfastly refused to consider any efforts to raise additional revenue, including tax increases. Instead, he has consistently pushed for more liberal tax incentives for businesses, a policy that has cost the state up to $5 billion per year, according to official estimates.

The 24/7 report cites North Dakota as the best-run state in the nation, the first time it has received that distinction. As of August of this year, North Dakota was the second-largest oil producer in the nation because of the use of hydraulic fracturing in the state Bakken shale formation.

The oil and gas boom brought jobs to the state, whose 3.5 percent unemployment rate was the country’s lowest in 2011.

North Dakota and Montana (the 18th best-run) were the only states that have not reported budget shortfalls since fiscal 2009.

Louisiana, on the other hand, earned its 10th worst-managed state on the basis of having:

• The 26th largest budget deficit (14.3 percent);

• The seventh lowest median household income ($41,734);

• The third highest percentage of its citizens living below the poverty line (20.4 percent);

• The 10th smallest proportion of its budget dedicated to social welfare due in large part to a lack of tax revenue (and this was before the latest round of budget cuts, including Medicaid);

• One of the highest violent crime rates in the nation (New Orleans had the highest murder rate in 2011);

• The 20th highest debt per capita.

Louisiana’s ranking as the 10th worst-run state puts it just ahead of Mississippi, the 11th worst, the report indicates. Mississippi had the lowest median household income ($36,919) in the nation, the country’s highest percentage of people living below the poverty line (22.6 percent), and the country’s fourth highest unemployment rate (10.7 percent).

California, with the second highest unemployment rate (11.7 percent) ranked as the worst-run state in the nation despite having the 10th highest median household income ($52,287.

Following are the 10 best-run states and some of the factors that got them their high rankings, according to 24/7:

1. North Dakota (lowest unemployment rate);

2. Wyoming (sixth lowest percentage of families living below poverty line);

3. Nebraska (second lowest in both unemployment and per capita debt);

4. Utah (11th lowest unemployment rate, tied for 17th lowest percentage living below poverty line);

5. Iowa (7th lowest per capita debt, 6th lowest unemployment rate);

6. Alaska (second highest median household income, 4th lowest percentage living below poverty line);

7. South Dakota (3rd lowest unemployment rate);

8. Vermont (5th lowest unemployment rate, 7th lowest percentage living below poverty line);

9. Virginia (7th highest in median household income, 7th lowest percentage living in poverty);

10. Minnesota (13th lowest per capita debt, 11th highest median household income, 10th lowest percentage living in poverty);

….and here are the 10 worst-run states, along with some of the reasons for their less than desirable standings:

41. Louisiana (20th highest per capita debt, 7th lowest median household income) 3rd highest percentage living in poverty);

42. Florida (tied for 6th highest unemployment rate);

43. South Carolina (8th highest unemployment rate, 9th lowest median household income, 9th highest percentage living in poverty);

44. New Mexico (8th lowest median household income, 2nd highest percentage living in poverty);

45. Nevada (largest budget deficit in nation, highest unemployment rate in nation);

46. New Jersey (5th highest per capita debt, 4th highest budget deficit, 13th highest unemployment rate);

47. Arizona (3rd largest budget deficit, 13th highest unemployment rate, 8th highest percentage in poverty);

48. Illinois (11th highest per capita debt, 2nd largest budget deficit, 10th highest unemployment rate);

49. Rhode Island (3rd highest debt per capita, 3rd highest unemployment rate);

50. California (2nd highest unemployment rate, 18th highest percentage living in poverty).

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