Louisiana Voice

While LouisianaVoice is on Facebook, I know nothing about social media. Furthermore, I don’t care to know. It’s all I can do to log on and off my LouisianaVoice page to post stories.

I was doing just fine with technology until they switched from Beta to VHS. I’ve been lost since then.

So if there’s a story you want me to look into, please DO NOT try to contact me through Facebook. It won’t work. I can see the message but have no idea how to respond.

To the person who contacted LouisianaVoice via Facebook about the Terrebonne sports complex—and anyone else who wants me to look into something, email me at:

louisianavoice@cox.net

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Well, folks, LouisianaVoice got bamboozled by those whip-smart folks in Terrebonne Parish and we’re big enough to admit it.

That Crimson Tide tire photo we ran on Monday, one reader suggested in his comment, was photo-shopped, or at least the “University of Alabama Crimson Tide” lettering was.

A well-meaning graphic artist with no skin in the game also weighed in with the opinion that she, too, felt that the image was photo-shopped.

Stubbornly, we held our ground, insisting the photo was authentic. After all, we had other photos taken from different angles and distances that showed the same image.

Still, to at least two or our readers, we were taken in. Fooled. Duped. Outsmarted.

Well, we admit it. A third set of photos turned up late Tuesday that confirmed our worst fears. The outside of the tire, the side that faces out from the vehicle, showed no signs of any lettering.

The inside of the tire, however, had the lettering clear as day. Only part of the tire was visible but “Crimson Tide” was right there for all to see should they go to the trouble to bend over for a little to looky-look under the vehicle.

That could mean only one thing: someone photo-shopped the inside part of the tire, too.

Imagine our chagrin.

Jeepers, why would someone do such a diabolical thing?

Quite simple, really: to make it appear that the sheriff’s department, embarrassed at our photo yesterday, had flipped the tires so as to hide the Crimson Tide lettering.

And we know, of course, that Jerry Larpenter, the good sheriff of Terror-Bonne Parish would never stoop so low as to attempt to deceive the voting public—especially with the department staring down the barrel of a major budgetary deficit and the sheriff cutting employee benefits.

So, Sheriff Larpenter, please accept our apology for ever calling your fiscal responsibilities into question.

Someone must dislike you a lot to photo-shop both sides of your tires to make you look bad.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: This entire post was photo-shopped to make LouisianaVoice look bad.)

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By Ken Booth

Guest Columnist

Dept. of Veterans’ Affairs Secretary Col. Joey Strickland

La. Dept. of Veterans Affairs Secretary Col. Joey Strickland said today the late night shredding of records at the Monroe Veterans Home “does raise eyebrows.”

This, fast on the heels of the discovery of a heretofore unknown mysterious replacement of the hard-drive in the Home’s security system five years ago upon orders of the then Administrator Ken Houston.

The hard-drive issue surfaced with discovery of the original 2012 work order from a West Monroe security firm.

Houston was ousted at the end of last month and replaced by Ms. Marquita Mikhaliak who had previously held the post of Assistant Administrator.

Strickland said today he dismissed Houston when he learned that the ex-Administrator had skirted all protocols and asked the State Board of Ethics if the Home could hire Ms. Mikhaliak’s wife as an upper level RN. The wife, Mary Charlene Murphy, was not hired.

That Houston chose to go around him and the leadership of the Department with this Ethics question, Strickland said, “was something I could not tolerate.”

In a letter today, The Secretary said he will visit the Monroe facility Wednesday with two Under Secretaries to personally check on continuing allegations of improprieties there.

“We will have our Legal counselor Julie Baxter Payer who is meeting with Congressman Abraham and a couple of spouses from the home that we have been working with at the Monroe Home,” Strickland said.

He also acknowledged that an OIG detective has briefed Payer about a 2016 marriage by an RN there to a Navy Veteran resident who had come into a sizeable “full pay” settlement. In that case the RN befriended the Navy vet, took him from the Home to Hamburg, Ark. and married him and returned him to the home the same day. She then quit the next month.

The veteran spent about three hours with an OIG detective  last week. The investigator was said to have been back at the Home today.

“I am going to lay down the law on the quality care treatment of our veterans and families,” wrote Strickland. “Those who fail to comply will be fired.”

In addition to his fact-finding mission to the Home Wednesday, Secretary Strickland said he would be back at the end of the month “for a Town Hall Meeting with local veterans and Home residents with key staff so they can tell me about any concerns.”

(Ken Booth, now retired and living in Arizona, is a former longtime investigative reporter for KNOE-TV in Monroe.)

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Normally, a man’s tryst with a lady friend who is not his wife would be of no concern to us. It’s not an activity we would recommend but some things, after all, are really no one else’s business.

Unless the amorous couple happen to be chairman and vice chairman of a state commission that decides important issues like appeals of disciplinary action against state troopers or which votes on whether or not to conduct thorough investigations of illegal campaign contributions or which concocts evidence against its executive director in order to force her resignation because she insisted on following the law on certain procedures.

State Trooper T.J. Doss, a nine-year State Police veteran, is chairman of the Louisiana State Police Commission.

New Orleans attorney Monica Manzella, formerly the assistant city attorney for the City of New Orleans, was appointed to the commission by Gov. John Bel Edwards last October. She quickly rose to the position of vice chairman.

The commission has experienced considerable turnover in the past 12 months, with six members and an executive director submitting their resignations. After today, that number could increase to eight.

LouisianaVoice has been receiving tips that Doss and Manzella were each other’s overnight guests for several months—sometimes at the State Police Academy barracks where Doss was staying while assigned to Baton Rouge from his normal base at Troop G in Shreveport. Other times they were said to be staying at Manzella’s residence in New Orleans.

On Thursday, only hours after the monthly commission meeting, they got a little careless. We got word they were at a movie and were staying at the Watermark Hotel in downtown Baton Rouge. The hotel building, originally a bank, is the former State Office Building that was sold and transformed into an elegant hotel and restaurant.

Acting on our tip, it was a relatively easy matter to catch them exiting the movie theater CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO . As they exit, Doss can be seen carrying two mugs. They had just seen a movie at Baton Rouge’s Movie Tavern. The Movie Tavern serves beer and allows patrons to keep the containers. It is against State Police regulations to drink and drive a state police unit.

“Mug” shot

Less than an hour later, they can be seen exiting his state-assigned Ford Explorer entering the hotel where they went straight to the registration desk CLICK HERE, picked up their keys and headed straight for the elevators.  They carried no luggage, an indication that they—or at least one of them—had checked in earlier.

Checkin’ in

As said earlier, it’s normally no one else’s business but when two people sit on a seven-person commission that literally has the power to make career-altering decisions, it is critical that a professional relationship be maintained between members. Personal affairs should be strictly off-limits in the interest of fair and impartial decision-making, uninfluenced by personal feelings for fellow members. The fact that Doss and Manzella serve as chair and co-chair of the commission only serves to underscore the need for separation—literally and figuratively.

Moreover, the two arrived at the Watermark in a state-owned Ford Explorer assigned to Doss. State Police policy and procedure strictly prohibits the transporting of civilians in the state vehicles for any purposes other than state police business.

State Police Ford Explorer assigned to Trooper T.J. Doss parked outside Watermark Hotel Thursday…in spot reserved for Baton Rouge City Police.

Manzella is a civilian and they certainly did not appear to be on state business as she twice slipped her arm around Doss’s waist as they were at the hotel registration desk, once even patting him gently on his buttocks.

At this point, the only reasonable option left open for each of them is to resign immediately from the commission. Should they decline to do so, State Police Superintendent would seem to have no choice but to direct Doss to step down. In Manzella’s case, it would be the responsibility of Gov. Edwards to remove her—and Doss should Superintendent Kevin Reeves does not do so.

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A former employee of the Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal (LOSFM) has come forward to provide LouisianaVoice more damning information about the manner in which inspections and investigations are carried out by the office.

Byron Wade, who worked for the fire marshal’s office for 11 years before going to work as a boiler inspector for a private insurance company, also gave interesting insight into how the top brass at LOSFM party at the New Orleans Royal Sonesta Hotel.

Along the way, we also learned that one of those major expenditures itemized in our Monday story was for an entity not part of the fire marshal’s office or of any other state agency, making the expenditure potentially illegal.

“I left the fire marshal’s office in part because of the cross-training program Butch (Fire Marshal Butch Browning) put into place,” Wade told LouisianaVoice. “I’m certified as a boiler inspector and as an amusement ride inspector. They tried to make me an arson investigator and I was not qualified to do that and told them so.”

He said he was assigned as the lead investigator on a mobile home fire in which the resident died. “Brant Thompson (LOSFM Fire Chief) told Jason Johnson to make me the lead investigator. Jason Johnson is one of the best, most qualified arson investigators out there. I don’t know to this day why Thompson wanted me to be the lead investigator.”

Wade said allowing unqualified personnel to inspect rides and boilers is a recipe for disaster. “All you have to do is look at the hot water heater explosion in that school in OKLAHOMA,” he said, referring to the hot water heater explosion on January 19, 1982, in Spencer, Oklahoma, killing seven, including six elementary school children. “That hot water heater was never properly inspected,” Wade said.

“They (the fire marshal’s office) is still allowing unqualified personnel do these inspections,” he said. “When they told me I was an arson investigator, I asked a fire chief in New Orleans how much training is needed for that. His answer was to tell me, ‘Do not do arson investigations.’”

Wade also told a story LouisianaVoice had heard on several occasions about a party at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in New Orleans. We held off publishing it because of the lack of a first-person account. He said, however, he could confirm the story because he was present at the event.

Browning, he said, was hosting a convention of firefighting personnel at the Royal Sonesta “four or five years ago” when it was noted that the party was beginning to run short of liquor. A call was put in to Baton Rouge and Shantelle Brent, Browning’s $71,000-a-year personal assistant (officially, an Executive Management Officer) promptly brought a Tahoe loaded with fresh booze from Baton Rouge to the New Orleans hotel, located at the corner of Bourbon and Conti Streets.

“I know about this because not only was I there, but I helped unload the liquor,” Wade said.

The Tahoe was a State Fire Marshal vehicle, he added.

On Monday, LouisianaVoice listed among the fire marshal office’s expenditures $4,900 paid to LR3 Consulting for creation of the “Louisiana Firefighter Proud” website. The organization, we have since learned, is a private entity unaffiliated with the state or the fire marshal’s office. That raises immediate questions as to the legality of the expenditure, particularly since it was done without obtaining bids or quotations—and during a time of repeated budgetary shortfalls and mid-year cutbacks to higher education and other state agencies during the administration of Bobby Jindal.

It also raises the question of whether Gov. John Bel Edwards can afford another public embarrassment from his Department of Public Safety like the one that plagued him during his first year in office with former State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson.

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