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Bienville Parish grand jury to continue investigation of sexual abuse of female residents of New Bethany Home

Posted in Corruption, Courts, State Agencies, State Police on December 15, 2014| 8 Comments »

A state grand jury will reconvene in Arcadia in Bienville Parish on Thursday, Dec. 18, to continue its investigation of charges of molestation and rape brought against the former operator of a home for girls by former residents of the facility who say they the victims of sexual abuse by the minister in the 1970s and 80s, LouisianaVoice has learned.

One victim has already testified before the grand jury recessed for several weeks because a grand jury member underwent knee surgery.

Because grand jury testimony is secret, we normally would not report this type information, but a self-described survivor of the alleged abuse has already gone public with the information on social media.

Word of the grand jury probe comes almost exactly a year after seven former residents of New Bethany Home for Girls arrived in Arcadia from four separate states to file formal charges against Rev. Mack Ford. The 2nd Judicial District Attorney’s office presumably has been investigating those claims since the seven converged on the office of Bienville Parish Sheriff John Ballance a year ago to file their charges.

One source told LouisianaVoice that two witnesses had agreed to testify in exchange for immunity from prosecution. It was not immediately known if the two were former employees of New Bethany or members of Ford’s family.

Because grand jury testimony is secret, we normally would not report this type information, but a self-described survivor of the alleged abuse has already gone public with the information on social media.

Although only two of the six former residents who flew in from North Carolina, Nevada, Florida and Texas on Dec. 6, 2013, claimed to been sexually abused while living at the home, the others said they were there to lend moral support to the two, one of whom was said to be terminally ill with an inoperable brain tumor.

Allegations about beatings, handcuffing and other forms of punishment of girls at the home first came to light when the Baton Rouge Advocate began an investigation of the home in 1974. Editors, however, quickly killed the investigation before any stories could be written and the issue lay dormant until the late 1980s when the Louisiana Department of Health and Human Resources began looking into abuse allegations. In 1988, the state raided the unlicensed home located south of Arcadia on LA. 9 and removed 29 girls from the facility.

Simultaneous to that raid, the Bethel Home for Wayward Children in Lucedale, Mississippi, was closed down by officials in that state. Six months after the New Bethany raid, however, it remained open and was not closed down until 1998.

There were claims of girls at New Bethany having to clean toilets with their bare hands, being locked in isolation with only a bucket for a toilet, girls being handcuffed to their beds and being made to stand all day with no restroom breaks, beatings with wooden dowels, PVC pipe, paddles, belts and limbs.

A state game warden, interviewed by the Advocate in 1974, said he would take confiscated deer that had been killed illegally by hunters to the home. “On one occasion,” he said, “Ford asked if he could have my handcuffs.”

The public face of New Bethany, however, was quite different. Girls’ quartets clad in long dresses were frequently paraded before church congregations to sing, figuratively and literally, the praises of New Bethany in efforts to generate “love offerings” from church members.

The claims of physical abuse and rape are not new to the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) Church with which New Bethany and Ford were affiliated.

The First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana, received a great deal of notoriety over the sexual trysts two of its ministers had with female church members over a period of several years. Their misconduct was subsequently repeated at other churches where they ministered.

And when their behavior was revealed, it was the women victims who were required to stand before the congregation and apologize and ask forgiveness for tempting the men, who invariably went unpunished and indeed, continued to receive near idol status from the congregation.

Likewise, group homes where abuse has been documented tend to receive devout support from area churches. Instead of asking those who run the homes to explain their behavior, their accusers are routinely treated as pariahs while the accused are welcomed as heroes at church rallies on their behalf.

Adherents to IFB dogma, for example, discourage intermarriage or even any contact with those of other religious beliefs, distrust government, favor home schooling, and believe that spankings should commence as early as 15 months of age.

Tampa Bay Times reporter Alexandra Zayas last year was allowed to do what the Advocate refused to do. She wrote a lengthy investigative series on claims of physical abuse at several group homes in Florida. http://www.tampabay.com/faccca/

Just as she found in Florida and as had been found earlier in Texas, Louisiana homes are unlicensed and unregulated by the state, thus allowing the operators free rein in the areas of discipline and education—so long as it is done in the name of religion.

The group homes employ the same textbooks that rely heavily on the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) and BJU (Bob Jones University) Press curricula—the same resources used by many of Louisiana’s voucher and charter schools being approved by the Louisiana Department of Education. The textbooks eschew traditional science and history courses, choosing instead to apply Old Testament interpretations in their teachings.

New Bethany is situated in a secluded spot deep in the piney woods south of Arcadia where the children’s screams could not be heard. Its remote location kept the facility out of the public eye and allowed Ford to give outsiders a look on his own terms—at church services, in a controlled environment, where the neatly scrubbed girls would sing and give emotional testimonials about past drug abuse and promiscuity (many of those “testimonials” contrived by Ford) and how New Bethany had turned their lives around—all orchestrated for the maximum emotional impact so as to extract “love offerings” from those in attendance.

Ford resisted state inspections, claiming that he accepted no state funding and that he was not licensed by the state and was therefore not subject to state regulations under the doctrine of separation of church and state.

On one occasion a state inspector did manage to breach the normally chained front gates of New Bethany but that inspector died suddenly a short time later.

Ford used his death as evidence of God’s intention to protect New Bethany from state regulations, saying that the inspector had been struck down by God and a similar fate would likely await other state inspectors.

Besides the Arcadia home, Ford and his family also ran homes for boys in Longstreet in De Soto Parish and in Walterboro, S.C. One by one, the homes were eventually shut down by authorities, the Arcadia home in 1998 (some reports indicate that New Bethany boarded girls there as recently as 2004), but only after inestimable mental, spiritual and physical damage had been inflicted on hundreds of children, many of them in their early teens.

It was not immediately known how many others of the seven have been called to testify before the grand jury.

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Col. Edmonson’s hard line on trooper’s DWI carries just a hint of hypocrisy as his own record of suspensions reveals

Posted in Ethics, Finances, Governor's Office, Guest Columnist, Public Records, State Police on November 20, 2014| 17 Comments »

By Robert Burns

A recent Advocate article revealed that an LSP member of Gov. Jindal’s family-security team, Sgt. Damiem Dyson, Sr., was arrested for suspicion of drunk driving. Dyson rear-ended a vehicle in front of him, causing it to crash into several trees but, thankfully, the driver of the vehicle was not injured. Meanwhile, Dyson continued on to the next exit, where he pulled over and authorities apprehended him. He registered 0.175% blood-alcohol content, which is more than twice the legal limit for drunk driving in Louisiana. He was apprehended, placed in jail, placed on paid administrative leave, and an investigation by the Internal Affairs Division of LSP ensued.

Col. Edmonson weighed in on the incident: “As law enforcement professionals, we have not only legal responsibilities but also high standards of integrity that must be upheld at all times while serving the citizens of Louisiana,” he said. “Following a thorough criminal and administrative investigation, the department will review all findings in this matter and take swift steps to ensure an impartial and appropriate course of action.”

That sounds proactive and procedurally prudent until we take a peek at Edmonson’s own driving habits at LSP. In 1983, Edmonson was issued a letter of reprimand for an overly-aggressive effort to assist Denham Springs Police during which he crossed the medium and struck a light pole. Then-LSP Col. J. C. Willie said, “I recommend that in the future you take all precaution in the operation of your unit to avoid accidents of this kind.”  Granted, Edmonson was a young trooper at the time, and that incident may well be attributed to an overly-zealous desire to protect the safety of Louisiana citizens. LouisianaVoice readers may recall that when Bobby Jindal was sworn in as governor in January of 2008, he proclaimed that a new day in Louisiana governmental transparency had arrived.  Further, he repeatedly invoked the refrain, “We have zero tolerance for corruption.” Now, as we approach the end of Jindal’s eight-year tenure as Louisiana’s absentee chief executive, the jury has clearly returned with the verdict that his initial pronouncements were all nothing more than good old garden variety horse manure.

Edmonson managed to avoid further disciplinary action until 1988. That was the year of a Papal visit to New Orleans.  Although Edmonson was accused of other wrongdoing which was overturned on appeal, Edmonson was suspended for 10 days for working 13 hours of security detail on that visit without obtaining proper approval and for failure to evidence the security detail having been worked by submitting a copy of his check for payment as well as another document required by LSP protocol.

Three years later, in 1991, he received another letter of reprimand for careless vehicle operation. While attempting to park, Edmonson apparently was distracted by a horn being blown by a vehicle behind him. When he looked to his rear, he struck the left front bumper of the parked vehicle. Edmonson was deemed “at fault” and admonished to “exercise care and caution in the operation of your unit to avoid accidents of this kind.”

Then, in 1994, Edmonson was suspended for 40 hours due to “insufficient attentiveness for the demands of the situation.”  At 1:25 a.m. on April 1, 1994, Edmonson “left the Eastbound lane of I-12,” after which he “collided with a concrete piling of an overpass.” The report includes hand-written instructions for an official named Eddie to “verify LWOP” (leave without pay).  The report indicates that Edmonson “suffered serious injuries” and that the vehicle “was extensively damaged to the point that it is considered a total loss.”  The report also indicates that driving at high speeds on an interstate requires “constant vigilance” and further relays, “It is apparent from your statement that you were aware that your degree of attentiveness was insufficient for the demands required by the situation.”  The report then says that, as an LSP trooper, Edmonson should have recognized “your condition” and “taken the initiative to recommit yourself to your driving obligations.” LSP is “extremely fortunate that you were not more seriously injured and perhaps even more fortunate that innocent persons were not involved,” the report concluded

The retired LSP trooper who’d initiated the contact to suggest that Edmonson’s personnel file be examined said of the wording of the reprimand, “That’s a flowery way for the department to say he was drunk.” He also said he and several of his colleagues had been lied to. He said, “We were told that Edmonson was a passenger in the vehicle and another trooper was driving. This is the first I’ve heard of Edmonson being the one doing the driving.”  A second law enforcement officer indicated that while he knew Edmonson was the driver, there was a concerted effort on the part of LSP to “cover the whole incident up.”  The retired trooper source also said, “Our jaws just dropped when we learned Gov. Jindal was appointing Edmonson as LSP Colonel.”

Edmonson was suspended for another 16 hours.  This suspension again resulted from careless operation of his vehicle. It seems that while waiting at a drive-thru teller line at Whitney Bank on Government Street—with an unauthorized passenger in his LSP vehicle (Edmonson’s 12-year-old son)—at 1:30 p.m. on August 18, 1995, Edmonson “reached down to retrieve a check from the front seat.” When he did so, his foot slipped off the brake pedal, thus resulting in the vehicle moving forward. In attempting to stop, Edmonson apparently went to apply the brake, but instead at least partially hit the accelerator and smashed into the vehicle in front of him. Both passengers in the vehicle Edmonson hit complained of minor injuries.

Tyler Bridges, in his excellent book Bad Bet on the Bayou, noted that state police superintendent is one of the most important appointments a Louisiana governor makes. Bridges describes the position as historically an “enforcement arm” of any Louisiana governor’s policies and agenda.

Jindal appointed Mike Edmonson as his LSP Colonel and for more than six years, most people had little reason to question Edmonson’s integrity or the way he operated his department. That all changed, however when news of the “Edmonson Amendment” broke on July 11. The stealth amendment attempted to cram through a $55,000 per year boost to Edmonson’s retirement pension.

Before the episode was fully rectified (via a lawsuit filed by Sen. Dan Claitor to have the law declared unconstitutional), considerable collateral fallout transpired. The fallout arose from the fact that, upon the LouisianaVoice post, numerous retired LSP troopers began providing insight into Edmonson’s managerial style.

As a result, considerable evidence of payroll cronyism and nepotism within LSP became known. C. B. Forgotston revealed the existence of a 49-5 club of retired LSP troopers deemed to be in the “Edmonson clique” who were rehired at annual salaries of $49,500 each (though payroll records reveal no one making that precise salary) to perform menial tasks like making coffee, running errands for the purchase of donuts for the “breakfast crew,” etc.  Now as most Louisiana Voice readers have just read in the news, Jindal is about to be forced to make $171 million in mid-year budget cuts due to revenue shortfalls.  The cuts are necessary notwithstanding Jindal’s phantom “surplus” found by Kristy Nichols despite contradictory claims by folks like State Treasurer John Kennedy. Isn’t it a tad bit galling to know $171 million in cuts is being required, yet the state has plenty of money to rehire troopers whose only tasks are to simply hang around the office?

Perhaps Edmonson’s own perfection of the art of deception and misdirection explains why he has endured—and very nearly prospered monetarily—while others who at least seemed to possess the attributes Jindal espoused were told to take a hike. At any rate, as we see the upcoming commercials and warnings from LSP to please drive safely during the upcoming holiday season, let’s hope that they’re instilling the same friendly warnings to their own ranks, including at the highest level.

 

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Gov. Jindal to be on ‘Meet the Press’ Sunday, but what will he talk about? We’re pretty sure of things he won’t discuss

Posted in Budget, Civil Service, Corruption, DOA, Ethics, Governor's Office, Health Care, Higher Education, Jobs, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Privatization, Retirement, Revenue, State Police, Teague, Transparency on November 14, 2014| 29 Comments »

What will Gov. Bobby Jindal say when he appears on Meet the Press Sunday?

Of course we know he will attack President Obama and the Affordable Care Act, aka ObamaCare while ignoring the fact that his decision not to expand Medicaid may end up costing the state hundreds of millions of dollars. That’s a given.

At the same time he is criticizing Obama for not being more proactive on the Ebola crisis, he will fail to mention his rejection of the Medicaid expansion has been at the expense of health coverage for a couple hundred thousand low-income Louisianans.

He will condemn the president for his lax immigration policy while turning a blind eye to the indisputable fact that Latin Americans who do enter this country generally take low-paying jobs no one else wants. He won’t mention companies like IBM, Dell, ACS, and Pfizer, to name but a few, that have taken advantage of an obscure work visa (the H-1B program) to lay off more than 250,000 Americans from high-tech IT jobs. These companies lay Americans off in favor of importing hundreds of thousands of Indians who work for far less, thus saving these companies billions of dollars.

He will no doubt boast of his accomplishments as governor—claims that simply will not stand up under close examination—apparently pulled off by remote control. This is especially the case during his second term when his title would more accurately be governor in absentia. He has spent an inordinate amount of time traveling outside the state in an attempt to build support for a anemic campaign for the GOP presidential nomination that, despite his near-desperate efforts, is gaining no traction.

He could lambast the Common Core curriculum, once again ignoring that fact that he was in favor of Common Core before he was against it.

There are so many other things he could discuss but probably won’t.

He won’t mention, for instance, his abysmal record in the state’s courtrooms. One of these was his miserably failed effort to jerk retirement benefits from under the feet of active state employees, some of whom would have seen their retirement income plummet to as little as $6,000 a year—with no social security—had he been successful.

He will attempt once again to convince the nation—those of us in Louisiana know better, of course—that he has balanced the state budget while cutting taxes and reducing the number of state employees.

Yes, he has reduced the number of state employees, but at what cost? The Office of Group Benefits (OGB) is a shell of the once smooth-running state office that handled the medical claims of some 230,000 state employees, retirees and dependents. Not that that matters to Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols who, we are told, is a member of the LSU health plan and thus unaffected by the changes.

And of course Jindal, through his smoke and mirrors game of premium reductions, has managed to siphon off more than half of OGB’s $500 million reserve fund. He also recently attempted to slash benefits and pile unaffordable co-pay and deductible increases onto the backs of state employees and retirees. In short, his grand scheme to privatize OGB has proven nothing less than an unmitigated disaster of politically humiliating (to him) proportions. His firing of respected CEO Tommy Teague and the mess that has ensued stand as a monument to unparalleled mismanagement and political meddling.

And his budget balancing has produced unprecedented cuts to higher education. Colleges and universities in Louisiana have seen their appropriations gouged by nearly 70 percent during Jindal’s almost seven sorry years in office. God help us if he should somehow be placed in the position of inflicting such carnage on the nation as he has on Louisiana.

And what of that claim of balancing the budget, anyway?

Let’s review.

We will take figures provided to us by State Treasurer John Kennedy that reflect the general fund balances as of Oct. 31. And while we are quick to acknowledge the fact that the numbers will certainly improve next spring when revenues start picking up from state income tax and corporate tax collections, a comparison of the last five Octobers is both startling and sobering.

As of Oct. 31 of this year, the general fund balance reflected a deficit of $924.6 million. That’s just $75.4 million shy of $1 billion—and OGB alone is losing $16 million each month.

And yes, the numbers will improve next spring but let’s look back just one year. As of Oct. 31, 2013, the balance reflected a deficit of $656.7 million. That’s nearly $268 million less in negative spending than for this year.

Still not convinced? Well, for Oct. 31, 2012, the deficit was $476.6 million, about $448 million less than for the same month in 2014.

And while it was slightly higher at $565.2 million on Oct. 31, 2011, the number for 2010 was only $181.5 million—almost three-quarters of a billion dollars billion better than this year.

In five short years, the October deficit for the state general fund balance has increased fivefold.

The historically high negative balance, which arrives just a few months into each new fiscal year (which begins on July 1), “is forcing fund borrowing to sustain cash flow,” Kennedy says. “It darkly foreshadows the challenge ahead for lawmakers and the governor in the 2015 regular session. A budget shortfall of at least $1.2 billion is expected, but it’s clearly a figure that could move. It also increases the likelihood of midyear budget cuts in the minds of some.” (The administration finally admitted this even as this post was being written on Friday. Spending for the next seven months will have to be slashed by at least $171 million because of lower than anticipated revenues.) http://theadvocate.com/news/10833948-123/state-needs-mid-year-budget-correction

And here is the rub that has Kennedy and Nichols crossing swords: Kennedy says to some lawmakers, “the negative balance is at a critical high because the state started the fiscal year with a deficit cash balance of $141 million and because expenses actually are greater than revenues,” Kennedy said.

Nichols, however, vehemently disagrees, claiming instead that the administration stumbled upon some $320 million in extra cash from prior years lying around in agencies scattered across the state which she claims gives the state an actual surplus of nearly $179 million.

The problem she has, however, is that no one believes her—including two former commissioners of administration interviewed by LouisianaVoice, both of whom say it’s just not feasible that that much money could have been just lying around all these years without anyone’s knowing of its existence.

Nichols, of course, has to maintain a brave face in order that her boss can save face.

You see, as Bob Mann points out in his latest posting on his blog Something Like the Truth, Jindal “must never have raised a tax” and “must never have presided over an unbalanced state budget” if he wishes to cling to any fading hopes of the GOP presidential nomination.

“All your advantages—your personality, your policy credentials, the importance of your state in Electoral College politics—won’t help you much if you don’t meet these basic qualifications,” Mann said. http://bobmannblog.com/

“Jindal knows Republican audiences in Iowa and elsewhere will pay him little mind if they learn about his fiscal recklessness,” he said. “So, he and Nichols tried to cover their tracks, including dishonestly blaming their budget deficit on state Treasurer John Kennedy.”

Jindal, of course, won’t address any of these issues. But were he of a mind to do so, he could even discuss on his Meet the Press appearance how he tried to frame Murphy Painter, former director of the Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control after Painter refused to knuckle under to demands that he look the other way on behalf of New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson over Budweiser’s application for an alcohol permit at Champion’s Square. He could tell how that effort backfired and the state was forced to pay Painter’s legal bills of some $300,000. But he probably won’t

He could discuss how he attempted unsuccessfully to circumvent state law and obtain a hefty $55,000 per year increase in pension benefits for his state police commander. But most likely, he won’t.

And he could disclose how much it has cost Louisiana taxpayers in terms of payroll, meals and lodging for state police security as he jets around the country in pursuit of his presidential aspirations. But don’t expect him to.

Yes, Jindal could discuss these and other matters during Sunday’s program, but he won’t.

The simple fact is, by virtue of his bottom-feeding position as the anchor in the GOP nominee sweepstakes, he just can’t afford to.

And saddest of all, no one on the program’s panel is likely to inquire about these issues.

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When a legislator (or a governor) doesn’t like the message, the obvious solution is to pull Inspector General’s funding

Posted in Attorney General, Budget, Corruption, Ethics, Fraud, Governor's Office, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians, State Fire Marshal, State Police, Transparency on November 4, 2014| 2 Comments »

What kind of person, serving as a municipal fire chief, would purchase ribbons and decorations of previous conflicts from a military surplus store and pen them on his own uniform?

Apparently the kind of person that Deputy Secretary of the Department of Public Safety (DPS) and Gov. Bobby Jindal would want to protect even to the point of prevailing upon an ally in the legislature to file an amendment to abolish the very agency conducting an investigation of that and other offenses.

At the same time State Fire Marshal Butch Browning was being reinstated in May of 2012 by his boss, Mike Edmonson who serves as both State Police Superintendent and Deputy Secretary of DPS, State Rep. Joe Harrison (R-Napoleonville) was introducing an amendment to House Bill 1, the state’s operating budget, to pull the $1.7 million funding for the Office of Inspector General (OIG) in the middle of OIG’s investigation of allegations of payroll fraud and a sloppy inspection of a carnival ride in Greensburg only seven hours before teenage siblings were injured by the ride.

The timing of the amendment was enough to make you toss your lunch of stone cold ethics and hot back room politics.

Browning “retired” on April 18 in the middle of that investigation but returned just 12 days later, on April 30, with an $8,000-per-year increase in pay after being “cleared” by Edmonson of any wrongdoing—six months before an investigative report by OIG was even issued.

But if Jindal and his co-conspirators intended to thwart the investigation by abolishing the agency led by Stephen Street, those efforts wilted in a backlash of public support for the office immediately ensued which caused the legislature—and Jindal—to back down from the effort despite a favorable 11-5 vote on Harrison’s amendment by the House Appropriations Committee.

Remember, this is the same governor who two years later would attempt to sneak through another amendment granting Edmonson a lucrative $55,000-a-year increase in retirement benefits only to have that plan crash and burn when LouisianaVoice learned of the implications of the amendment by State Sen. Neil Riser (R-Columbia).

OIG serves as white-collar watchdog and as an internal affairs division within state government but Harrison, in offering his amendment, argued that OIG’s functions overlapped those of State Police and the Attorney General’s Office.

As we have already seen, State Police, under the direction of Edmonson, gave Browning high marks in exonerating him from any wrongdoing and as we have also seen in other matters, the Attorney General’s Office is more than a little reluctant to involve itself in the investigation of any state agency—except of course in a situation such as that of former Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Bruce Greenstein where the feds are already actively investigating a questionable contract with Greenstein’s former employer.

In that case, Attorney General intervention made good press.

In fact, since the 1974 State Constitution was adopted over the objections of then-Attorney General Billy Guste, the Attorney General’s duties are primarily restricted to defending state agencies, not investigating them and can generally enter a local matter at the express invitation of the local district attorney. In fact, the Attorney General has even begged off certain investigative matters, citing a potential conflict of interest should his office be called to defend or represent the agency.

Hammond attorney and state government watchdog C.B. Forgotston, former chief counsel for the House Appropriations Committee disagreed with Harrison’s contention that the OIG is “pretty much redundant.”

Forgotston said the office might be redundant “if any other agency in the state was stopping waste and fraud within the executive branch. Nobody at the state level is pursuing corruption in Louisiana,” he said.

Street said he linked his office’s funding to the amount of money it uncovers through wrongdoing by state officials and contractors. OIG’s annual report in 2012 showed the office had uncovered $3.2 million in fraud and waste the previous fiscal year, nearly double the office’s $1.7 million budget appropriation.

The reaction to Harrison’s bill and to Jindal’s transparent ploy was immediate.

“Is it a bargain to spend $1 to root out nearly $2 in fraud in Louisiana?” the Lake Charles American Press asked in a May 15, 2012, editorial. http://www.americanpress.com/AP-Editorial-5-16-12

“Apparently, some members of the state Legislature don’t think so,” the editorial said, adding that Harrison had admitted that he did not agree with the OIG’s investigation of Browning. He said there should have been no investigation in the first place but Street said his office had received a complaint (from the New Orleans Metropolitan Crime Commission) about how Browning was doing his job and so he launched an investigation. “I was told if you do this (job) right, you’ll eventually have people trying to shut you down,” Street was quoted by the paper as saying.

The editorial disagreed with Harrison’s claim that State Police and the Attorney General’s Office could take up the slack. “The attorney general in Louisiana is too much of a political species to launch investigations into wrongdoing by other politicians or political agencies,” it said in something of an understatement. “An office that ferrets out nearly $2 in fraud for every $1 it costs is too valuable to Louisiana to eliminate.”

The non-partisan Public Affairs Research Council (PAR) agreed. “The state needs a self-motivated watchdog agency to stop waste, mismanagement, abuse and fraud in executive-branch government,” it said in a May 7, 2012, news release. http://www.parlouisiana.com/explore.cfm/parpublications/commentariesandletters/100092

“Stephen Street… is a former criminal staff lawyer with the Third Circuit Court of Appeal, a former public defender and a former Section Chief with the state Attorney General’s Insurance Fraud Support Unit who handled white-collar prosecutions. He has extensive experience teaching courses on white-collar crime investigation,” the PAR release said.

“A sudden halt in funding of the Inspector General would terminate ongoing investigations and send a message nationwide that Louisiana government is open for corrupt or wasteful business. Lawmakers who oppose continued funding of the office while also criticizing particular ongoing investigations are running the risk of deeply politicizing the state’s law enforcement systems. If these efforts at shutting down the Inspector General’s office are successful, their effect will be to strongly encourage further political interference in the law enforcement profession throughout the state,” the release said.

James Gill, then a columnist for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, wasn’t nearly as charitable. As only he can, Gill noted that Edmonson had exonerated and reinstated Browning even before Street’s investigation was complete. Then came Gill’s zinger: “Perhaps Edmonson forgot that he had claimed Browning’s resignation had nothing to do with the allegations against him.” http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2012/05/battle_over_funding_for_louisi.html

Gill quoted Harrison as claiming that he had thought for two years that Louisiana did not need an inspector general. “Anyone but a politician would be carted off to the funny farm for saying that,” he wrote, adding that despite Harrison’s claim that his amendment had nothing to do with Browning, he launched into “a passionate denunciation of the inspector general’s office over its treatment of browning.” Gill quoted Harrison as saying no good investigator “would bring it (the investigation) to this point without verifying information.”

“Even a politician deserves a trip to the funny farm for spouting such nonsense,” said Gill at his derisive best.

But even more to the point, Gill observed that “Since Browning has already been returned to duty, it may not matter much what conclusions the inspector general reaches.”

May not indeed. This administration is, after all, the gold standard of ethics.

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Kristy Nichols’ prohibition on state employees’ reading LouisianaVoice notwithstanding, they’re still reading us

Posted in DHH, DOA, Governor's Office, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, State Police on November 4, 2014| 20 Comments »

First of all, to all those loyal readers, including those employees throughout state government, who contributed so generously to our most recent fund raiser, please accept our heartfelt appreciation. We are trying to respond personally to all of you who contributed on line and by snail mail. We met our goal and that will help us in our research for the book we are writing on the administration (and chronic absenteeism) of our part-time governor.

Should he be foolish enough to try for higher office, the book should attract national attention as the only source of insight into the real Bobby Jindal (as opposed to Faux News and his op-ed pieces in the Washington Post).

Also, we regret to inform Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols that her check for our fund raiser was apparently lost in the mail. She may wish to re-send.

Oh, one more thing, Kristy. The definition of insanity, as you know, is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Well, there is another, lesser known definition: Trying to discourage state employees from reading LouisianaVoice by blocking access to our blog or by forbidding employees to log onto it. In case you may be unaware of it, we suggested long ago that state employees not log onto LouisianaVoice at work lest they feed the paranoia that already runs rampant throughout the Division of Administration (DOA).

We know all about your little dictum that state employees are not to log onto our web page—and we concur. And why even bother to claim that blocking access was because of “bandwidth issues” when no one is buying that feeble explanation? After all, they will have plenty time to absorb our posts at home, on their own time…on their own computers, Smart Phones, etc. Uh, you do know they have these devices at home, don’t you? They can—and do—read us extensively there…and there’s not a thing you can do about it.

We also know all about your threat to monitor DOA employees’ emails—and that is your right. The computers do belong to the state, after all, but somehow makes you look pretty small and conveys the image that you have little else to do with your own time than snoop through state workers’ emails. But that’s okay because we happen to agree that the computers should be used for work and not for shopping on Amazon.com as I witnessed management personnel doing during my years in state employment.

Kristy, you may wish to refer back to that super-secret employee survey taken by IBM in the state agencies under DOA. You know, the survey that revealed such deep-seated discontent and distrust of the administration on the part of state employees. Did you ever wonder, Kristy, why that survey reflected such an undercurrent of unhappiness among your employees? Did you? Of course not. You just wrote the $25,000 check to IBM and filed the survey away in a drawer somewhere without ever trying to understand the prevailing mood. Oh, that’s right, you had a concert to attend in New Orleans so you couldn’t be bothered with such trivial matters.

And as for Stephen Russo, the Executive Counsel for the Department of Health and Hospitals: You can instruct your people not to talk to us until you turn blue in the face but you should know they’re talking to us anyway and they will continue to do so, your demands notwithstanding.

Truth be known, we’re kinda enjoying all the attention and fuss being made over our little stories. We know when you’re squirming we’re pretty close to something you don’t want us to know. If we were just blowing smoke, you really wouldn’t give a rat’s patootie, now would you?

But let us latch onto a story like the one we broke about the proposed benefit changes by the Office of Group Benefits or the one about how Jindal and State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson tried to sneak in that $55,000 per year retirement benefit increase for Edmonson, or how the Department of Education tried to enter into that furtive agreement with Rupert Murdoch to share private student data or how Jindal tried to have Murphy Painter wrongly prosecuted for doing his job which irritated Jindal financial backer Tom Benson and suddenly we’re off limits.

Have you checked out our masthead recently, the part where it says “It is understandable when a child is afraid of the dark but unforgivable when a man fears the light”?

You may wish to commit those words to memory.

 

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