Louisiana Voice

“[M]y fear is that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize.”

—US Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Georgia), on his concern over stationing an additional 8000 Marines on Guam

“I think gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman.”

— Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger during the 2003 California gubernatorial election campaign (he won)

“Thank God, I’m still alive. But, of course, those who died, their lives will never be the same again.”

—US Rep. Barbara Boxer (D-California), on the 1988 San Francisco earthquake

“Watching the TV footage of those who entered the Capitol and walked through Statuary Hall showed people in an orderly fashion staying between the stanchions and ropes, taking videos and pictures You know, if you didn’t know the TV footage was a video from January the 6th, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.”

—US Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Georgia)

“[B]ecause I knew that even though those thousands of people that were marching the Capitol were trying to pressure people like me to vote the way they wanted me to vote, I knew those were people that loved this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break a law, and so I wasn’t concerned.

“[H]ad the tables been turned and President Trump won the election and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned.”

—US Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin)

“Where did all those tourists come from?”

For those who might believe the official story that a controversial lawsuit in 4^th Judicial District Court in Monroe was sealed by human error, you probably also believe in the tooth fairy, the Easter bunny and that Trump won the election.

Anyone who thinks anything done in 4^th JDC court is by accident, or “human error,” is only fooling himself. The 4^th JDC, which encompasses the parishes of Ouachita and Morehouse, is quite likely the most duplicitous, most secretive public body this side of Louisiana State Police.

How secretive? Well, the court even sued a local newspaper for making public records request, a tactic Attorney General Jeff Landry would later employ against the Baton Rouge Advocate for the same transgression.

The Ouachita Citizen newspaper in West Monroe is, for all intents and purposes, the only publication (other than LouisianaVoice) actively covering the exploits of the 4^th JDC and credit where credit is due, The Citizen has done a far better job than anyone else, including LouisianaVoice.

The larger daily (I’m guessing it’s larger, though The Citizen may well have surpassed it in circulation numbers) Gannett paper, the Monroe News-Star, just doesn’t have the time to cover the 4^th JDC’s mischief what with its devotion to covering the duck commanders, aka the Robertson family. But then, Allyson Campbell was a gossip columnist for the News-Star, so no one really expected that publication to wave the First Amendment banner too highly on that story.

Campbell is the SISTER of prominent Monroe personal injury attorney Catherine Creed and is married to her law partner, Christian Creed who contributed $5,000 to the 2015 campaign of Attorney General Jeff Landry.

Last Wednesday, The Citizen had another interesting STORY about a lawsuit that’s been hanging over the court like a dark cloud for six years now and which has been the source of much of the 4^th JDC’s consternation.

“Stanley Palowsky III is su[ing] law clerk Allyson Campbell and accused her of concealing or destroying court documents he filed with the Clerk of Court’s office in a separate racketeering lawsuit against a former business partner,” The Citizen REPORTED. “Palowsky also sued five Fourth Judicial District Court judges, claiming the five elected officials conspired to protect Campbell and cover up her alleged shenanigans.”

So, just what did Campbell do that was so awful?

Palowsky’s suit alleged the Clerk of Court could not locate as many as 52 different writ applications which had been “missing” for over a year and that Campbell “who was clerking for Defendant Sharp at the time, had used the applications as an end table in her office.”

An end table? Yep, an end table.

Here’s the LINK a story that the late Ken Booth wrote for LouisianaVoice way back in May 2016 that gives all the sordid details.

The clerk of court’s office, it seems sealed the record for more than three weeks before claiming it had been sealed by one of her employees by mistake.

Clerk of Court Dana Benson said deputy clerk Janae Madison inadvertently sealed the lawsuit. Madison’s mother-in-law once served as the judicial assistant to 4^th JDC Judge Carl Sharp, one of the five defendant judges in the Campbell lawsuit.

But on June 1, Benson told The Citizen that the record was sealed under an order by retired Judge Jerome “Jerry” Barbera of Thibodaux who has presided over the lawsuit as an ad hoc, or special appointed, judge since 2015 because the suit named the five judges in the 4^th JDC as defendants, along with Campbell. Benson said at the time that Judge Barbera had signed the order and that it was filed.

But Benson’s staff was unable to produce any court orders that the record be closed from the public.

This entire matter got so complicated that the Louisiana Office of Inspector General (OIG) and Louisiana State Police (LSP) got involved in an investigation but the two agencies apparently didn’t talk much to each other.

When LouisianaVoice made PUBLIC RECORDS REQUESTS for investigation reports, the LSP dug in its heels and refused to release the information, saying the investigation was ongoing but the OIG did provide a two-page summary that said the matter was over and done.

The Baton Rouge Advocate even got involved, saying in an editorial in January 2019 that the court was dragging its feet on the case and that it was “little wonder that public cynicism about important government institutions runs so deep these days.”

That was two and one-half years ago and the matter is still stalled and someone in the 4^th JDC didn’t want the lawsuit to become public record but apparently had no problem with it serving as Allyson Campbell’s end table.

Oh, wait. It was sealed by “human error.”

Of course it was.

“And then there was the question, ‘Will you ever lie to us?’, and I said without hesitation, ‘No’, and I never did, as a woman of faith.”

—Former Trump press secretary Kyleigh McEnany.

“In the past, party elders, party leaders … exploited the crazies in order to win elections and then largely ignored them after the elections,” he said. “What has happened since then is that Trump opened Pandora’s box and let them out. He not only let them out, he affirmed them and provoked them. And so now they’re running wild and they are legitimatizing these delusions.”

—Retired Florida Repugnantcan operative Mac Stipanovich.

The old bureaucratic shuffle appears to have landed the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) in trouble with a Baton Rouge district judge.

Anyone who deals with governmental agencies at any level knows all about the familiar dance in which acts, sections and sub-paragraphs are thrown at vendors in rapid succession in order to eliminate from consideration those lacking the political ties in favor of those with the proper connections.

If you believe that’s a little too jaded, you’re invited to take a gander at the current list of state contracts. If you have the patience to wade through the seemingly endless list of contracts, you will notice the same vendors pop up with considerable regularity. You can see for yourself by clicking here:

Perhaps that’s why LDOE terminated an agreement under which a faith-based ministry in St. Landry Parish had been allowed to provide meals to children under the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) under the auspices of the LDOE’s Division of Nurition Support and the US Department of Agriculture.

In the SFSP, a sponsor – in this case, Restoring God’s Glory Ministries (RGGM) of Eunice – requests to provide meals to children, then agrees to submit a claim for reimbursement for a portion of those meals to LDOE which may decide to approve or deny reimbursement claims or even to terminate the sponsor from participation.

Rules provide the sponsor the opportunity to appeal any adverse agency decisions. In this case, LDOE issued a Notice of Action (NOA) letter to RGGM terminating RGGM’s agreement and also ordered the ministry to repay $116,528 in what LDOE claimed were excessive claims.

RGGM immediately appealed and the matter was assigned to administrative law judge Tyrell “Ty” Manieri (any relation to LSU baseball coach Paul Manieri?) and the administrative hearing was scheduled for Jan. 13, 2021.

The only problem with Manieri’s participation was that he was formerly employed as an attorney for LDOE until his resignation in 2012. Moreover, he revealed that he had a personal relationship with current LDOE counsel Troy Humphrey in that the two played Fantasy Football together and occasionally communicated with each other.

Despite those connections Manieri said that he felt he could be a fair and impartial judge. RGGM on Jan. 11 filed a written motion for more time and for the disqualification of Manieri, claiming that Manieri was biased toward LDOE. That motion, of course, was denied because Fantasy Football or no, Manieri’s friendship with LDOE’s lawyer would have no effect on his decision.

Sure.

So, the Jan. 13 hearing went forward despite RGGM’s not having sufficient time to call witnesses on its behalf.

That prompted 19^th Judicial District Judge Ron Johnson to rule that Manieri’s declaratory judgment to proceed with the Jan. 13 hearing without affording the ministry being afforded the opportunity to subpoena witnesses violated the RGGM’s right of due process.

In negating Manieri’s ruling, Judge Johnson also approved RGGM’s request for injunctive relief enjoining LDOE from seeking to collect the $116,528 from the ministry because LDOE had not established standards to terminate sponsors and to seek reimbursement.

Johnson’s order was signed on March 30 but as late as May 21, Shanna Legier, of the LDOE Division of Nutrition Support, reiterated in an email to RGGM’s Kayla Givs that the ministry had been determined to be “seriously deficient” on Nov. 13, 2020 which she said “would disqualify RGGM from meeting the requirements of being a sponsor.”

With LDOE and Judge Ron Johnson at loggerheads over RGGM’s qualifications, it’s going to be interesting to see how this drama plays out.

Simply saying RGGM is “seriously deficient” isn’t going to be good enough unless LDOE can show some hard evidence to support its position.

Meanwhile, RGGM apparently will not be reimbursed for feeding indigent children under the program.