Louisiana Voice

Seven years ago this month, LouisianaVoice published a story about a 22-year employee of the E.I. DuPont plant in Burnside in Ascension Parish who filed a whistleblower LAWSUIT against his former employer.

That suit, filed in Middle District Federal Court in Baton Rouge, claimed that the plant had consistently experienced toxic gas leaks on virtually a daily basis for more than two years without reporting the leaks as required by federal law.

Jeffrey M. Simoneaux, an Ascension Parish native who served for 14 years as chairman of the plant’s Safety, Health and Environmental Committee, also claimed he was harassed, intimidated and denied promotions after he said he complied with DuPont’s own internal procedures for reporting a leak of sulfur trioxide (SO3) gas, a known carcinogen which is regulated under the Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA) of 1976 and was reprimanded for doing so.

Eight months later, DuPont filed a MOTION IN LIMINE seeking to block plaintiffs in the Simoneaux matter from citing reports of prior leaks and regulatory proceedings against the company “not related to the gas leaks” at the Burnside plant.

Despite viewing videos of gas leaks at the plant, jurors in the case ultimately RULED in favor of DuPont but the presiding judge set aside that verdict in a major development. You can read about that ruling on page 42 of the December 2015/January 2016 issue of Louisiana Bar Journal by going HERE.

On February 17 of this year, THE GUARDIAN, a British publication, citing internal company documents, revealed that DuPont had sold its plant in Reserve in St. John the Baptist Parish “that emits a likely cancer-causing pollutant citing ‘major concerns’ that government agencies would regulate its emissions to protect the community living nearby.”

Sixteen days earlier, on Feb. 1, the same publication noted that until President Joe Biden mentioned Louisiana’s ”CANCER ALLEY” as he signed new climate and environmental justice orders, residents of the infamous Mississippi River corridor between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, aka “Cancer Alley,” have been failed “by every layer of government” from the president to congressional representation to a succession of governors to the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).”

On Oct. 30, 2019, online news service PROPUBLICA, working with the Baton Rouge Advocate and New Orleans Advocate, published an extensive story on “Cancer Alley” that noted to no one’s surprise really, that Louisiana ranked among the 10 least-improved states in the nation in terms of air quality.

But even as DuPont decides to punt rather than pony up the cost of lowering toxic emissions, other companies like Formosa Plastics are moving in along the corridor, creating what a UNITED NATIONS PANEL calls “environmental racism.”

Sometimes it seems that The Guardian, operating from across the Atlantic Ocean, is more concerned with the welfare of residents of Louisiana’s river parishes than most publications in the state as evidenced by a May 6, 2019, story about Reserve, identified as ”CANCER TOWN” because of its cancer rate, highest in the country – 50 times the national average.

Curiously, little in any of these publications is said about the campaign contributions made to state and local politicians who in turn deliver generous tax exemptions and other incentives to the 150 or so petrochemical plants along the 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

The concentration of plants that spew the toxins into the air contribute greatly to the state’s having the second-highest cancer rate in the nation.

It’s a trade-out in exchange for high-paying jobs for Louisiana residents – if the jobs only went to Louisiana residents but there has been growing skepticism over the promises of jobs the companies make to get those tax breaks. In St. Gabriel in Iberville Parish, for example, the annual per-capita income is $15,000 – about a third below the state average and about half the national average despite the presence of no fewer than eight plants that employ some 14,000 people – nearly half the total population of the parish. Most of those employees, however, drive in from elsewhere.

ProPublica, quoted Louisiana Chemical Association President Greg Bowser as saying if plants don’t hire locals, it’s most likely because the candidates aren’t qualified. “Working at a chemical facility is a big undertaking,” he said. “To receive a job offer, it is necessary to have the proper training at a reputable center of learning.”

So, basically what he’s saying is that Louisiana’s citizens are under-educated – and he may well be correct.

It’s not as though Louisiana’s political leaders have made a real effort to lift the state from the bottom of every good list or the top of every bad list. Instead, they have historically turned their backs on the real problems by neglecting to properly fund public education, by refusing to pay teachers a livable wage and by placing higher priorities on closing mental health facilities, building more prisons and coming up with quick-fix solutions like legalized gambling that don’t really fix anything but, in fact, actually contribute to the problem.

Meanwhile, plans are on the drawing board for the construction of yet more such plants along the river that will receive yet more tax exemptions and incentives so that they can contribute yet more toxins into the air.

And parish elected officials, legislators, and statewide political candidates will continue to look the other way as they receive campaign contributions from the corporations and nice steak and lobster dinners from lobbyists of the petrochemical industry.

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s …well, you know.

But not necessarily, says a lobbyist for the Louisiana School Board Association (LSBA).

It was back in July 2014 that LouisianaVoice broke the STORY of the attempt to sneak an illegal retirement pay raise for then-Louisiana State Police (LSP) Superintendent Mike Edmonson into an obscure bill on the very last day of the legislative session.

That story led to vehement objections by retired state troopers which in turn led to more than 190 stories about Edmonson and LSP that culminated with Edmonson’s retirement but only after that ill-advised to San Diego via the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas by several troopers under Edmonson’s command.

That aborted retirement boost, dubbed The Edmonson Bill, was pushed by State Sen. Neil Riser who at first denied any part in the scam. The outcry was such that State Sen. Dan Claitor filed a suit to block the raise. The court ultimately agreed that the attempted raise was unconstitutional. But by then, the pressure was such that Edmonson had reversed himself, saying publicly that he would not accept the furtive bonus.

Well, guess what? It looks like they’re at it again.

While the latest bill doesn’t involve Edmonson, the tactic looks very much the same as that infamous bill of nearly seven years ago, though the LSBA spokesperson insists they’re vastly different.

This time it’s not an amendment to a bill as was the case in 2014. No, this one is a straight-up bill that quietly attempts to make an exception for the benefit of at most, maybe five persons.

State Rep. Jeremy LaCombe (D-Livonia) has pre-filed House Bill 22 which “provides for the transfer of certain employees of the Louisiana School Boards Association (LSBA), from the Parochial Employees’ Retirement System of Louisiana (PERS) to te Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana (TRSL).”

Current law provides that employees of the LSBA are members of PERS. LaCombe’s bill would provide that certain employees of the association would become members of TRSL but eligibility is restricted to only a few employees:

• New employees (hired after June 30, 2021);
• Any employee with at least five years of service credit in TRSL;
• The director of LSBA.

The bill would affect possibly three employees, five at most, according to an LSBA representative, with the most obvious being that of the LSBA executive director. And it’s those last two provisions of the bill that are key.

Coincidentally, Janet Pope, Ph.D., was named in July 2018 as executive director of LSBA after serving five years as the board’s development/legislative specialist (emphasis added).

LSBA lobbyist Dannie Garrett III said LaCombe’s bill is being filed to correct a flaw in the law that has existed for years. “The bill was pre-filed last year,” he said, “but the pandemic forced legislators to cut back on the number of bills they could file, so we’re trying it again this year.”

He said the bill would actually cost Pope in the short term because her contribution to her retirement would increase because TRSL, like most other state retirement systems, has an unfunded liability it is attempting to overcome with increased percentage contributions. PERS, he said, does not have an unfunded liability.

If it weren’t such a pitiful farce, the vote by Louisiana’s congressional delegation on President Biden’s economic stimulus bill might be funny.

Instead, all it does is expose the hypocrisy in its rawest, most partisan form.

The four House members, Steve Scalise, Clay Higgins, Mike Johnson and Garret Graves, each voted No on House Resolution 1319, the $1.9 trillion relief bill.

Despite their opposition, the resolution squeezed through on a tight 220-211 vote.

In the Senate, the resolution narrowly passed by a 50-49 vote even though both Louisiana senators, Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy, voted No.

They are all Repugnantcans and the bill was being pushed by a president who happened to be a Democrat.

But let us flash back to March 14, 2020. That was the day that the House voted on House Resolution 6201, Donald Trump’s $2 trillion relief package to help struggling Americans who had lost their jobs because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump, of course, was a Repugnantcan.

On that vote, Scalise, Higgins, Johnson, Graves and Cedric Richmond voted Yes. Ralph Abraham, then representing Louisiana’s 5^th District and with one foot out the door, did not vote.

The resolution swept through the Senate by a vote of 90-8. In the House, the result was an overwhelming vote of 363-40 in favor of the resolution.

In the Senate, both Cassidy and Kennedy voted Yes.

I remind you that of the five House members and the two senators casting their Yea votes, only Richmond was a Democrat.

Do we detect a hint of inconsistency in those votes?

So, the question is: how was it that Trump’s $2 trillion relief package sailed through both chambers but Biden’s $1.9 trillion proposal was barely approved by the narrowest of margins?

The answer is simple, really. The Repugnantcans are hypocrites. There is no other answer that could explain the 180-degree switch from bipartisan approval of a Repugnantcan’s $2 trillion proposal and such a struggle to get a Democrat’s $1.9 trillion approved.

Perhaps Kennedy, Cassidy, Higgins, Graves, Johnson and Scalise should insist that their constituents return their uncashed $1400 stimulus checks to the U.S. Treasury.

Seriously though, if those votes don’t clearly illustrate the mindset of today’s Repugnantcan Party, nothing will. They have clearly shown themselves to be obstructionists who will resort to any ploy to keep control – even supporting a clown’s unsubstantiated claims that the election was stolen from him and attempting every measure available to them to PREVENT BLACKS FROM VOTING.

They can call the voter suppression efforts by any name they want, but the truth is, it’s just the American version of APARTHEID. There’s just no other name for it. Perhaps they should abandon any pretense at advocating equality and just rename themselves as the American Apartheid Party.

Isn’t it sad that we were so critical of that practice in South Africa but half our leaders in Congress and many of our legislatures are perfectly willing, yea eager, to advance it here?

Hell, an attorney representing the Arizona Repugnantcan Party ADMITTED in his argument before the U.S. Supreme Court on March 3 that striking down a voter suppression law in his state would put Repugnantcans “at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats.”

In other words, Repugnantcans can’t expect to win without denying minorities the right to vote.

In another development, the Associated Press reported that in a LEAKED AUDIO, a leading Trump adviser told influential Wisconsin Repugnantcans in December that voter suppression was “traditionally” part of the party’s election strategy in battleground states.

No fewer than two dozen states have moved forward with efforts enact restrictions on voting. To date, only one curious bill has been pre-filed in Louisiana. Rep. Blake Miguez (R-Erath) has authored a bill that would prohibit the use of private funds to pay election-related expenses.

But if Louisiana follows the lead of other states, you can look for similar efforts to suppress black voting from the state’s Repugnant-dominated legislature.

Watch this space for further developments.

When Karen Carter Peterson’s father died in 2018, he left an estate valued at more than $6.2 million, half of which went to his wife and the remaining $3.1 million to be divided equally between Sen. Peterson and her two sisters.

That meant she was an instant millionaire.

Still, she found it necessary to rip off state taxpayers for nearly $15,000 in per diem payments at $161 per day for 20 of the 24-day session in 2020 that she did not attend ($13, 685 in per diem, plus another $1,225.90 in mileage). That was in addition to her $22,800 base salary as a member of the Louisiana Legislature.

Back in 2012, when she was elected State Democratic Party Chairperson, she proceeded to stack the State Democratic Executive Committee with her own appointees and then prevailed on her friendly committee to approve an ANNUAL STIPEND of $36,000, plus expenses (It might be interesting to know if she charged mileage to both the state Democratic Party and to the state of Louisiana when she traveled to Baton Rouge on legislative/party business).

Even then she wasn’t finished. Her sister Eileen Carter of Houma was paid $13,000 during October and November 2015 for “organizational/grassroots consultation” ($1500 per week, or a per-annum rate of $78,000).

Given all that, it seems fair to compare Carter Peterson to the owner of a five-star restaurant like say, Antoine’s of New Orleans, going from table to table grabbing the tips intended for the wait staff (of course, it goes without saying that the owner of Antoine’s would never pull a stunt so crass – but the same might not apply, apparently, to Carter Peterson). Considering Louisiana’s abysmal poverty rate, it somehow conjures up images of a rich merchant sweeping crumbs from the outstretched hands of a starving peasant.

She also appointed Stephen Handwerk as Executive Director of the State Democratic Party at a salary of almost $100,000.

But, to be fair, let’s take a closer look at Carter Peterson’s leadership, her sister’s work at “organizational/grassroots consultation” and Handwerk’s performance at identifying and engaging Democratic voters in the state.

Taking the latter first, Handwerk was somewhat reluctant to make use of an available database to perform his job, claiming that he had insufficient staff to perform the task. Yet, he somehow found the time to take a second salaried job with the Democratic National Committee.

Eileen Carter? Well, we just don’t know what the hell she did to earn $13,000 in two months.

But as for Carter Peterson herself, well, in 2017, she managed to get herself elected to the DNC as Vice Chair of Civic Engagement and Voter Participation even as the Louisiana Democratic Party was bleeding membership.

Mark Ballard, writing for the BATON ROUGE ADVOCATE last July, said, “…on Peterson’s watch the number of registered Democrats, who once dominated electoral politics in Louisiana, declined about 10%, losing 148,834 voters to total 1.25 million Democrats as of July.”

The number of Republicans, Ballard said, grew by 20% to 948,850 during her eight years as state Democratic Party chair.

Of course, much of that shift in both directions can be attributed to the trend, especially in the South, of Republican growth and Democratic losses. Still, for someone hired specifically for civic engagement and voter participation, her performance has to be considered disappointing at best and inept at worst. You simply cannot grow interest in any endeavor if you don’t get your message out – and the message from the Louisiana Democratic Party has been one of utter silence. You’d think the state Democratic offices would be a hive of activity, pandemic or no pandemic, during the recent presidential campaign. Instead, a visit to the Baton Rouge headquarters in the midst of the campaign found the place locked and vacant.

At least part of the reason for that must certainly be attributed to her lack of leadership.

“But the biggest concern to several Democratic Parish Executive Committee (DPEC) members,” LouisianaVoice SAID in November 2017, “is the lack of membership on no fewer than 29 parish executive committees, a condition critics attribute to Peterson’s lack of timely appointments.

“There are 29 parishes which have five or fewer members on their committee,” one DPEC member said. “There should be at least 15 members of each parish executive committee. That’s nearly half the state that has non-existent or non-functioning DPECs. Livingston Parish has only seven of 15 seats filled. One member of the Livingston DPEC has been working since February to get the seats filled but that still hasn’t been done even though names have been submitted.”

And nearly two years into Peterson’s second term as state chairperson, there were still 33 Democratic State Central Committee (DSCC) vacancies. “If she fills positions at all, it’s usually with her minions,” one DSCC member said.

So, now Peterson is presenting herself as the best-qualified candidate to succeed the departed Cedric Richmond as U.S. Representative from Louisiana’s 2^nd District.

Given her performances as state Democratic chair and DNC vice chair of civic engagement and voter participation, her torpedoing of gubernatorial appointments, her only occasional appearances at her legislative job while still being paid for non-attendance, the nepotism and favoritism in her hiring and the shrinking of the state Democratic Party under her leadership, it would be a pretty good stretch for her to be considered as the best the 2^nd District has to offer.

In fact, it’s difficult to see her as the best at anything other than looking out for Karen Carter Peterson.

Even as the St. Tammany Parish School Board refuses to divulge when – or even if – it has requested background checks on personnel and even as the board exerts every effort at its disposal – legal and otherwise – to silence critics, an internal audit has revealed that of the 55 public schools in the parish, at least 44 (80 percent) are considered medium- to high-risks when it comes to sufficient oversight of $12.5 million in student activity funds.

The $12.5 million controlled by the 55 schools comes to an average of $227,272 per school, though five schools considered at high risk are sitting on student activity funds totaling more than $3.5 million – an average of $700,000 per school.

Those schools are Mandeville High School ($1.3 million), Covington High ($610,381), Pearl River High ($387,625), Salmen High ($396,545) and Slidell High ($817,111).

In all, 11 schools are classified as high risk by the board’s own internal auditor while another 33 are considered medium risks, according to the board’s Risk Assessment for the current school year obtained by LouisianaVoice.

The funds are generated through school fundraisers such as fees, field trip payments, food services, T-shirts, P.E. uniforms, parking finds, passes and other activities and are used to finance various student activities such as band, pep squads, athletic teams, etc.

An audit of Honey Island Elementary School, a high-risk school, noted that purchase request forms were either incomplete or did not contain the required prior approval needed for purchases. Moreover, it revealed that the principal’s travel expense form was paid without a supervisor’s approval or without supporting documentation.

Another high-risk school, Bayou Woods Elementary School showed areas of concern as well. A review of purchase request forms, for example, showed in one situation, the school principal initiated a disbursement request and had the assistant principal sign the “Principal Approval” to authorize the expense, meaning that the final expense approval was obtained from an employee who reports to the principal.

In another instance, school funds were used to purchase a $650 “unique item” without the completion of required purchase request forms to document the business purpose of the expense.

The risk assessment report and the 2007 RAPE of an elementary school student by a school custodian have combined to raise alarm with several St. Tammany Parish citizens over whether or not the board carries out its responsibility to conduct criminal background checks on employees in a timely manner.

And whenever the issue is raised with the board, critics are silenced as with the abrupt KILLING OF THE MICROPHONE of that rape victim at a January board meeting.

But the real kicker is the board’s ruling that one can only speak to a particular agenda item but requests to speak must be submitted in writing by noon the Friday before the next meeting – even though the agenda for the meeting has not yet been posted.

“How can someone possibly know what’s on the agenda before noon if it’s not posted?” asked Rebecca Bleker, the mother of the 2007 rape victim, Justin Bleker.

Cindy Rester, a frequent critic of the board, was a bit harsher in her assessment of the board and School Superintendent Frank Jabbia:

“I am appalled after reading your response! You may want to read [the] St. Tammany Parish School Board Policy, and I suggest that you read the LAW particularly La. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§17:81, 42:14, 42:15, 42:16, 42:2.

“Public Comments for Agenda Items is totally different and is a requirement set out in law.

“If you are going to be in charge and responding to things like this, I suggest you may want to take a class from Louisiana Legislative Auditor to LEARN about such things. I am attaching for your review the LLA FAQ on Open Meeting Laws you should find it very interesting.

“In fact, they have a whole section just for School Boards Louisiana Legislative Auditor.”

Below are the board Risk Assessment Report for the 2020-2021 school year and the internal audit reports on Bayou Woods Elementary and Honey Island Elementary schools.