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Chastened for recycling old news, LouisianaVoice discovers another long-distance Department of Education employee

July 2, 2018 by tomaswell

When Buddy Roemer was running for governor back in 1987, he promised metaphorically to “board up the top three floors of the Louisiana Department of Education.”

With John White, aka Bea Curtis (I’ll explain that momentarily) running the department, that may be more literal today than that rhetorical pledge of more than 30 years ago as he seems to prefer employees who telecommute to those who actually show up for work.

Not only does White encourage telecommuting, which in and of itself, is not necessarily a bad thing, but he appears to carry the concept to the extreme—as in from coast to coast.

Back on May 31, I wrote about our old buddy LEFTY LEFKOWITH, who is paid $99,999.90 per year to work from his home in Los Angeles. He comes in a dime under the $100,000 threshold at which state employees are required to be residents of….well, the state.

In the interest of full disclosure, I did interpret one of his mileage reports incorrectly, reporting that he rented a car from Enterprise in Los Angeles. Technically, he did reserve the car from that city, but didn’t pick it up until he arrived at Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans. I mistakenly said he drove the car from Los Angeles. He did not. He did, however, submit an expense voucher and was paid $50.49 by LDOE for mileage driven in a rental car.

And there’re always those primed and ready to catch such errors. Bea Curtis was quick to post a lengthy comment on that blog post, calling attention to “half-baked” information that I wrote. Of the more interesting remarks by Bea, there was this:

Slow news day? I think not: there’s been plenty happening in the legislature during these last three sessions to provide more than enough fodder for a sleepy little blog. Stories just waiting to be told about Representatives standing defensively on the House floor encouraging non-profits to break the law with illegal lobbying practices, and Senators who publicly announce that they no longer serve at the will of the people… Ya know, important things that people care about.

Sleepy little blog? I love that! Bea’s was an accurate enough statement except for a couple of important observations:

  • First, Bea’s comments were so knowledgeable about Lefty they could only have come from someone deeply embedded within the Department of Education who knows procedures, grants, expense reports, and miles traveled by Lefty while carrying out his duties on those rare occasions that he bothers to visit Louisiana.
  • Second, a check with the Louisiana Department of Civil Service revealed there is not now, nor has there ever been an employee named Bea Curtis in the Department of Education—or any other state agency.

Conclusion: Since it would have taken someone with intimate knowledge of Lefty’s duties and since there’s no such person in LDOE as Bea Curtis, Bea Curtis, in fact, has to be John White. But John couldn’t very well afford to go public with such caustic comments certain to antagonize legislators, could he? Thus, the pseudonym. (Oops. That’s gonna piss off some legislators.)

But all that aside, LouisianaVoice has recently learned that John White has broadened his telecommuting from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Lindsey Mingo is an Education Program Consultant 4 and does her work from Boston, of all places.

She started with the department just a year ago, on June 26, 2017, at $68,000 and at the end of his six-month probationary period, got a raise to $69,400.

Boston?

Boston.

Guess there’s no one in Louisiana qualified to do that job, either.

Finally, I would make this request of Bea Curtis:

If you respond again, please send a copy of your driver’s license (with your driver’s license number redacted, of course). It’s my way of carding certain people who comment so that I know you’re who you say you are.

 

Posted in Politics | 8 Comments »

Notable Quotables (in Trump’s own words)

June 26, 2018 by tomaswell

TRUMP ATTACKS ‘FILTHY” RED HEN AFTER SANDERS IS ASKED TO LEAVE

TRUMP: ‘DIRTY’ RESTAURANT NEEDS PAINT JOB

Question: has the Trumpster ever set foot in the Red Hen? If not, how does he know it needs painting or that it is a “dirty” restaurant?

OOPS: SEEMS MAR-A-LAGO HAS ‘DIRTY’ HISTORY

Trumpster brooks no difference of opinion…

ENDORSES VIOLENCE

DONALD SAYS ‘KNOCK THE CRAP OUT OF THEM’

And they did…

WHAT IT’S LIKE TO GET BEAT UP AT A TRUMP RALLY

’THROW HIM THE HELL OUT’

’GET OUT OF HERE. OUT’

I’LL PAY YOUR LEGAL FEES’

’VERY APPROPRIATE FOR SUPPORTERS TO BEAT PROTESTERS’

But the shoe pinches a bit when it’s on the other foot…

TRUMPSTER CAN’T TAKE SAME TREATMENT FROM OTHERS

AWW, POOR BABY

Full disclosure: Trump supporters also have been attacked by protesters at Trump rallies, but in far fewer instances. Each side points to the other in handing out blame for the loss of civility in our politics and while there are those who will disagree, I, for one, feel that the evidence pretty much points to the Trumpster for instigating a “bigly” share of the violence and what has become a generally ugly debate.

Posted in Notable Quotables, Politics | 18 Comments »

State Sen. Conrad Appel takes time out from addressing state fiscal problems to exploit phobia of undocumented workers

June 25, 2018 by tomaswell

Conrad Appel has a short memory.

Appel, the Republican state senator from Metairie, is the same one who made a killing investing in the stock of Discovery Education just before the Senate Education Committee which he chaired at the time adopted the company’s Science TECHBOOK as a digital core instructional resource for elementary and middle school science instruction.

The states of Indiana and Oregon also adopted the program about the same time and the company’s stock went from $40.96 a share at the time of his purchase on Nov. 30, 2010, to $90.21 a share on Jan. 2, 2014, a period of just over three years. More than 7.5 million shares of Discovery Communications stock were traded on the day of Appel’s purchase. The next highest volume was 3.1 million shares on Aug. 1, 2011. Daily trading volume generally ran between 1.1 million and 1.9 million shares in the three-plus-year-period from December 2010 to March 2014.

Okay, that’s old news that LouisianaVoice has reported before, so what’s the big deal?

Nothing much, except that now Appel, apparently in attempt to emulate Bobby Jindal, is penning op-ed columns for The Hayride, a conservative blog. This not a criticism of The Hayride. They believe in what they write just as I believe in what I post, which certainly is a right I would never deny them. And LouisianaVoice also has guest columnists, so, understand that this not a slam on The Hayride.

But in his COLUMN, Appel opens by saying he has been engaged in the past week in “rather heated debate” over undocumented immigration. Funny, we thought he was trying to find a solution to Louisiana’s budgetary problems.

Nevertheless, Appel goes on to say that Louisiana’s weak economy is incapable of absorbing an influx of undocumented immigrants. He does give a nod to the indisputable fact that without that influx of Hispanic workers following Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans would never have recovered in the time it did.

He notes that the workers “flocked in” to form the labor force that rebuilt the region because, he says, jobs were plentiful. But here is a curious cop-out by Appel in his column: “A side question is why the natives didn’t return to assume those jobs but that is a subject for someone else.”

No, Senator, it certainly is NOT a question for “someone else.” As an elected state senator, it is precisely your duty to address that issue head-on, not weasel out of it with some half-baked excuse.

But in case you need a reminder, here’s a major reason, and you can file this away for future use:

The largely African-American male population that fled New Orleans in the wake of Katrina did not return to claim those jobs because they were unqualified to do the work. The Hispanics who “flocked in” were, in fact, skilled laborers, trained in carpentry, roofing, bricklaying, and concrete finishing. They were already trained in contrast to New Orleans blacks who historically have been written off by the power structure—white and black power structure, it should be noted—that considered them of no value other than on election day.

Of course, Appel represents lily-white Metairie in Jefferson Parish, so he would find it difficult to emphasize with the plight of people of color. But here’s an example that stands out as symbolic of the way in which the power structure I alluded to earlier games the system to its own advantage and to the disadvantage of what it considers the bottom feeders.

Following Katrina, FEMA issued 81,241 blue roof tarps (10-feet-by-10-feet). An Austin, Texas, contractor said he charged $300 to cover a 2000-square-foot roof. That equates to 20 tarps, or a buck-fifty per tarp.

FEMA contracted with the Shaw Group of Baton Rouge to place the tarps for $175 per 10-by-10 tarp, or $3500 for that same 2,000-square-foot house–more than 11 times what the Austin contractor charged.

But it gets better. Shaw apparently had no employees qualified to place the tarps, so it subcontracted with a company called A-1 Construction at a cost of $75 per tarp. That’s a profit of $100 per tarp for Shaw, whose employees never touched a tarp.

But wait. A-1 subbed its work out to Westcon Construction at $30 a square (tarp) for a profit of $45 per square—again, without ever touching a tarp.

Westcon then hired the actual workers who placed the tarps at a cost of $2 a square, or a profit of $28 per tarp for Westcon.

If Shaw had contracted to place all 81,000 tarps, the company would have pocketed more than $8.1 million without ever lifting a finger. A-1 cashed in for more than $3.6 million and never broke a sweat while Westcon made a more modest $2.27 million after paying its workers. Of course, those figures don’t take into consideration taxes and insurance paid by the companies. But still….combined profits of nearly $14 million?

By contrast the workers who actually placed the tarps received $162,000 to be divided between however many workers were hired to do the work.

Can you say profiteering?

Anyone care to bet against the chances that those workers who actually placed the tarps were Hispanic? After all, 45 percent of the recovery workforce was comprised of Latinos, about half of whom were undocumented. Of that 45 percent, 43 percent were from Mexico, 32 percent from Honduras, 9 percent from Nicaragua, and 8 percent from El Salvador.

And here’s the real kicker, just in case Appel ever cares to do a little research on the subject. Many of those ended up as victims of WAGE THEFT at the hands of unscrupulous contractors who vanished without paying the workers.

So, yes, Sen. Appel, there is a problem but to say the economy of this state can’t afford an influx of undocumented immigrants is just a tad hypocritical, given the fact that the Legislature that was so complicit in abetting Bobby Jindal as he tanked the state’s treasury couldn’t seem to get its act together until it had carried the state to the very edge of the metaphorical fiscal cliff. Until you as a body can act responsibly in addressing our teetering state economy, you shouldn’t cast stones—in anyone’s direction.

Especially when many of the undocumented workers who did “flock in” were never paid for the work they did in restoring New Orleans.

Posted in Budget, Economy, Education, Finances, Jobs, Senate | 20 Comments »

Trend of women seeking high political office reaches Baton Rouge as Democrat Andie Saizan goes after Garrett Graves

June 23, 2018 by tomaswell

In case you haven’t been paying attention, the victory by Donald Trump has resulted in more women making the decision to seek public office.

And if more women are participating in the political arena, it’s not necessarily because of any positive influence from the Trumpster. In some cases, it’s the indignity of seeing a misogynist in the nation’s highest office that has triggered women’s decision to run for office.

For ANDIE SAIZAN Andie Saizan, the idea of watching U.S. Rep. Garrett Graves as he obediently went along with virtually everything put forward by Trump was just too much.

The Holden Democrat was repulsed by Graves’s blind loyalty to Trump, including unconditional support of the NRA, proposals to scale back Medicaid/Medicare benefits, repeal of internet neutrality. And the treatment of children of illegal immigrants was just too much.

The 37-year-old mother of four is officially a candidate for the 6th District congressional seat now held by Graves.

She is part of the wave of women seeking public office, much of that being a reaction to Trump and his policies, said Jean Sinzdak of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

Andrea Dew Steele, president and founder of Emerge America agrees. She says there was an “immediate uptick in interest in our work” following Trump’s election. “And it has persisted through today. It’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen.”

Since the 1971, the year before Watergate, there has been a steady increase in the percentage of female office holders. Statewide elected offices have seen an increase in women from about 7 percent in 1971 to a high of 28 percent in 2000. Today, females make up about 24 percent of statewide elective offices. That percentage is about the same for state legislatures.

During that same time period, the number of women in Congress has gone from about 3 percent in 1971 to 20 percent today.

Saizan acknowledges that hers is an uphill fight because of what she describes as the “good old boy system” that she says “needs to be taken out.”

And she knows a thing or two about overcoming stiff odds. “At the age of 24, I had two children and was pregnant with a third when my husband walked out on me. Working for the Continental Kennel Club, I didn’t have a high-paying job. But they stood with me and supported me.

“I was on food stamps and everyone was telling me I couldn’t go back to college, but I did.

“Republicans love to talk about welfare queens but because I fought the system and got an education, today I pay more in taxes every year than I ever took in food stamps.”

Saizan, who works in the computer industry, believes that everything elected officials do should be geared toward empowering people. “When we turn our backs on people in need, we cannot call ourselves Christians,” she says.

Her quest may not be as quixotic as it might appear at first glance. “Edwin Edwards, a convicted felon, received 40 percent of the vote against Graves,” she said. “He can be beaten and he can be beaten on his own record.”

Saizan doesn’t give all the credit for her decision to run to Trump. It was Graves himself, she says, who pushed her to run, albeit inadvertently.

“Garrett convinced me to run when he trashed Medicaid/Medicare,” she says. “If I can’t bring my child to the doctor when she’s sick, something’s wrong with the system. Healthcare is too important to treat as some sort of political football. We use public dollars for insurance companies to bet against the health of Americans, and that’s wrong. If there’s something wrong with the Affordable Care Act (Obama Care), then fix it, don’t abandon it for some political philosophy.”

She said she and Graves differ in their stands on guns. “We are gun-owners at our house. I’m pro-Second Amendment. But we need laws that sponsor responsible gun ownership. Garrett doesn’t want that.”

As for Graves’s stance on net neutrality, she says he “either misled voters or he doesn’t understand net neutrality. It’s far worse than simply slowing down internet service. Say, for example, you’re on a cruise ship. The cruise line can make internet service a-la cart so you have to buy a specific service provider—and they charge more for it.”

She fired a broadside at both Graves and former U.S. Rep. Billy Tauzin when she said, “We must be able to negotiate the prices of prescription drugs.” Tauzin, a Democrat-turned-Republican from Lafourche Parish, as one of his last official acts as a member of Congress, pushed through a bill that prohibited the federal government from negotiating the prices of prescription drugs under Medicaid/Medicare.

Following that little coup, he promptly resigned and went to work as the chief lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry.

Saizan is particularly incensed at the manner in which the Trump administration has gone about separating children from their parents on the nation’s southern border. And she isn’t shy about expressing her contempt for the president. “Any man who would try and justify separating children from their mothers like this is simply a coward. This is immoral! It was wrong when Hitler did it and it’s wrong now!

“I am not for open borders but I do know that we can treat this situation in a more humane manner. The fact that this is what we have come to only reiterates that America needs comprehensive immigration reform without racial bias or classism.”

She said the Democratic Party is the “party of the people but we don’t get our message across.”

She’s working on that.

 

Posted in Congress, Elections, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians, State Agencies | 16 Comments »

DeSoto Sheriff Jayson Richardson (or Samuel Baldwin?) fighting auditors to conceal employee personnel records

June 21, 2018 by tomaswell

What in the world’s going on in the sleepy town of Mansfield up in DeSoto Parish?

Usually, the political shenanigans are kept pretty much in-house, meaning what happens here generally stays here. We’re family here, after all, and the family doesn’t air its dirty laundry.

The normal procedure is for everyone to just shake their heads and to go on about their business, secure in the knowledge that this is Louisiana and that’s just the way it is. Always has been, always will be.

But occasionally, these dirty little secrets burst open like a festering sore and they become a little more difficult to ignore.

Thanks to the diligence of the Legislative Auditor’s office in Baton Rouge, that’s what has happened in the DeSoto Parish Sheriff’s Office over the past four years.

What began as an investigative audit in April 2014 that revealed a former deputy’s private business ran more than 41,500 BACKGROUND CHECKS through the sheriff’s office during an 11-month period between April 1, 2012, and February 28, 2013, eventually led to the RESIGNATION of long-time sheriff Rodney Arbuckle in March of this year. Arbuckle attributed his resignation to health problems encountered by one of his grandchildren.

And the saga continues.

State auditors are back for yet another investigative audit. Arbuckle’s successor, Jayson Richardson is resisting a subpoena by the auditor’s office and he is taking his fight into the courtroom.

State Auditor Daryl Purpera on June 13 had the subpoena served on Richardson. It sought to compel Richardson to produce “copies of the unredacted personnel files” of the sheriff and 12 of his deputies.

“The designated personnel files contain privileged and Constitutionally-protected private information,” says a PETITION FOR DECLARATORY AND INJUNCTIVE RELIEF filed by attorney James Sterritt of the prominent Shreveport law firm of Cook, Yancey, King & Galloway. “Under the circumstances, forcing the sheriff to comply with the subpoena would cause the sheriff, who is charged with enforcing the law, to instead break the law by disregarding legally-protected privacy rights.”

Sterritt also challenged the legality of the subpoena which he says “was not issued under authority of any court.” Instead, he said, it is a “Legislative Subpoena Duces Tecum” and which was not reviewed or evaluated by a judge. “Instead, it was signed by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor (Purpera) and the Chairwoman of (the) Louisiana Legislative Audit Advisory Council (State Rep. Julie Stokes)

Not so, says Purpera. “We will be glad to argue this in court,” he said. “We have the power to subpoena records (and) we’ve been issuing subpoenas for the last 34 years that I know of.”

Purpera said he would seek to move the matter to the 19th Judicial District Court in Baton Rouge.

Sterritt, in typical legal fashion, included case citations in his motion in the hopes that something might stick.

“As an accommodation, the sheriff offered to remove or redact the protected information,” Sterritt said. “But the auditor, through its representatives and employees, refused. The only accommodation that the auditor would agree to was that medical records could be removed while the auditor supervised the removal of those records.”

But Richardson, aka James Samuel Baldwin (I’ll explain that momentarily), countered through Sterritt that “no law enforcement officer, no district attorney, no attorney general, no inspector general, and no other governmental official has the authority to obtain subpoenas without just, reasonable, or probable cause. There is no law that authorizes the auditor to do what others cannot.

“The affidavit used to obtain the subpoena is defective,” Richardson/Baldwin argues. “It contains conclusory, unsupportable legal arguments and opinions—not facts. It contains mischaracterization and/or misrepresentation of the auditor’s authority. It omits relative matters. It would not be sufficient to establish the foundation necessary for a subpoena issued by a judicial officer.”

Besides Richardson, personnel records sought include those for the following employees:

  • Monica Cason;
  • Black Woodward;
  • Karen Miller;
  • Robert Davidson;
  • Chato Atkins;
  • Kenneth Gingles;
  • Gregory Perry;
  • Stephanie White;
  • Patrick Jones;
  • Donnie Barber;
  • Carolyn Davis, and
  • Luther Butler.

And just for good measure, Sterritt said the subpoena is “overly broad and creates an unreasonable burden and unnecessary expense. The proposed production will be unduly time-consuming and expensive. It will not result in a legally-justifiable use of public resources.”

It took Sterritt six pages to say all that. If he gets paid by the word, he did quite well for himself and his firm.

State Judge Charles B. Adams of the 42nd Judicial District signed a protective order and a rule to show cause and scheduled a hearing for today (Thursday, June 21) at 9:30 a.m.

Jennifer Shaye, an attorney for the auditor’s office, was dispatched to Mansfield to argue on behalf of the state. LouisianaVoice will update this story as soon as it is learned whether or not Judge Adams rules or takes the matter under advisement.

Meanwhile, about the apparent confusion over the sheriff’s real name:

When Richardson divorced his first wife several years ago, it was revealed by his now ex-wife that when they were married, his legal name was James Samuel Baldwin but on May 9, 2005, he had his name legally changed to Jayson Ray Richardson but neglected to take steps to change his wife’s name.

No reason was given for the name change.

Nor has there been any explanation for an apparent discrepancy in Baldwin/Richardson’s announced promotion to Chief Deputy only months before Arbuckle’s resignation as opposed to his official appointment a year earlier.

By letter of Dec. 20, 2016, Arbuckle informed the Secretary of State’s office, “This letter is to inform you that I am appointing Jayson Richardson as Chief Criminal Deputy of my office.” Accompanying that letter was Richardson’s OATH OF OFFICE, signed and notarized that same date.

But Arbuckle did not get around to announcing the promotion until his former chief deputy Horace Womack retired in December 2017, a full year later.

Somehow, it always seems appropriate to quote the late C.B. Forgotston:

“You can’t make this stuff up.”

 

Posted in Audit Reports, Auditor, Corruption, Ethics, Finances, Public Records, Transparency | 2 Comments »

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