Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Treasurer candidate Neil Riser at center of 2013 move to skip bid law in favor of Vantage Health purchase of state building

September 26, 2017 by tomaswell

Before Louisiana voters trek to the polls in record low numbers on Oct. 14, there are a few things to consider about State Sen. Neil Riser, one of four candidates for the job of state treasurer, who, besides failing to help landowners being fenced out of their hunting lands, actually took campaign cash from a family member of the one erecting the fences.

Riser, author of that infamous bill amendment in the waning minutes of the 2014 legislative session that would have given State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson an additional $100,000 or so per year in retirement benefits, has received some other interesting contributions as well.

The Louisiana Safety Association of Timbermen gave $2,500 to his senate re-election campaign in March 2014 and only 18 months later filed for BANKRUPTCY on behalf of its self-insurance worker’s compensation fund, leaving quite a few policy holders in the lurch.

Several nursing homes have contributed $2,500 each to his treasurer campaign. The nursing home industry, heavily reliant on state payments on the basis of bed occupancy, consistently benefited from favorable legislation by the Louisiana Legislature over the past decade that discouraged home care for the elderly.

But by far the biggest beneficiary of Riser’s legislative efforts is Vantage Health Plan, Inc., of Monroe which contributed $1,000 in 2015 to his Senate re-election campaign and another $1,000 to his treasurer campaign in March of this year.

Vantage has received six state contracts totaling nearly $242 million during the time Riser has served in the State Senate.

But it was Riser, along with Sens. Mike Walsworth of West Monroe, Rick Gallot of Ruston and Francis Thompson of Delhi, who pushed Senate Bill 216 of 2013 through the Legislature which cleared the way for the state to bypass the necessity of accepting bids for the purchase of the state-owned former Virginia Hotel and an adjoining building and parking lot. That was done expressly for the purpose of allowing Vantage to purchase the property for $881,000 despite there being a second buyer interested in purchasing the property from the state, most likely for a higher price.

By law, if a legislative act is passed, the state may legally skip the public bid process to accommodate a buyer. This was done even though a Monroe couple, who had earlier purchased the nearby Penn Hotel, wanted to buy the Virginia and convert it into a boutique hotel. Thanks to Riser and the other three legislators, they were never given the opportunity.

And Vantage, from all appearances, really got a bargain. The building was constructed in 1925 at a cost of $1.6 million and underwent extensive renovations in 1969 and again in 1984, according to documents provided LouisianaVoice, all of which should have made the property worth considerably more than $881,000. Read the entire story HERE.

Internal documents revealed concerns by Vantage that if the building were to be offered through regular channels (public bids), “developers using federal tax credits could outbid Vantage.”

Another document said, “VHP (Vantage Health Plan) fears that public bidding would allow a developer utilizing various incentive programs to pay an above-market price that VHP would find hard to match.”

Finally, there was a handwritten note which described a meeting on Nov. 1, 2012. Beside the notation that “Sen. Riser supports,” (emphasis added) there was this: “Problem is option of auction—if auction comes there is possibility of tax credits allowing a bidder to out-bid.”

All of which raises the obvious question of why did the Jindal administration turn its back on the potential of a higher sale price through bidding, especially considering the financial condition of the state during his entire term of office? We will probably never know the answer to that.

One might think that that kind of effort on its behalf would be worth more than a couple of thousand in campaign cash to Vantage. Vantage could have at least shown the same gratitude as the relative of the owner of 55,000 of fenced hunting property in Riser’s district.

When landowners in Winn, Caldwell and LaSalle parishes felt they were being fenced out of their hunting rights back in 2013, they did what any citizen might do: they went to their legislator for help–in this case, Riser, who paid the obligatory lip service of expressing concern for landowners Wyndel Gough, Gary Hatten, and Michael Gough but who, in the end, did nothing to assist them.

Instead, as so often happens today in politics, he sold out to the highest bidder.

One the $5,000 contributors to Riser’s campaign is none other than Hunter Farms & Timber, LLC, of Lafayette. An officer in that firm is Billy Busbice, Jr., of Jackson, Wyoming.

William Busbice Sr., one-time chairman of the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission, and Junior’s father, is a partner in Six C Rentals Limited Partnership of Youngsville, LA. Which purchased and proceeded to fence in some 55,000 acres of prime hunting land a few years back.

The original LouisianaVoice story on that dispute can be read HERE.

All of which only serves to underscore the long-held perception that we in Louisiana, by continually electing the type of public officials who are interested only in the next big deal, get the kind of representation we deserve.

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Contracts, Corruption, DOA, Elections, Ethics, Finances, Governor's Office, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians, Public Records, Senate | 12 Comments »

Protesters raising holy hell during Senate healthcare hearing was democracy at its best. Were you listening, Sen. Cassidy?

September 25, 2017 by tomaswell

Well, it seems that U.S. Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-LA.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) have learned well from the lobbyists who crawl about Capitol Hill like so many fire ants on a hot August day in Louisiana: Throw money at the holdouts in the hopes that they will come around to your way of thinking.

Except it didn’t work.

The two senators were so blatantly obvious in their attempts to bribe their Senate contemporaries from Alaska and Maine by revamping their health care proposal so that those states—represented by two senators who say they will not support the Cassidy-Graham abomination—would get a larger share of money to finance the proposed plan for their respective states.

But, to repeat myself (because I enjoy saying it so much), it didn’t work.

And now their grand scheme appears to be dead in the water the way I personally hope Cassidy’s re-election bid will be in 2020.

Another failed attempt by the Republicans who just don’t get it. They keep thinking they can roll out these transparent plans that hurt people who could not otherwise afford health insurance. It’s the same line of thinking that makes them support lower corporate taxes while forcing the middle class, whose income hasn’t increased appreciably in two decades, to bear the load. Meanwhile corporate CEOs continue to enjoy their private jets, chauffeured limos, spas, country club memberships, two or three homes large enough to house a small village and when they finally retire, it’s with the proverbial golden parachute worth tens of millions of dollars.

While one loyal supporter of LouisianaVoice says he wants the government out of his health care, he might well be taking a different position if he happened to be a low-income person with a pre-existing condition and unable to obtain health insurance.

It’s those people who need the government in their health care—not unlike the child laborers of the late 1800s and early 1900s needed government to intervene on their behalf; not unlike the government intervening to pass the eight-hour work day, or social security or Medicare or civil rights legislation or meat inspections or mine safety. When those in a position to do so won’t, the powerless and the voiceless need an advocate and sometimes only the government can be that advocate. That’s what Republicans don’t seem to get.

The most heart-warming thing I witnessed Monday was these senators who would not hold town hall meetings back home during the recent recess witnessing the town hall meetings come to them in the Senate committee hearing room. The lame, the halt and the blind (well, maybe not the blind, but I did see some in wheelchairs) invaded the committee room as we finally saw democracy work for real. Bigly. No lobbyists here, just a bunch of mad-as-hell-and-not-going-to-take-it-anymore citizens.

That, folks, was as real as it gets and THAT’S what it’s going to take to make America great again, not some stuffed-shirt billionaire presidential imposter playing up to his base (and ironically, base is a terrific one-word description of Trump’s supporters) with a lot of hot air rhetoric. (And please, don’t even try to make this about Hillary. I don’t like her any more than I do Trump and she has her own problems trying to blame her loss on everyone but Hillary. So let’s just not go there.)

I felt a wonder pang of envy watching Capitol police dragging out limp protestors. I would so have loved to have been one of those protestors. One woman interviewed on network television news was asked what she wanted the senators to do and she replied in plain, easy-to-understand language: “Do the right thing. Act like a human being.”

Act like a human being indeed. Not like some demagogue who feels he is above the people, but like someone who has a conscience and who can look himself in the mirror at night and ask, “Did I do all I could to help my fellow man today?” If that’s too much like a wild-eyed liberal tree-hugger for you, so be it. I’d rather be that person than Bobby Jindal or Ted Cruz or Mitch McConnell or Donald Trump or Rush Limbaugh.

And certainly not like evil-eye Cassidy who tried to flim-flam us by saying the extra money was not for Maine Sen. Susan Collins but rather “It’s for the Mainers.”

What a stinking crock from the stinking mouth of a stinking liar. He lied to Jimmy Kimmel and now he’s lying about this.

At least he was honest when he said, “I’m hoping those extra dollars going to her state…would make a difference to her.” Did he really mean to say that aloud?

If he’d just gone a little further and admitted that the extra money for Maine was an attempted bribe of Sen. Collins, I could have a little more respect for him. I’d at least give him points for candor.

But now, I rate him on a par with our former governor—but not quite as low as our POTUS.

Posted in Politics | 21 Comments »

POST certification of deputy fire marshals: for the protection of the public or are ulterior (read: financial) motives at play?

September 25, 2017 by tomaswell

Are State Fire Marshal deputies in violation of the law by wearing firearms while on duty?

That’s a fair question.

Many, if not most deputy fire marshals would prefer not to wear a weapon. Some whom we talked with are downright resentful that they are required to go through Police Officer Standards and Training (POST) certification to be qualified to be armed agents. It’s not the training they object to so much as the requirement that they carry a weapon.

But the fact remains that they are required to do just that.

But there may be legitimate questions as to the actual legality of such a requirement.

In 2009, State Fire Marshal Butch Browning wanted a bill introduced that would redefine and expand the authority of deputy fire marshals, a move opposed by command level brass at Louisiana State Police (LSP) who found the proposal to be inappropriate, based on the mission of the Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal (LOSFM).

In a March 16, 2009, email to State Police command and on which LSP’s Office of Legal Affairs was copied, Browning wrote, “I wanted to follow up on the legislation on full police powers for our investigators. Currently, they have powers to carry firearms and (to) make arrests for the arson crimes and I have the authority to commission them. Arson is now, more than ever, a bi-product of so many other crimes and our folks regularly uncover other crimes and times where their ability to charge with other crimes might help the arson investigation.

“Our people need full powers while conducting a (sic) arson investigation. This can be accomplished with adding to the fire marshal’s act or by your commissioning authority,” he wrote. “I have no preference. I just know they need this ability. You (sic) consideration in this matter is appreciated.”

Browning even prevailed upon then-State Rep. Karen St. Germain of Plaquemine (now Commissioner of the Office of Motor Vehicles) to draft a bill to redefine the role of deputy fire marshals. From what we can determine it appears that despite Browning’s pleas to expand the agency’s law enforcement authority the bill received no support from Gov. Bobby Jindal (likely at the urging of then-State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson) and was never filed.

Why would a person who trained to be a boiler inspector be required to pack heat?

The same goes for nursing home, child care facilities, and hospital inspectors.

Ditto those who inspect carnival rides.

Likewise, for jail, public school and other public building inspectors.

The fact is, the only conceivable area in which a deputy fire marshal might need to be armed is in the area of explosives and arson investigations, according to highly-placed LSP officials who insist there is little or no need for the creation of yet another police agency to augment LSP, Department of Public Service (DPS) officers, sheriffs’ departments, campus and local police departments.

Yet, just a couple of years ago, there they were: Armed deputy fire marshals patrolling the New Orleans French Quarter during Mardi Gras.

In order for Browning to get around the objections of LSP, he instituted cross-training whereby all deputy fire marshals, no matter their specialized training, must be qualified to inspect any type building, any carnival ride, any boiler, any jail, or any night club—and to be arson investigators to boot. That proposal, coinciding as it did with Jindal’s obsession with downsizing and consolidation of state government, tempered the governor’s initial reluctance to go along with Browning.

But in reality, the issue was never about improving response or streamlining the agency at all. It was about improving retirement benefits.

By allowing deputies—all deputies (and virtually all employees would ultimately be designated as deputies)—to become POST-certified and to carry weapons, it qualified employees (even clerical, if they wore a gun, as some now do), to have their jobs upgraded to hazardous duty as are state police and DPS police.

What that means is employees can now qualify to retire at 100 percent of their average salary for their top three years more than a decade earlier than State Civil Service employees. Here’s how it works:

State classified employees under Civil Service accrue retirement at 2.5 percent per year at a rate based on the average of their three highest earning years (excluding overtime) multiplied by years of service. So, a classified employee whose highest three-year average earnings are $50,000 must work 40 years to retire at 100 percent of his salary ($50,000 X 2.5 percent = $1,250 X 40 years = $50,000. Based on that same formula, if he worked 30 years, he would retire at $37,500). (This equation, of course, works for any pay level, not just $50,000.)

But hazardous duty employees accrue retirement at 3.5 percent of the average of their three highest years. That means the same three-year average pay of $50,000 would accrue retirement at a rate of 3.5 percent, or $1,750 per year, allowing him to retire at 100 percent of salary in just over 28 years.

Accordingly, Chief Deputy Fire Marshal Brant Thompson surmised that if deputies achieved POST certification, then they were fully imbued with general law enforcement authority and not the limited law enforcement authority laid out in state statutes. “That assumption is absolutely not true,” according to one long time law enforcement official familiar with how officers are commissioned. “Just because an individual has POST certification doesn’t empower that person to enforce all laws. That authority flows from the law or via the person issuing the commission. I’m not sure who commissions deputy marshals; I suspect it is Browning rather than the Superintendent of State Police.

“I know that when the LSP Colonel (Superintendent) issues a commission to campus police, for example, the commission makes it clear that law enforcement authority is limited to crimes occurring on the campus,” the former law enforcement officer said.

Browning is nothing if not determined in his quest to acquire full law enforcement authority for his marshals. The debate that began in 2009 has continued into 2016, at least. Gene Cicardo, who was appointed chief legal counsel for DPS upon the death of Frank Blackburn last September, was drawn into the dispute and wrote a memorandum to Edmonson and Deputy Superintendent Charles Dupuy that left Browning upset and unhappy, according to sources.

The contents of that memorandum are not known, but LouisianaVoice has made a public records request to LSP for that document.

Cicardo has since returned to private practice in Alexandria.

Meanwhile, we have armed boiler inspectors, carnival ride inspectors, nursing home inspectors and, conceivably, even State Fire Marshal Office clerical employees (aka Executive Management Officers) patrolling for criminal elements in the New Orleans French Quarter during Mardi Gras.

What could possibly go wrong?

 

Posted in Corruption, Crime, Ethics, Finances, Governor's Office, Legislators, State Fire Marshal, Transparency | 7 Comments »

LouisianaVoice fall fund drive continues

September 24, 2017 by tomaswell

LouisianaVoice continues its fall fund drive and we are appealing to our readers to chip in to help us keep good, solid investigative reporting coming.

We’re not asking an arm and a leg, but if only a third of our readers would contribute $5, $10, or $20, it would go a long way in covering the cost of gasoline, time, public records, and legal action against public agencies reluctant to provide public records.

It leaves a bad taste in my mouth to come on to you like some televangelist but as distasteful as it is for me to do that, I prefer appealing to your generosity than being forced to initiate a subscription fee.

Should I go to a $5 per month ($50 per year) subscription fee and subsequently lost two-thirds of my readers, I would still generate far more income than through our two fund drives per year combined. In fact, such a move, provided I kept one-third of my readers, would bring more income than I made as a full time employee of the state.

But I don’t want to do that.

So, please do what you feel you can either by clicking on the yellow “DONATE” button to the right and giving via credit card, or by mailing a check to:

LouisianaVoice

P.O. Box 922

Denham Springs, LA. 70727

As always, my deepest appreciation.

Tom Aswell, publisher

Posted in Politics | 1 Comment »

Was Sen. Bill Cassidy absent on Hippocratic Oath day in med school? His new heath care bill would indicate emphatic YES

September 23, 2017 by tomaswell

Long before he took an oath of office to serve first in the Louisiana Legislature and later in the U.S. Senate, Bill Cassidy took the Hippocratic Oath.

But one would never know that from the abomination called the Cassidy-Graham Bill that, if passed would replace the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare.

This is not a defense of Obamacare. I know little about the ACA other than (a) it has provided health care for millions, including about 400,000 in Louisiana who otherwise would have no health care insurance, and (b) it’s far from perfect.

From what little I know about it, a single-pay plan seems to be the best alternative—if there must be an alternative plan for one that could probably be rescued with a little bipartisanship and a common-sense approach to correcting and improving existing problems. (I know, bipartisanship and cooperation in politics have gone the way of the telephone booth and Life magazine.)

That said, it’s pretty obvious that the Republicans in Congress are far less interested in the welfare of poor Americans, particularly those with pre-existing conditions, than they are in beating down anything with the Obama name attached to it.

And that’s the issue in a nutshell: Obama. They couldn’t get him on his citizenship or his religion, so they (with apologies to Fed-Ex) “absolutely, positively” have to erase all evidence that he ever existed. In a Congress hopelessly gridlocked on everything, it’s the one issue on which most Republicans are fixated: Get rid of Obamacare if we don’t do anything else—and we probably won’t (do anything else, that is).

Cassidy and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) are just the latest to attach their names to that list of Republicans who would defeat Obamacare at all costs, no matter the consequences to millions of working poor Americans.

That said, their latest attempt at tearing down Obamacare would leave those with pre-existing conditions the most vulnerable. Both senators claim that no one would lose coverage under the latest plot against Obamacare disguised as an alternative, but in reality, their premiums would be unaffordable.

Scott Adams, creator of the popular Dilbert comic strip read daily in hundreds of newspapers, has his own take on Cassidy-Graham, which would transfer responsibility to the states.

“The responsible approach,” Adams says, “would be to test some healthcare ideas in a few states or counties and then work with what we learned. A wholesale change such as transferring responsibility to the states is reckless and, in my opinion, unethical. The unethical part is that moving funding to the states is little more than a political trick to protect Republicans in the 2018 elections. It has nothing to do with helping citizens.

“…I am forgiving of politicians who intentionally exaggerate and ignore facts, so long as their intentions appear to be directed at the greater good. But shifting money for healthcare to the states is for the benefit of Congress, not the greater good.

“My bottom line is that I can support a government plan that involves testing small before going big. But going big on an untested idea is not leadership. It is just bad management, or worse.”

Isn’t it interesting that a cartoonist would have such a firm grasp on the obvious when our elected officials can’t seem to come to grips with reality? But then it was a cartoonist (Thomas Nast) who helped bring down New York City’s William M. “Boss” Tweed.

The issue long ago ceased to be about health care: it’s all about Obama, plain and simple. Nothing else. And whether you like him or not, that should not be the focus—but sadly, it has become an obsession with Republicans, particularly those who identify with two of the most divisive Americans of the 20th century—Donald Trump and Rush Limbaugh, with honorable mention to Ted Cruz, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and a few others.

It has reached the point that Republicans in Congress are crawling over each other to be the one who can make the claim in his re-election campaign that he was the one who delivered us up from the evils of Obamacare.

And that’s a damn poor excuse to embark on a crusade of destruction.

Cassidy, in taking the HIPPOCRATIC OATH, swore, among other things, to the best of ability and judgment to:

  • Apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required;
  • Remember that…warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife of the chemist’s drug;
  • Not be ashamed to say, “I know not,” nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are need for a patient’s recovery;
  • Tread with care in matters of life and death;
  • Remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems;
  • Remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the inform.

There is another PRINCIPLE taught in health care providing classes that often is mistakenly thought to be part of the Hippocratic Oath but in fact, is not.

It is the Latin phrase primum non nocere.

Translated, it says, “First do no harm.”

The point of “first do no harm” is that, in certain situations, it may well be better to do nothing rather than intervening and potentially causing more harm than good.

Dr. Cassidy appears to have forgotten a lot that he learned.

Or perhaps he was just absent on those days as he was on those occasions when he billed LSU for teaching classes while in he was in Washington.

Posted in Congress, Ethics, Health Care, Senate | 14 Comments »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »