Louisiana Voice

Special dispatch to LouisianaVoice

A regularly scheduled DPEC meeting of the St. Tammany Democratic Party Executive Committee (DPEC) Thursday, April 17, was abruptly canceled on April 17 by Chairman Peter Lewis without explanation. Despite objections of several of the DPEC members, Lewis refused to back off.

Parliamentarian Leyla Hekmatdoost, called an impromptu Democratic Town Hall meeting that was billed as a meeting to discuss “leadership issues within our DPEC.”

Ten members of DPEC attended the Town Hall as well as an additional 20 community members of the Democratic Party residing in St. Tammany.

Challenges with Lewis, who also serves as a Covington City Councilman, include changing agendas just before the start of meetings, attempting to appoint members to empty DPEC seats without due process, and failing to adhere to the Committee’s By-laws.

Another issue faced by the DPEC is former Treasurer Marie Wade has absconded with the DPEC funds by moving the fund balances into a new bank account without authorization. This has blocked duly elected Treasurer Erin Rowan from paying for the DPEC Office rent in Slidell and for the DPEC’s website.

Several community members in attendance spoke vehemently about the need to address the potential that fraud had been committed by the treasurer Wade.

“How does someone close one account and take the money to open another without the consent of the Committee?” Jamie Segura asked. “Shouldn’t there be a theft investigation?”

Jeremy Thompson, a member of the Democratic State Central Committee, said the DSCC and its legal counsel are aware of the issues in St. Tammany. “They’ve been trying to help straighten out the problems” but at this point haven’t made any headway.

Segura, again speaking up, asked why a quorum of the DPEC doesn’t vote out or impeach Chairman Lewis and call for an investigation of Wade.

Most DPEC members in attendance said they are prohibited by the DSCC Bylaws from taking more definitive steps. In fact, they said their own Bylaws are redundant and ambiguous in some areas. And the local Bylaws limit their actions while enabling Lewis to do things that are contrary to the will of the majority.

The St. Tammany DPEC is scheduled to meet monthly on the third Thursday.

SEE BELOW FOR COMPLAINTS AGAINST PETER LEWIS AND MARIE WADE

Democratic Town Hall – St Tammany Parish – April 17th 2025

A majority of the members of St Tammany DPEC (see reverse side for names and districts) are seeking the removal of the current DPEC Chair, Peter Lewis. We have identified a series of governance and procedural concerns that have negatively impacted the functionality and integrity of the St. Tammany Democratic Parish Executive Committee (DPEC). Below is a summary of these concerns:

Bylaw Violations & Misconduct

• Failure to facilitate the will of the body, instead prioritizing personal judgment over majority rule.
• Unlawfully executing a sublease contract without assembly review or vote.
• Defying multiple carried motions since the start of the term.
• Conducting an unlawful vote during an improperly convened Executive Session.
• Refusing to disclose contractual obligations related to the office lease, including not disclosing that rent had already increased on Feb 1st rather than on March 1st.

Abuse of Authority & Procedural Manipulation

• Repeatedly omitting requested agenda items from General Meetings.
• Obstructing the official process for appointing new members.
• Assigning committee roles without due process, favoring personal preferences over qualifications.
• Misrepresenting procedural actions to State Party staff.
• Attempting to appoint a new DPEC member without assembly knowledge or vote.
• Allowing an ineffective Communications Chair to remain in place despite the availability of more qualified members.
• Cancelling regularly scheduled public meetings without explanation.

Financial Mismanagement & Ethical Concerns

• Allowing a non-Treasurer to have access to and control over DPEC finances and financial communications.
• Restricting the elected Treasurer from full access to financial records.
• Discouraging committee-specific fundraising efforts via ActBlue, limiting access to necessary funds.
• Creating barriers for committee members to view documentation and information they are entitled to access.
• Sanctioning a new bank account being opened by members who are not our elected Treasurer.

Hostile & Unprofessional Conduct

• Allowing and enabling members to spread falsehoods and threats against others during meetings.
• Using dismissive and authoritarian language, referring to DPEC as “your DPEC.”
• Ignoring members requesting to speak and disregarding the parliamentary process.
• Failing to use members’ and guests’ preferred pronouns, exposing DPEC to legal liability under Title VII protections.
• Publicly disparaging committee members and the Parliamentarian for upholding the bylaws.
• Not providing a clear platform for members to discuss and present concerns without judgment.

These issues, collectively, have eroded trust within the committee and impeded our ability to operate effectively. We provide this information to ensure clarity regarding our concerns and the rationale for our desire for new leadership and the actions we are taking to achieve this goal.

DPEC Members who initiated the reform initiative include:

• Jeremy JF Thompson – District 1 |  2nd Vice Chair
• Leyla Hekmatdoost – District 3 | Parliamentarian
• Allison Mathas – District 4
• David Shapiro – District 5
• Ruby Porter – District 6
• Adolfo Rodriguez III – District 11
• Miranda Burbridge – District 12
• Sarah Cook – At Large | Secretary
• Erin Rowan – At Large | Treasurer
• Jennifer Bondio – At Large

Plaintiffs are gearing up, after five years and millions of dollars spent on attorneys and other professionals, to file for dismissal of the bankruptcy suit of the Archdiocese of New Orleans.

Archbishop Gregory Aymond placed the nation’s second-oldest Roman Catholic diocese under Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings and the case has been going nowhere fast as legal costs continue to mount.

Near the end of a status conference with Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Grabill on April 17, attorney Soren Gileson, representing the alleged abuse survivors, can be heard on a RECORDING of the proceedings as saying that he would file for dismissal “hopefully, by the end of the month.”

In addressing Judge Grabill, he noted that the legal battle has been going on for “five years, (unintelligible) millions of dollars,” lots of “song and dance” and that he’s been receiving “angry phone calls,” presumably from clients.

More than $40 million has been spent on attorney and professional fees to date with no resolution to the litigation yet in sight despite rumors of impending settlement discussions.

Those discussions have rendered little progress, however, as the church and some 550 plaintiffs remain far apart in their numbers. The plaintiffs are demanding $1 billion and the church has countered with an offer of $62.5 MILLION. Throw in three of the church’s insurance companies, and you got a real legal tango – and tangle.

The Archdiocese of New Orleans is only one of several Roman Catholic archdioceses that have been sued over sexual abuse of children, mostly altar boys, by priests. The first such case in Louisiana was in the Lafayette area but the scandal that rocked the Archdiocese of Boston claimed international attention and set the stage for dozens more such cases.

Col. Bonespurs lost no time in dismissing the idea that the super-rich might be called upon to bear a bit more of the tax burden so as to lift some of the load off the working middle class.

Donald Trump, aka IMPOTUS, responded to hints by some Republicans in the White House had suggested allowing tax cuts to expire for individuals making more than $609,351 or couples making more than $731,201 (those number could only have come from a committee).

But Agent Orange SHOT DOWN that ludicrous suggestion by saying “a lot of the millionaires would leave the country.” He was probably look around to fire the one who suggested it.

Oh, my, that’s almost like the suggestions that Exxon and other oil and chemical plants would leave Louisiana if their taxes were raised (but of course, they didn’t, did they?)

Let’s just admit it, the man’s an economic genius.

But let’s hear the rest of Trump’s logic. “You lose a lot of money if you do that,” he said. “That would – and other countries (it’s always “others say,” “others do” with Trump) that have done it have lost a lot of people.” Of course, he didn’t – couldn’t – name one example. “They lose their wealthy people. That would be bad because the wealthy people pay the tax, ok?”

You mean like the taxes you pay, Mr. Trump? Of like Warren Buffett who once admitted that his secretary pays more in taxes than he does.

On another matter, Ol’ Bonespurs is sucking up to the evangelical right mightily by ramping up efforts to root out what he sees as “ANTI-CHRISTIAN BIAS IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.”

In fact, the Veterans Affairs Department (VA) has actually appointed its very own task force whose job it is to report colleagues who exhibit anti-Christian bias.

This looks like something that is somewhat antisemitic on its face, not to mention a flagrant violation of the First Amendment. Un-American it is – sorta like the Nazis of 1939 Germany.

Here’s what Bruce Gerencser, who calls northwest Ohio home, and who calls Trump a “Baby Christian,” wrote about all that: “Baby Christian Donald Trump — who spent Easter Sunday honoring the resurrected Jesus by golfing all day (emphasis added) — and his feckless band of Evangelical and Roman Catholic gatekeepers, made it known that his administration will actively go after anti-Christian bias in the federal government. Question: is there anti-Christian bias in the government to start with? No evidence is provided for bias. Christians are absolutely FREE to worship God as they wish. Christian pastors are free to preach whatever they want from the pulpit. Outside of occasional skirmishes over building codes and the Johnson Amendment, Christian churches are left alone, free to preach…”

Speaking of Trump and golf, here’s the TRUMP GOLF-O-METER for you to ponder:

With all the top administrators bailing out at LSU, LouisianaVoice has received an anonymous tip that a bombshell might well be coming out of Friday’s meeting of the Board of Supervisors.

It involves another top – as in the very top – mover and shaker at the university packing his bags and rolling on between the ditches (apologies to Emmylou Harris). Boys and girls, can you say William Tate?

It would seem difficult for someone to give up such lucrative salary ($750,000), benefits and incentives in these uncertain times, but perhaps that might serve as a barometer of just how bad things really are on the beautiful campus south of downtown Baton Rouge.

Not since the upheaval in the days of Huey Long has LSU been such a political football, thanks in whole (and certainly not just in part) to the interference of Jeff Landry. And to be sure, it goes far beyond Landry’s demands that athletes line up for the National Anthem before games or his ridiculous, clumsy efforts to have Mike the Tiger brought into Tiger Stadium for games. This is a case of the administration’s undermining of the very foundation of higher education in Louisiana.

The atmosphere at the university right now, as the result of heavy-handed political maneuvers that gave the governor more say-so over higher education, is certain to send a top-tier university spiraling downward into the ranks of mediocre – or worse – institutions.

But there’s always football.

We’re in the final week of our twice yearly fundraiser and we still need your help. As the country song goes, we “ain’t broke but we’re badly bent” here at LouisianaVoice. We have an active legislative session going on and that’s when the most harm seems to be done to taxpayers.

We attempt to monitor what goes on at the Capitol. Not the formal, stuffed-shirt meetings where politicians pontificate, but by sorting through records, audits, minutes, campaign reports and expenditures.

For instance, we revealed that the former head of the Department of Corrections, Richard Stalder, was simultaneously president of the American Correctional Association (ACA), which was responsible for the accreditation of Louisiana prison facilities his state agency ran.

We also revealed that ACA, while serving as accreditor of prisons also served a trade association, lobbying on behalf of prisons.

We also wrote about how Stalder, back in the day, canceled spending on psychiatric counseling for troubled teens in order that his staff could receive $2.7 million in raises.

Not to pick on the Department of Corrections, but this was just one area that we cover at LouisianaVoice and we do so on a daily basis. It costs money to do so.

So, in these waning days of our fundraiser, anything you could see fit to contribute, large or small, would be greatly appreciated. You may contribute by credit card by clicking on the YELLOW DONATE BUTTON to the right of this colum and following directions. Or you may simply mail a check to me, Tom Aswell, 107 North College West, Denham Springs, Louisiana 70726.

Remember, the largest single contributor will receive a first-edition copy of Huey Long’s autobiography, Every Man a King and all contributions of $50 or more will received a signed copy of my latest book, 101 Wrongful Convictions in Louisiana.

Thanks for 14 great years!