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Lack of ATC background checks results in approval of multiple alcohol licenses to New Orleans-area felon

March 20, 2013 by tomaswell

A failure to properly conduct background checks by the Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control (ATC) resulted in the approval of alcohol licenses to a New Orleans-area man who was arrested on felony charges six times during 2004 and 2005, according to court records and ATC application forms.

Moreover, the number of citations issued by ATC for underage drinking during the Mardi Gras season has plummeted more than 92 percent since 2011, records show.

In an inter-office email obtained by LouisianaVoice on Wednesday, Department of Revenue (LDR) employees were informed that all outgoing emails by LDR employees to any ATC employee must copy Jarrod Coniglio, chief of staff to Secretary of Revenue Tim Barfield, and “before any current or former ATC employee is interviewed, hired or offered a position with LDR, the division director must receive approval from Jarrod Coniglio.”

There was no explanation why ATC employees were being singled out for such scrutiny. Apparently the powers that be at LDR are not quite up to speed on the Emancipation Proclamation.

The email also instructed that LDR regional offices “will cease requesting or utilizing any ATC agents on a cash seizures or any other field related activity.”

LDR is the umbrella agency under which ATC serves.

ATC Commissioner Troy Hebert defended his actions in an email to LouisianaVoice with the explanation that “disgruntled employees are going to complain” whenever he “kicks employee’s (sic) butts.”

Omar Hamdan was arrested for multiple counts of possession of Schedule II and Schedule IV drugs, for use of a firearm or controlled dangerous substance in the commission of a crime of violence and for bail violation.

Some of the charges against the Harvey resident, including the firearms violation, were dropped after he pled guilty to possession charges in December of 2004.

Despite his legal problems, ATC issued alcohol licenses to four convenience stores owned by Hamdan, records show.

The licenses were actually issued to Hamdan’s wife, Fatmah Hamdan, who checked “No” to the question, “Have you or your spouse ever been convicted of a felony?”

When Scott Wolfe, the individual who sold several of the convenience stores to Fatmah Hamdan, complained to ATC about the licenses issued to Hamdan, ATC at first took no action on allegations that Fatmah Hamdan was the applicant for the licenses.

State law prohibits the practice of a person interposing on behalf of another in an attempt to obtain licenses which is what Wolfe maintains Fatmah Hamdan’s applications represented.

Hebert’s office responded to Wolfe inquiry as to why the Hamdan’s were granted licenses by saying there are no background investigations conducted by his office and that applications are accepted “on the honor system.”

Even after Wolfe’s inquiry, Hebert took no action for eight months. “You could almost hear the crickets in the ATC offices,” Wolfe said.

Only after Wolfe contacted a New Orleans television station and a station reporter made his own inquiries did Hebert initiate a probe by his office and provide the public records requested by Wolfe.

But even then, ATC at first withheld some of the records requested by Wolfe, he said.

ATC, which has been embroiled in personnel issues in recent months and which has lost a couple of lawsuits brought by former agents, has seen its enforcement powers depleted significantly during Hebert’s tenure.

The agency receives grants from various federal agencies which ostensibly are to be used for enforcement purposes.

Citations issued for underage drinking during Mardi Gras, for example, have dropped off significantly since Hebert took over the agency in November of 2010, according to records provided pursuant to a public records request by LouisianaVoice.

ATC agents issued 825 Mardi Gras-related tickets during the 2011 Carnival season. That number dropped by 80.6 percent, to 160 in 2012 and this year only 62 tickets were issued for underage drinking, a drop of 92.5 percent from 2011.

Last July, Hebert appeared with New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu to announce a cooperative venture between ATC and the mayor’s office in which Hebert promised to hire three new full-time agents and auxiliary agents to combat underage drinking in New Orleans. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1tTdVPhNrg

To date, that grandiose promise by Hebert has remained unfulfilled. No new agents have been hired and the auxiliary agents are non-existent.

Hebert, in a March 14 email to LouisianaVoice in response to a request for a one-on-one interview, said:

“When you kick employee’s (sic) butts and make them work, sometimes you get a little crap on your boots.

“Of course these disgruntled employees are going to complain, (sic) I put a GPS on their (sic) state vehicle (sic), I stopped them from taking their state vehicle (sic) home each night, I stopped them from using state cell phones for personal use, I made them punch a time clock and I implemented a performance base (sic again) system that makes them work more productive (sigh, sic).

“As commissioner I am fighting to make sure that the taxpayers are getting their money’s worth. Incompetency and laziness will not be tolerated under my watch.”

The Commissioner has spoken. All rise.

Posted in ATC, Legislature, Legislators, Revenue | 14 Comments »

Notable Quotables (in their own words)

March 19, 2013 by tomaswell

“Many Legislators would rather get re-elected than make the right decision. They say they’re not going to raise taxes but they’re going to allow us to raise tuition.”

“Federal revenue for higher education is double what the states are doing now. I don’t have faith in legislators but I do have faith in them wanting federal money.”

“The power of Washington to hold states accountable may be the most important answer that we have. The more federal dollars are attached to state behavior, the less likely state legislatures are going to remove themselves from funding responsibility.”

—F. King Alexander, President of University of California Long Beach and more recently LSU President-designate, speaking on “Strategies for Fiscal Housekeeping” at the 14th Annual Travers Conference on Ethics and Accountability in Government Financing California, Feb. 11, 2011.

Posted in Education, Higher Education, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, LSU, Notable Quotables, Politicians, Revenue | 2 Comments »

LSU president-designate Alexander runs organization that capitalizes on Oxford University name despite no affiliation

March 19, 2013 by tomaswell

Did the LSU Board of Supervisors opt for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in its selection of F. King Alexander, 50, as the next LSU president?

Will the LSU faithful, so alarmed at the prospects of an appointment of Secretary of Economic Development Stephen Moret to the position, end up wishing he had gotten it after all?

Most important of all, with academics, integrity and healthcare already sacrificed at the Altar of Jindal, will the LSU football program survive?

Perhaps these and other questions will be answered in due course but for the time being, let’s take a look at the paradox that is F. King Alexander.

The first issues that must be addressed are his credentials and his motivation for coming to LSU.

The politically-charged atmosphere in Louisiana in general and LSU in particular is such that one must question the wisdom of anyone wanting to walk into such a volatile situation. The mere fact that one would even apply for the position would seem to call his or qualifications into question.

The LSU student newspaper, The Reveille, was contemplating filing a lawsuit—and still might do so—to learn who all the applicants were. But considering who the winner was the paper’s editors may wish to reconsider its efforts to learn who the losers were.

On the one hand, there is the F. King Alexander who two years ago admonished state governments for “backing out of their responsibility” to keep public colleges working and affordable.

On the other hand, there is the F. King Alexander who operates what critics describe as a “vanity” conference operation that capitalizes on the Oxford University name without the benefit of its being officially affiliated with the English school.

The Baton Rouge Advocate describes Alexander as “a nationally respected up and comer” and his 28-minute speech in February of 2011at The 14th Annual Travers Conference on Ethics and Accountability in Government Financing California: Strategies for Fiscal Housekeeping was a direct assault on state governments’ failure to adequately fund state colleges, thus allowing private universities and for-profit colleges to syphon students away from public institutions.

His talk was a blistering attack on states that he said have taken federal funds for higher education while at the same time, cutting state appropriations by like amounts. Meanwhile, federal grants continue to increase for private schools.

It was the kind of rhetoric that college professors will embrace enthusiastically but the kind that got Alexander’s predecessor, John Lombardi canned by the Board of Supervisors—at the direction of Jindal who doesn’t like to be criticized by subordinates.

Then there is Alexander’s Oxford Round Table connection.

The Oxford Round Table is a series of interdisciplinary conferences that was founded by Alexander’s father, Kern Alexander but now run by F. King Alexander and his wife.

The purpose of the Oxford Round Table is “to promote education, art, science, religion and charity by means of academic conferences and publication of scholarly papers,” according to an online profile.

The organization has incorporated, dissolved and reincorporated several times in different states, including Kentucky, Illinois and Florida—both as a for-profit and as a non-profit. In 2008, the non-profit Oxford Round Table, Ltd. was established in the United Kingdom.

A 2009 report was critical of the organization because, the report said, it does not make its lack of academic connection to Oxford University clear.

Two years earlier, Times Higher Education reported that the organization had been criticized because it was trading on the name of Oxford University and failed to properly inform invitees that it had no formal academic links to the university.

The Oxford Round Table also has attracted controversy in at least three states, including Louisiana, over the cost of school boards’ paying for administrators to attend its conferences. This led to a successful legislative effort to tighten travel rules for school board members statewide, according to a 2003 New Orleans Times-Picayune story.

It remains to be seen if Alexander will bring his pro-funding rhetoric with him or whether his Oxford Round Table will set up shop in Baton Rouge—or both.

Either way, it should be interesting—like perhaps a reprise of the old Carol Burnett Show skit As the Stomach Turns.

Posted in Boards, Education, Governor's Office, Higher Education, LSU | 7 Comments »

Notable Quotables (in their own words)

March 18, 2013 by tomaswell

“These sections of the code generally prohibit Board of Trustees members from receiving anything of economic value for any transaction involving any of the colleges and universities that are under the jurisdiction of the Board of Trustees.”

—Former State Board of Ethics Chairman Gray Sexton, in a July 1996 ruling that the Natchitoches Times could not provide printing services for the Northwestern State University student newspaper because Times Publisher Lovan Thomas was a member of the Board of Trustees for State Colleges and Universities, the governing board for state colleges and universities, including Northwestern. The LSU Board of Supervisors is preparing to accept a memorandum of understanding from a Shreveport foundation to take over two LSU-run hospitals in Shreveport and Monroe even though the foundation’s incoming CEO is a member of the LSU Board of supervisors.

Posted in Ethics, Governor's Office, Health Care, Higher Education, LSU, Notable Quotables, Privatization | 1 Comment »

LSU Board member named CEO of foundation taking over two LSU hospitals; ethics violation? What ethics violation?

March 18, 2013 by tomaswell

This week’s civics lesson will take a look at how ethics for public officials, much like the Golden Rule, is based in large part on who has the gold.

And apparently, if you are appointed to the LSU Board of Supervisors by Gov. Bobby Jindal, you are considered golden.

Now, with the pending approval of the takeover of two LSU-run hospitals by a Shreveport foundation, it’s déjà vu all over again—except different.

On Jan. 16, 1996, the State Board of ethics issued an opinion that Lovan Thomas, owner and publisher of the Natchitoches Times newspaper and of Springhill Press printing company, violated state ethics laws when his printing company printed a tourism brochure promoting the Cane River through the Kisatchie National Forest.

Though Thomas was a member of the Natchitoches Parish Tourist Commission, the printing project was not initially a project of the tourist commission and Springhill Press, in late 1993 charged $10,000 for printing the brochure, a practice the ethics board more than two years later ruled was an ethics violation.

On July 17, 1996, the State Board of Ethics issued a second opinion that the Times could not provide printing services for the student newspaper at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches because Thomas was a member of the Louisiana Board of Trustees for State Colleges and Universities, the governing board for the university.

Three months later, on Oct. 25, the Board of Ethics struck again. This time the board ruled that the Times was prohibited from publishing an NSU legal notice for bids on a printing contract despite a state law which required that public notices by public bodies “shall be published in a newspaper of general circulation printed in the parish in which the budget unit (NSU) is situated.”

The Times was the only newspaper of general circulation in Natchitoches Parish. Moreover, the Times was the Natchitoches Parish Police Jury’s official legal journal and it was generally understood that NSU was required to publish its legal notices in the parish’s legal journal.

The ethics board ruled that Thomas was prohibited from assisting the Times in its contract with Northwestern while receiving compensation through his publishing company.

So, instead of printing its paper at home, NSU was forced to travel 70 miles to Shreveport for the service. And instead of paying $4 a square (100 words), NSU was forced to place its legal advertisements in the Shreveport Times at a cost of about $25 per square.

Disgusted with the entire process, Lovan resigned from the Board of Trustees and the parish tourist commission.

Even then, the Ethics Board continued to thwart Thomas in his attempts to do business with Northwestern.

On May 21, 1997, the board ruled that because state law required a two-year waiting period from the date of his resignation from the Board of Trustees, Thomas and the Natchitoches Times were still prohibited from bidding on and receiving advertising contracts with the university.

But now, not quite 16 years later, and with a State Ethics Board that has been gutted by Gov. Bobby Jindal, it is somehow okay for a foundation to enter into an agreement to take over two LSU public hospitals in Shreveport and Monroe even though the vice chairman and incoming president/CEO of the foundation slated to take over the facilities also sits on the LSU Board of Supervisors which currently oversees the hospitals.

The LSU Board of Supervisors on Monday tabled until March 27 approval of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the board and the Biomedical Research Foundation (BRF) that would call for the foundation to enter into a partnership with LSU Medical Center in Shreveport and E.A. Conway Hospital in Monroe.

Willis-Knighten Health System and Christus Health Shreveport-Bossier had expressed interest in the Shreveport facility when LSU first started seeking partners with available cash in 2012.

In Monroe, negotiations had been ongoing between E.A. Conway and St. Francis Medical Center but those talks were broken off by the state last week when LSU officials suddenly decided that the grass was greener on BRF’s side of the fence.

State Sen. Francis Thompson (D-Delhi) called the BRF model “the innovative, forward-thinking model that would elevate what are already the best hospitals of their kind in Louisiana and beyond. It also keeps both hospitals under the same management umbrella, which is appropriate,” he said.

Biomedical Research Foundation currently leases research labs to the LSU System. The annual lease payments of $4 million to $5 million paid by LSU represent a major source of income for the foundation.

John F. George, Jr., M.D. is Vice Chairman of Biomedical Research Foundation and is slated to become BRF President and CEO on March 27, the same date as the scheduled vote on the foundation’s takeover of the two hospitals. The Jindal administration has dismissed any talk of a conflict of interest by pointing out that George will not receive a salary as president and CEO of the foundation, thereby allowing him to remain as a member of the LSU Board of Supervisors.

George, who made two contributions of $5,000 each to Jindal’s campaign in 2007 and 2008, according to campaign records, said he will recuse himself from the LSU board’s action on March 27.

But that Oct. 25, 1996, Ethics Board opinion would seem to indicate that recusal was not sufficient to avoid a conflict. That ruling, in addition to saying that state ethics laws prohibited Thomas from participating in the Board of Trustees’ decision to contract with the Natchitoches Times for printing services, also said the participation question “cannot be cured by recusal since (state law) prohibits an appointed member of a Board from curing a participating problem through disqualification.”

Salary or no, recusal or no, the appearance of impropriety should be sufficient in some quarters as to demand George’s resignation from the LSU Board of Supervisors in light of his cozy relationship with BRF.

But appearances, like beauty, appear to be in the eye of the beholder—in this case, Gov. Bobby Jindal.

And Jindal wrote—that is, re-wrote—the ethics rules within weeks of taking office in January of 2008, prompting the mass resignation of nine of the board’s 11 members, including board administrator Richard Sherburne, in July of that year.

So now, with watered-down rules and a puppet board, there appears to be no one left to challenge the administration’s claim of no conflict of interest.

Posted in Boards, Ethics, Governor's Office, Health Care, Higher Education, LSU, Privatization | 11 Comments »

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