“The bottom line is that Louisiana has become one of the best places in the country for businesses to create jobs…but we will not rest until Louisiana is the number-one place in the world for businesses to create jobs for our people.”
–Gov. Bobby Jindal, announcing new rating for Louisiana business climate on November 1, 2011.
Posted in Business, Economy, Governor's Office, Jobs, Notable Quotables, Transparency | 1 Comment »
It’s no big secret that Gov. Bobby Jindal is not above skewing statistics in order to achieve the results he needs to put him and his administration in the most favorable light.
To that end, he is a gifted spinmeister. For evidence of that, one need look no further than his recent campaign ads that so inflated the number of jobs created by his administration that the numbers became laughable.
If you are prone to listening to his self-promoting braying, you would swear that Louisiana is some kind of utopia for education, bond ratings, accountability, ethics, transparency, and business rankings. Maybe even for curing the heartbreak of psoriasis.
For the correct answer, however, you would need to check the box marked None of the Above.
While it is true that the state’s bond rating was upgraded from AA- to AA back in May, all it did was move the state into a tie for 26th place—a position shared by 19 other states. Because of the cluster of 19 states tied for 26th, the next spot on the rankings ladder was 46th—or in a 19-way tie for fifth-lowest rating. (Jindal’s PR machine would no doubt insist that the state improved its bond rating 20 places in one quantum leap but in reality, it was an advancement of only one place.)
Eleven states were tied for first with AAA ratings. Among those eleven were four southern states: Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.
An internet research company, 24/7 Wall Street, has published its survey of the “Best and Worst Run States in America,” and Louisiana was listed as the fifth-worst state, ranking ahead of only Michigan, Arizona, California and Kentucky.
Among the factors considered in ranking the states, 24/7 Wall Street took into account the state’s $7,098 debt per capita (24th), its unemployment rate of 7.6 percent (31st) and median household income of $42,492 (41st).
The report noted that Louisiana ranks in the bottom 20 percent for most categories considered, including the violent crime rate, percentage of people below the poverty rate and percentage of people 25 years and older who have completed high school.
It ranked Louisiana the second most miserable state, right behind Michigan, largely because of the state’s poor physical health (an obesity rate of 30.3 percent tied for sixth highest and nearly four percentage points higher than the national average of 26.6 percent).
The report noted that Louisiana not only has the eighth highest level of diabetes (13.2 percent) and the fifth lowest “frequent consumption of produce” on average with only 54.1 percent of the population regularly eating vegetables, but also has the third highest percentage of people without health insurance (23.7 percent).
Finally, the report by 24/7 Wall Street ranks Louisiana with the sixth lowest ranking in the all-important area of environmental issues. The report puts the state at 45th, just ahead of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Indiana, New Jersey and Ohio.
Louisiana, the report indicated, generated 3.8 million tons of toxic waste, third highest in the nation. Hawaii, with only 987 tons, had the lowest amount of toxic waste while West Virginia, noted for its coal mining industry, had only 92,000 tons.
With the sixth-smallest alternative energy budget in the nation, Louisiana ranks 46th among the states in energy-saving policies and programs, the report said.
“The state ranks horribly in water pollution, falling into the bottom five for releasing carcinogenic toxins, total water pollution, and chemicals which can cause birth defects,” the report said. At 3.8 million tons, “Louisiana also produces the third-most toxic waste each year,” it said.
If Jindal holds true to form, he will in all probability not attempt to address the state’s poor rankings in these areas. Instead, if he even acknowledges the report, look for him to attempt to put some type of positive spin on the statistics.
After all, he has already told us that “The business world is taking note of our work to expand and diversify the state’s economy while pursuing reforms to make government more fiscally responsible.”
If that’s not enough to convince you, Jindal, speaking just last month, said of the state’s robust business climate, “Since day one, we have made economic development our top priority by cutting taxes, revamping workforce training, and reforming our ethics code. These changes have helped transform the way businesses view Louisiana and that’s why our economy is out-performing the South and the nation. The bottom line is that Louisiana has become one of the best places in the country for businesses to create jobs…but we will not rest until Louisiana is the number-one place in the world for businesses to create jobs for our people.”
Chew on that for awhile, 24/7 Wall Street.
Posted in Business, Economy, Governor's Office, Health Care, Transparency | Leave a Comment »
“Article 8 Section 1 of the Louisiana Constitution gives the responsibility for public education to the Legislature not the Governor. His sole role is the appointment of his three members of the Board. BESE’s selection is subject to the approval by the Senate. Any interference with this process is abuse of power by the Governor. There are separation of power laws.”
–Contribution from anonymous reader.
Posted in BESE, Education, Governor's Office, Notable Quotables, Transparency | 1 Comment »
The Louisiana Ethics Board recently announced it was investigating Livingston Parish Tax Assessor Jeff Taylor for his involvement in the local race for Livingston Parish President. Taylor sent out letters to Livingston Parish voters endorsing challenger Layton Ricks over incumbent Mike Grimmer. Ricks won in a runoff with 56.8 percent of the vote.
The ethics board said it was investigating the propriety of Taylor’s involving himself in the election with his letter. The letter was sent out under his private letterhead but included the telephone number of the tax assessor’s office. Taylor said the inclusion of the telephone number was an oversight. Taylor also said he spent his own money on the mailout.
The Board is looking into whether the flier violated state law which says public servants can’t use their authority to coerce people to engage in political activity.
If the ethics board can somehow find wrongdoing in Taylor’s involvement in the race, it will be interesting to see how it treats the presence of Jindal’s heavy hand in the BESE elections. In those races, his campaign generated automated phone calls in which he used his voice, his name, his influence and the status of the governor’s office to urge voters to cast ballots for his favored candidates—including Chas Roemer and Jay Guillot, among others. Moreover, Jindal contributed thousands of dollars from his own campaign war chest to favored candidates. That would seem to qualify as a public servant using his authority to coerce people (voters) to engage in political activity.
Frankly, it’s quite a stretch to define the activities of either Taylor or Jindal as illegal or even unethical. A public servant’s use of his authority to coerce his employees to engage in political activity would be illegal but Taylor’s letter went to voters throughout Livingston Parish–not just to his employees. Jindal? His biggest sin was to become a nuisance during the campaign. It got a little tiresome to pick up the phone and hear a pre-recorded message from the governor. A live call from Jindal would at least afford the opportunity for a little voter feedback but it’s somewhat unfulfilling giving a Bronx cheer to a recording.
There are other matters that warrant the board’s consideration as well.
Jay Guillot, recently elected to the District 5 seat on the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE), won’t have to bother getting an opinion from the ethics board on the propriety of his serving on a state board while holding a multi-million dollar state contract.
LouisianaVoice has saved him the trouble.
Guillot, for whatever reason, neglected to get an opinion from the ethics board prior to qualifying to run against incumbent Keith Guice. Guillot won the election with 54.6 percent of the vote, thanks in large part to the support of Gov. Bobby Jindal who, along with other key donors, poured tens of thousands of dollars into Guillot’s and other BESE candidates’ campaigns.
A sampling of contributions to Guillot included $5,000 from the Jindal campaign committee; $7,100 from the state Republican Party for television advertising; $10,000 from ABC Pelican Political Action Committee; $4,000 from Charter Schools USA of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida; $5,000 from the Louisiana Federation for Children; $5,000 from ISC Constructors, a contributor to ABC Pelican PAC; $5,000 from another ABC contributor, Cajun Industries; $5,000 from Todd Grigsby, an executive for ISC Constructors, and $10,000 from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Guillot contacted Ruston’s Morning Paper on Sunday to say that his attorney, Jimmy Faircloth, Jr., would complete his request to the ethics board for an opinion on his legal status sometime this week but that the agency for the board is closed for December. That would mean that the board would not be able to consider a request from Fairchild until January—after Guillot is sworn in at BESE’s January meeting.
But not to worry; LouisianaVoice got its request in on November 2, one day before the cutoff for the December 15-16 agenda.
In fact, the request submitted by LouisianaVoice was two-pronged:
• Should Guillot be allowed to serve on a state board when he simultaneously holds nearly $17 million in contracts with the state—one contract alone is for $16 million?
• Should Chas Roemer be allowed to continue to make motions and vote on matters coming before BESE pertaining to charter schools when his sister, Caroline Roemer Shirley, serves as executive director of the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools?
Normally, a candidate in Guillot’s position would have sought an ethics opinion long before qualifying for and spending tens of thousands of dollars on a bitter campaign for public office.
Guillot, in fact, showed no inclination to seek such an opinion until pressed by the Morning Paper and even then, his responses were vague and non-definitive.
With the latest revelation that he would seek an opinion after all, only caused further head-scratching at his choice of legal counsel for the request.
Faircloth is the one-time and once-again legal counsel for Jindal and was apparently retained by Guillot to make the inquiry of the ethics board. That, in itself, would seem to be a conflict of interest, given Jindal’s political and financial support for Guillot’s candidacy and the governor’s tacit yet unmistakable influence on the board.
But it’s not as if Faircloth, who worked from January 2008 until July 2009 as Jindal’s executive counsel and now is again employed by the governor’s office, is unfamiliar with the ethics board and breaches in ethics.
On March 18 of this year Faircloth signed a consent judgment in which he agreed to pay a $1,000 fine for accepting $7,000 in fees for representing the Louisiana Tax Commission, beginning on Jan. 12, 2010. State law requires a waiting period of one year before a former state employee may represent a state agency.
He did the work for the tax commission under a $20,000 contract approved by the Attorney General’s office and the Office of Risk Management. Faircloth’s entering into the contract was in violation of Section 1113D(3)(a) of the Code of Governmental Ethics, according to the ethics board.
So now it comes down to what the board will decide and what board attorney Tracy Barker will write regarding Docket No. 2011-1688 later this month.
Posted in BESE, Ethics, Governor's Office, Transparency | 1 Comment »
There are a lot of telemarketing scams out there but there’s one that is particularly annoying—and illegal.
You get this call and a pre-recorded message tells you that you have been sent several messages. The authoritative woman’s voice then says, “This is the last notice you will get” to lower your credit card rate.
If that “last notice” bit were only true, it would not be necessary to be writing this post right now. I get the calls on my land line and my cell phone on virtually a daily basis.
They move around, so it’s all but impossible to track them down or to even file a complaint about them. Most of the calls originate from area codes in Utah and San Francisco and it does no good to put the number on the “do not call” list, because they simply ignore that. It also is futile to block the number because each call originates from a different number.
The calls are almost as irritating as all those automated political campaign calls during the recent election cycle, but at least you know the political solicitations are fraudulent. The credit card scam almost sounds convincing in its pre-recorded promise to lower your card’s interest rate to as low as 6 percent. All I have to do is press “1” to speak to a representative.
It’s nothing more than an identity theft scam designed to obtain your credit card number. Never, and I do mean never, give any personal information such as your social security number, bank account number or credit card number to any telephone solicitor. Repeat: any telephone solicitor. You’d do just as well by taking that Nigerian up on his email offer to dump $10 million into your bank account or falling for that European lottery you never entered but somehow managed to win.
There’s an old adage that says necessity is the mother of invention, so out of necessity, I had to either find a way to stop the calls or at least have some fun from it all. Since it is impossible to stop the daily afternoon nap interruptions, I had to find a way to make it fun, or at least somewhat entertaining.
At this point, it is probably useful to say that while my ploy was devised as a response to this particular scam—and it is a scam, make no mistake about it—it’s good for any telemarketer who has the audacity to interrupt Dancing with the Stars to pitch some product or service to you.
I first tried a tactic with female telemarketers only. I would let them get about halfway into their spiel and then interrupt in the sleaziest voice I could conjure with, “What are you wearing?” It always worked with female solicitors; they couldn’t hang up quickly enough, but unfortunately, most of the calls came from males, so I changed to a practice I now use with all unwanted callers.
I went to the local Holy Shrine (Wal-Mart, to the less erudite) and purchased a cheap referee’s whistle—the same kind that football and basketball officials use—and put it on my key chain.
Now, I actually look forward to the calls. I always press “1.”
As soon as someone comes on the line, I deliver an ear-piercing blast right into the phone. They usually hang up immediately but occasionally, they will respond. On one recent call from the friendly credit card scam people, a man’s voice offered to place my whistle in the nether regions of my anatomy “if I knew where you lived.” Ironic, isn’t it, alluding to his inability to determine my location when they depend on anonymity for survival–and to avoid prosecution?
On another, a woman came on the line and, after the initial blast, said simply, “That’s really cute.” I blasted again. “Cute,” she said again.
“Well, I can do this as long as you can,” I responded. Another blast.
She left me with a verb and a pronoun before hanging up.
It’s nice to know we can get under their skin, too.
The only problem is when I get one of those calls while I’m driving. With the key in the ignition, it’s difficult to get to the whistle without wrecking.
Posted in Politics | 3 Comments »
