Lafayette Consolidated Government’s legal department is recommending that LCG execute a contract with a pair of attorneys practicing at a Kansas City, Mo., firm to challenge the National Cable Television Cooperative’s suit seeking a declaratory judgment against LCG, which filed a discrimination complaint with the Federal Communications Commission over the NCTC’s refusal to admit LUS Fiber into the co-op.
Up for final adoption before the City-Parish Council Tuesday is an ordinance that would allow LCG to sign contracts with Jennifer Bacon and Lauren McCubbin of the Polsinelli Shugart firm to serve as special counsel for LCG in Kansas City federal court where the NCTC filed suit. Under the terms of the contract, Bacon would earn $331.50 per hour; McCubbin would make $195.50/hour. Polsinelli Shugart bills itself as a “Top 100” law firm in the United States “with more than 500 attorneys in 14 cities stretching from Washington, D.C. to Phoenix.”
Bacon and McCubbin are admitted to practice law in the state of Kansas where the NCTC is headquartered and filed suit in May after LCG notified the cooperative in April of its intent to file a complaint with the FCC. NCTC’s suit seeks a federal judgement declaring that its refusal to admit LUS into the cooperative is neither discriminatory nor in violation of federal trade laws. In its complaint to the FCC, LCG charges that the cooperative is blackballing the public utility at the behest of Cox Communications, the NCTC’s largest member and a member of the co-op’s board of directors. Cox denies the charge.
The NCTC, as its name implies, uses the buying power of a large membership to negotiate favorable rates with television programming providers. LCG’s complaint before the FCC, which could take months before being ruled on, also alleges that LUS will be forced to spend up to $1 million more for programming over the next 18 months if it’s not given membership in the cooperative.
To read the contract with the attorneys, their bios and other memoranda related to the ordinance, click here.
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
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