Rodriguez, who has been traveling to Lafayette from Houston for the past couple of weeks to help turn the troubled housing authority around after a series of blistering audits questioned its management and expenditures, gave explicit instructions to the LHA’s board of commissioners: not one penny can be spent without HUD approval.
When the board met on Oct. 28, three days after Guillory and Carmouche resigned, board member John Freeman told his fellow commissioners that Rodriguez had informed him it was standard HUD policy to pay for 30 days, according to fellow board member Donald Fuselier, who voted to make the payment. “Freeman advised us Mr. Rodriguez had agreed to it. I relied on what Mr. Freeman said.”
Freeman did not return voice mail messages left on his cell phone Monday and Tuesday.
Rodriguez, through the LHA’s human resources director, issued the following statement via email on Nov. 4: “The payment to the ED and Deputy ED of 30 day pay is NOT APPROVED by HUD even if the Board approved it,” he wrote. Rodriguez directed the HR head to send the statement to all board members.
Guillory, who was getting more than $186,000 a year plus a $5,000 business allowance when he resigned, and Carmouche, whose salary was $85,000 (though he got an extra $20,000 for inspecting homes in 2009 and had already been paid $11,300 when he stopped conducting inspections this year after the 2009 audit questioned the extra work), were eligible to receive payment for 48 hours worked and up to 300 hours of accrued annual leave, according to the email.
At that same Oct. 28 meeting, the board also came close to voting on whether to pay fired Disaster Housing Assistance Program case managers for a month of back pay, The Daily Advertiser reported. It was the first meeting attended by newly appointed board member Shirley Vige. The Advertiser noted that Freeman and board member Leon Simmons attempted to amend the agenda to include a vote on the back pay matter for the DHAP workers, who claim they are owed for 30 days because they did not get a 30-day notice of their dismissal, a requirement of their contracts -- all of which had expired when they were terminated in August. But when Fuselier and Vige shot down an attempt to vote on the matter, it failed to make the agenda for lack of a two-thirds vote.
Rodriguez did not return phone calls or an email seeking comment on these issues.
MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
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The trio - Freeman, Dennis and Best - also attacked Mr. Fuselier, saying he made the motion to give Mr. Guillory a raise. Best argued Joey Durel should have fired the whole board, including Fuselier.
They brought up most of the issues about everything and everybody, and offered excuses for everything, and laid blame everywhere except on themselves. They did everything except accept responsibility and offer to resign for the obvious mistakes made on their watch.
At least Mr. Best challenged Mr. Freeman when he argued that the new executive director should be allowed to work for LHA and for other entities, including other housing boards, at the same time.