The historic town of Washington has been frequenting news headlines far more often than usual lately for a bedroom community of 1,000 people, and it looks like it's only getting worse.
In addition to the $200,000 the town failed to pay the state for speeding fines under 10 mph it collected along I-49, it appears the town has yet to show proper documentation showing how it spent the roughly $72,500 allocated by FEMA in the immediate wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
FEMA spokesman Manuel Broussard says in 2005, the federal agency deposited the $72,500 for Washington into the state's emergency account, which is handled by the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. Federal emergency funds given during disasters are channeled through the state, Broussard says.
It appears that the town received the emergency money from the state in 2005, though a GOHSEP spokeswoman was not able to confirm that by Friday morning.
"The town of Washington provided documentation of costs incurred with sheltering evacuees; however, the documentation dates did not coincide with the timeline for Hurricane Katrina," Broussard says.
When FEMA had this epiphany — four years after the town reportedly received the money — the agency informed Washington and state officials in August 2009 that the money must be repaid unless the town could provide more sufficient proof on how the money was spent.
Broussard says Washington can still show FEMA the necessary documentation and possibly keep the money, but it's been almost two years since the town was notified of its deficiencies and nothing has been resubmitted.
Washington Mayor Joseph Pitre has been under fire since The Independent Weekly reported in its June 1 cover story “Need for Speed” that the town exempted itself from a 2009 state law enacted to curb speed traps. The law requires that money collected for speeding violations of 10 mph or less above the posted speed limit be redirected to the state. Washington's 2009-2010 audit revealed that the town failed to turn over more than $200,000 in speeding fines that should have gone to the state treasurer’s office.
The town has since voted in a Home Rule Charter form of government, or a legal loophole in state statute that allows the town to continue to keep money for all speeding fines. The state law only applies to towns that govern without a home rule charter and only pertains to tickets issued along interstates.
A recent meeting Pitre had with a Legislative Audit Committee to address the speeding fines ended after little discussion and no action taken, so it remains unclear whether the town plans to repay the speeding fines it kept.
When reached by phone Friday morning at Louisiana Technical College in Lafayette, where Pitre also works, Pitre said, "I'm in class. I'm teaching. Thank you," and abruptly ended the call.
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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