Richard A. “Rick” Chargois, a 25-year veteran of the Louisiana State Police, is challenging incumbent Lafayette Parish Sheriff Mike Neustrom Oct. 22.
Chargois served as a trooper/deputy commander and headed various departments (Uniform Operations and the Bureau of Investigations) of the Louisiana State Police until his retirement in late 2004.
Chargois’s father, Eric, also served in law enforcement for approximately 40 years, retiring from the Louisiana State Police as a Region II major inspector and then serving as chief deputy under then-Lafayette Parish sheriffs Ross Brupbacher and Donald Breaux until his death. “I can truthfully say that serving the public in a law enforcement capacity has been engrained since birth,” Chargois says.
“Fortunately, the average citizen in Lafayette Parish will never need to call upon the Sheriff’s Department, City Police, Fire Department or any other emergency service for help,” Chargois said. “But for those individuals who find themselves involved in any life threatening situation, it is imperative that those departments operate in a timely and efficient manner. As taxpayers we expect our streets and neighborhoods to be safe and our parks, shopping centers and schools crime free. Sadly, we do have drugs in our schools and on our streets, high crime areas do exist in our parish and our children and grandchildren are exposed to potential criminal activity at every turn.”
Chargois is a lifelong resident of the Acadiana area, is married, and has five daughters and five grandchildren. Chargois is a Republican.
Neustrom, a Democrat, announced his bid for re-election earlier this month. A former criminology professor at UL Lafayette, he was first elected in a runoff in 1999. He beat the same opponent, Republican George Armbruster, in another runoff in 2003 but faced no opponent in 2007.
Qualifying begins Sept. 6.
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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