Despite going along with the Bossier City Council in doing the right thing for tax renewals in a few months, at its latest meeting Republican Bossier City Mayor Tommy Chandler demonstrated why his time in office must end after a single term.
Chandler ran in 2021 as a foil and a reformer. He won because he wasn’t 87 years old that had spent 32 years at the top of city government watching and presiding over wasting a golden opportunity to make the city a low-tax, low-fee magnet for economic growth that provided superior public safety and other services. He won also because he said he would boost pay for public safety employees, try to lower taxes, and look to cut “wasteful” spending (while “Pet projects and wasteful government spending will not be tolerated”).
Since then, he has done next to nothing to fulfill these promises, if not engaging in backsliding. Outside of one-time bonuses and mandated supplemental pay raises for public safety employees – which haven’t kept up with inflation – no permanent discretionary pay raises have been given, largely because the city’s enormous debt servicing eats up revenues. Taxes haven’t gone down but fees have gone up, while there’s no sign wasteful spending has been curtailed. Some budget-busting items, like giving away a fitness center, died on the vine although Chandler seems to have had nothing to do with that, while others, such as giving away potentially a waterworks, staying in the tennis business, spending big bucks to expand park facilities to generate revenues but shut out citizens’ use of these, and building an idol to politicians past and present apparently proceeded without his objection, if not with his blessing.
Perhaps the most trenchant way of viewing Chandler’s term is what would be different about how the city has been run if instead of his presence a cardboard cutout of him had been situated in his office or at Council meetings? He did make efforts to ensure the city followed its charter in putting term limits on the ballot, although other than signing the petition to do that he did nothing to get it to that point of ballot inclusion. And his only visible attempt to reduce government spending was to propose unwise, later attenuated, cuts to public transportation.
Summarizing how Chandler has become a cipher in efforts to stop city fiscal mismanagement was his obeisance to the process rigged in favor of Manchac Consulting’s retention of its management contract of city engineering and public works. The last time this came up, fewer than two months before Chandler took office, he complained that the termination clauses made it much more difficult for the city to make it change and that incoming elected officials were handcuffed by the three-year length when a shorter extension would do.
They were good questions because they spoke to creating a framework of incentives that would improve Manchac’s performance, which has been spotty (and little did anyone know then, Manchac included, about a costly error Manchac made on keeping open a railway crossing at Shed Road that would force its closing months after the pervious renewal). Indeed, the termination issue spoke directly to whether the contract, then and now, violates the city charter because that language attenuates the mayor’s ability to fire a city engineer.
But Chandler not only had no such criticism earlier this month when extending the contract came before the Council, but also he praised Manchac’s work and supported its payment increase, now 50 percent higher than the last time he spoke on the issue. Nor did Chandler’s administration, according to a public records information request, follow the Charter in certifying Manchac as a single source vendor.
That was glossed over by the continued ridiculous assertion by Assistant City Attorney Richard Ray that the city was prohibited to competitively bid the contract. Not only does this contradict the practice of other cities, as Republican Councilor Chris Smith noted, but also commenter Wes Merriott related that he spoke to the chief legal counsel of the Louisiana Legislative Auditor who said the law in no way prohibited that. Merriott phrased the inanity of that assertion as a product either of incompetence or deliberate deception on Ray’s part, as a means to justify the no-bid renewal.
Ray technically works for City Attorney Charles Jacobs, currently on medical leave. But Jacobs works for Chandler and can be dismissed at any time, over any issue such as legal department staffing. Not that Chandler hasn’t had cause to dump Jacobs for a number of breaches, including Jacobs actively working to sabotage the very cause about which Chandler showed his rare penchant for standing on his own hind legs, term limits.
Smith was joined by Republican Brian Hammons and no party Jeff Darby in opposing the extension, while Darby’s fellow graybeards Republicans David Montgomery and Jeff Free and Democrat Bubba Williams, plus Republican rookie Vince Maggio voted in favor, leading to a narrow 4-3 approval. Those on the losing side took pains to note that they found, as did Chandler, Manchac’s performance satisfactory, but that competition might turn up the possibility of an even better performer, resulting in best use of taxpayer dollars.
Chandler could have vetoed this ordinance, but didn’t. It’s emblematic of his full co-optation into the get-along-go-along mode of governance that has plagued the city for going on three decades, which is not the spinelessness or carelessness needed to guide the city out of its past pattern of throwing money at boondoggles and special interests to the citizenry’s detriment.
There are signs of progress. At the meeting, the Council approved ballot language that would send to the ballot property tax renewals at the maximum authorized rates, which are lower than the rates last approved in 2015 of 8.45 (down to 8.32) and 2.75 (down to 2.71) mils, making it more difficult for the city to hike taxes.
But that just means there’s less money to waste, which doesn’t halt the wastage. If that is to stop, the city needs a mayor committed to that task. Chandler hasn’t shown he’s up to snuff to do that. Therefore, he needs to be replaced.
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