It’s almost as if the Bossier Parish Police Jury is striving to keep attention away from any of its potentially controversial doings, given the disconnect between the parish’s news release about the latest Jury meeting and what happened at that meeting.
Not that the Jury is known for its transparency. Unlike other major governing authorities in Bossier and Caddo Parishes, its agendas contain almost no supporting documentation so citizens can make informed commentary about them. It broadcasts its meetings through the non-robust Facebook Live platform that makes difficult following and replaying, and it doesn’t publicly archive at all its committee meetings although it did recently start to do that for its two utilities the governing boards for which are all the jurors. There practically is zero discussion on almost all issues except specific zoning requests even for some vastly important things (the 2025 budget and 2024 amendments to the budget each were handled in less time that it takes to flush a toilet), so citizens remain in the dark about such significant matters unless they file a public information request or troop to the courthouse during business hours and ask to see stuff – a 20th century mode of operation despite the first quarter of the 21st coming to its conclusion.
Rarely do the media attend Jury gatherings and if they report on these they use the news releases issued by the parish. For the Dec. 18 meeting, the release highlighted comments from the Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau, tax notice information from the Sheriff’s Office, Jury efforts to coordinate better zoning changes, and broad parameters of the parish’s Three-Year Overplay Program and even more generally transportation.
All mildly-to-somewhat interesting developments. Except there were two far more important issues that came up at the meeting that will affect the entire parish for the foreseeable future that went without any mention at all.
Several hundred first responders across the parish might be interested in knowing the Jury voted down a tax break for them. Act 179 of the 2023 Regular Session of the Louisiana Legislature led to the public passing a constitutional amendment that authorized parishes to grant essentially a homestead exemption increase from $75,000 up to $250,000 for active first responders, but with the catch that the parish had to eat that loss of revenue and not pass it on to force every other property taxpayer to cover it.
The Jury had dithered on this, which it could have authorized almost a year ago but didn’t, meaning the possibility was missed for 2024 – and had not gone unnoticed by some first responders, who argued in front of the Jury that it should grant the break. The matter finally came up formally for 2025 at the last meeting of 2024 to be uniform for the entire year.
Parish Attorney Partick Jackson said, however, that in his opinion it wasn’t as cut and dried as it seemed. He contended that another part of the Constitution during reassessment years, such as 2024, would override that part and in fact cause for that year the subsidization of some taxpayers by others to occur. He said he was waiting upon an attorney general’s opinion that might begin to sort it all out, although judicial intervention and interpretation eventually might be necessary.
Republican Philip Rodgers, who served as president, brought the matter of approval to a vote, saying “the way I understand Patrick saying is we are passing taxes on to other taxpayers,” even as in Jackson’s interpretation that would happen only once every four years and the Jury could rescind the break in the future if it so approved. Apparently, this dissuaded all jurors present (Republican Bob Brotherton, as he has been frequently in the last couple of years, was absent) from approving except Democrat Julian Darby who had seconded the matter – even Republican Keith Sutton, who had made the motion to pass it.
So, whether the Jury was looking for an excuse not to have its revenues cut by alleging a tax break for a few would cause a smaller tax hike for everybody else even though that scenario didn’t apply for the next three years, unless a Bossierite watched the meeting live or archived he never would have known by the release. And that wasn’t the only big issue it skipped mentioning.
During the administrator reports at the end, Parish Administrator Butch Ford announced publicly that he would retire after the first meeting of 2025, at which presumably his successor would be selected. Of course, you wouldn’t know that from the parish’s website or any public information release, which would lead to the suspicion that, once again, it will be an inside job with no effort to have even a regional search for the best candidate. That’s how Ford, who had been parish engineer, was hired and so was the administrator two steps back, Dennis Woodward, also promoted from being parish engineer. In between was Bill Altimus, which the Jury had the audacity to pluck from its own membership where he served simultaneously as a juror and as the administrator, then legal.
Parish residents deserve better than a preordained promotion from within. Perhaps that person might be best, but we’ll never know for sure unless there’s competition through an open search that a jurisdiction with roughly 130,000 people and which spends over $200 million annually should merit. But that’s never been part of the secretive Bossier Parish way, which includes the School Board that also has the habit of appointing its own into the top job, now stretching back several decades of superintendents.
Paying tribute to Ford during his report was Jackson, who in an otherwise laudatory and somewhat somber soliloquy apparently honestly and unintentionally said something both funny and fantastical in a stunning display of self-delusion: Ford “never had a scandal in the time he was here.” In fact, Ford was at the center of two, aided and abetted by the Jury.
First, Ford illegally was appointed to his office because, contrary to state law, he was not a registered parish voter and didn’t even register in the parish until 10 months into the job. And it was into 2023 until he fulfilled another part of the law, matching his homestead exemption to his new alleged residence, when in reality for nearly 40 years he has lived in Caddo Parish. His subsequent claim to residing primarily in what is in essence a glorified shack even was challenged for awhile by Republican Assessor Bobby Edmiston. And jurors knew all about this but acted lawlessly anyway as Bossier Parish government has a long history of operating by a precept that even if something is prohibited it’s legal for it to act that out until somebody drags it to court and forces it to stop.
Second, for several months Ford illegally served as interim director of parish libraries. Statute requires proper certification for such a position, which Ford clearly didn’t have. Again, this certainly was known by jurors who appointed him into this, who since then have appointed themselves as the Library Board of Control which also violates the law by exceeding the number of appointees to it (perhaps explaining why the Board hasn’t met for almost a year, which isn’t illegal but seems derelict given the Board’s responsibilities).
Intentionally breaking the law, and with the Jury’s blessing, is nothing but scandalous and a betrayal of citizens. Maybe Ford executed the duties of his office well, but his deliberate disregard of the law, even if seeming in contrast to other matters picayunish, constantly and repeatedly is a stain on Bossier Parish and jurors who affirmed that behavior.
Of course, not only were these issues never part of any news release, but also they weren’t even whispered by jurors in meetings. Par for the course for an organization that prefers to operate in the shadows as much as possible, because maybe it’s things similar to this as yet unknown outside the courthouse that its members really are trying to hide from the public.
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