The Louisiana Boardwalk is off to an excellent start, but is it inherently able to deliver on its promises of economic development?
Large sales numbers may be nice, but they constitute just one part of the development puzzle. To understand the situation in this metropolitan area, we must take into account two facets.
Beginning with the most parochial, we must note that there exists a fundamental mismatch between the philosophy behind the Louisiana Boardwalk and the current main economic engine of Bossier City – gambling (sorry, “gaming;” gambling is supposed to be suppressed according to our state Constitution). The Boardwalk gets marketed as an all-inclusive, “family” destination. By contrast, gambling is, by its nature, an adult vice.
1.6.05
SB 120 cut taxes to help society's most vulnerable
As the committee work winds down in the Legislature, signaled by the attention now being given the budgets, almost all of the measures to revise the problems created by the Stelly Plan look like they will die quiet deaths (with the exception of SB1 which died a very public one). In fact, only one bill really has a chance to pass into law – one that corrects one of the greatest inequities of the tax revision.
The Stelly Plan eliminated the use of any “excess” deductions from federal income taxes, so people with a high amount of deductions could not also write these off on state taxes. For an unlucky few, some had high deductions because of medical expenses.
While there are some who can’t control their appetites for food or nicotine and thereby create health problems for themselves (or, worse, the taxpayers when they make them pay for their indulgences), the vast majority of health care expenses are from unavoidable bad luck. Something the supporters of the 2002 measure did not realize that some families have crushing expenses in this regard (unless you are around the poverty level and below and then the government pays for everything) which can reduce living standards of even the highest-income families close to poverty level in the worst cases.
One compensating factor has been the ability to write off the expenses on federal taxes which for even the lowest-middle class income would have to be astronomical to completely offset federal income tax owed. At the state level, a middle-income family could get a tax break of hundreds of dollars if the rule is changed back prior to the 2002 measure (which, for example, would pay for 20 hours of skilled nursing, or one two-week supply of respiratory medicine).
SB 120 is the bill that would do this. It’s cheap (relatively, in large part because it is being phased in over 10 years) with an estimated price tag of $380,000 and would provide valuable assistance to those and their families who are the most vulnerable in our society. Right now it sits idly in the Senate, having passed out of committee, waiting for enlightened leadership to bring it out and wise voting to pass it on to the House.
Not only then must the House pass it, but Gov. Kathleen Blanco unconscionably seems to oppose the bill which may require even more Legislative support to override a potential veto (we can only hope Blanco never has to experience what these families are going through, because perhaps then she would change her mind on this).
Time is running out, with only about three weeks to go in the session, to get this important bill through the process. It’s too bad other revisions won’t make it, but let’s hope lawmakers get moving on this exceptionally important alteration to the Stelly Plan.
The Stelly Plan eliminated the use of any “excess” deductions from federal income taxes, so people with a high amount of deductions could not also write these off on state taxes. For an unlucky few, some had high deductions because of medical expenses.
While there are some who can’t control their appetites for food or nicotine and thereby create health problems for themselves (or, worse, the taxpayers when they make them pay for their indulgences), the vast majority of health care expenses are from unavoidable bad luck. Something the supporters of the 2002 measure did not realize that some families have crushing expenses in this regard (unless you are around the poverty level and below and then the government pays for everything) which can reduce living standards of even the highest-income families close to poverty level in the worst cases.
One compensating factor has been the ability to write off the expenses on federal taxes which for even the lowest-middle class income would have to be astronomical to completely offset federal income tax owed. At the state level, a middle-income family could get a tax break of hundreds of dollars if the rule is changed back prior to the 2002 measure (which, for example, would pay for 20 hours of skilled nursing, or one two-week supply of respiratory medicine).
SB 120 is the bill that would do this. It’s cheap (relatively, in large part because it is being phased in over 10 years) with an estimated price tag of $380,000 and would provide valuable assistance to those and their families who are the most vulnerable in our society. Right now it sits idly in the Senate, having passed out of committee, waiting for enlightened leadership to bring it out and wise voting to pass it on to the House.
Not only then must the House pass it, but Gov. Kathleen Blanco unconscionably seems to oppose the bill which may require even more Legislative support to override a potential veto (we can only hope Blanco never has to experience what these families are going through, because perhaps then she would change her mind on this).
Time is running out, with only about three weeks to go in the session, to get this important bill through the process. It’s too bad other revisions won’t make it, but let’s hope lawmakers get moving on this exceptionally important alteration to the Stelly Plan.
31.5.05
Blanco needs to fix Foster's divot with creative thinking
I know I was dreaming big in the previous post when I hoped Gov. Kathleen Blanco could drive New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson back to the bargaining table with a huge income tax increase on his employees. I don’t think Blanco has the nerve to threaten such a special session and I’m unsure whether she could get the two-thirds votes necessary to do it.
Perhaps more realistic is today’s suggestion, to address the problem the state has with another deal negotiated by the Mike Foster Administration (which, unlike the Saints deal, he has failed to defend so far), the guaranteed payment for golf rounds played at the Tournament Players Club in Avondale. If local hotels can’t sell them, then the state must reimburse the course in the first year for unplayed rounds.
The contract seems pretty strict. The state can’t resell them and it can’t give them away. With these parameters, it would seem the state’s only option is to use them in-house, if they get used at all.
So, here are some suggestions for the state to use up these several thousand rounds:
Among all of these, that either will use up all the rounds and greatly inconvenience the club or it will provide incentive for the club to renegotiate. Except when referring to tobacco companies, Blanco’s too nice; she needs to start cracking the whip instead of throwing up her hands and having her surrogates agree “it’s a horrible contract.”
30.5.05
On budget matters, Blanco thinks Louisanans are fools
Is Commissioner of Administration Jerry Luke LeBlanc just an idiot, or does he presume to take us for being ones? That the only two possible conclusions one can draw from his statements in front of the Senate Finance Committee during a special Sunday session:
Commissioner of Administration Jerry Luke LeBlanc told a Senate panel that the state can either raise taxes or raid health care to increase teacher pay. He made it clear which scenario the governor supports.
"She will not do anything that pits teachers in a fight with sick people for an increase," LeBlanc told the Senate Committee on Finance.
Let me get this straight, out of a budget with $18+ billion in it, everything else in it is so important – building sugar mills, lakes, tossing out goodies to legislators, paying professional sports teams, etc. just to name a few things that seem safely ensconced in budgets and bills – that our two least important priorities are full funding of health care and teacher raises, and that unless we raise taxes one of these has to go?
No, we’re not that stupid to buy into the false dichotomy LeBlanc presents us. And if Leblanc and his boss Gov. Kathleen Blanco are stupid enough to actually believe this, I’ll be glad to raise their intelligence on this matter with two suggestions so they can have both (whether the teacher raise is deserved is another matter entirely), one of which requires no new taxes, and another which does but in a way which may solve the problem without ever having to implement it.
Why does Blanco continue to refuse to implement the conclusions from studies on efficiency in nursing home reimbursement fiscal structures which would save just about $100 million, the same amount of money she initially proposed for teacher raises? Indeed, she seems to have abandoned her efforts to bring about badly-needed reform in this area that is costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars a year and now seems to be drifting in the opposite direction.
And one (relatively) small but vexing problem has been $15 million or so a year the state looks to be forced to pay out to the New Orleans Saints for the next several years under an ill-advised contract designed to assist the team. The revenue sources for this amount have fallen below expectations so the difference (now around $10 million annually) will have to be made up by state taxpayers.
For months Blanco has tried to get Saints owner Tom Benson to renegotiate, but not long after the bill-filing deadline he broke them off. Instead of proposing new broad-based taxes, here’s what she needs to do: announce now publicly she will call a special session with one item only, a bill to raise income taxes on any employee of a professional sports team making over $100,000 a year (which means only the Saints and New Orleans Hornets, who have their own sweet subsidy deal as well) from the current 6 percent to the 25 percent level, including any bonuses paid out.
Being that the Saints had a 2004 payroll around $73 million (of which all players make well over $100,000), that would pump an additional $12 million or so into state coffers, enough to make up the subsidy shortfall. Better, given the options of leaving New Orleans in a couple of years at the earliest and losing the subsidy (and other penalties applying like paying a buyout), or massive, expensive and inconvenient restructuring of contracts to be able to shield only part of that money, or hurrying back to the negotiating table, you can bet Benson will be begging Blanco to restart the bargaining.
Maybe Blanco and LeBlanc feel they can insult Benson with this threat, but they better not dare think they can insult the state’s citizens with the straw man argument about priorities in state spending they are trying to get us to buy.
Commissioner of Administration Jerry Luke LeBlanc told a Senate panel that the state can either raise taxes or raid health care to increase teacher pay. He made it clear which scenario the governor supports.
"She will not do anything that pits teachers in a fight with sick people for an increase," LeBlanc told the Senate Committee on Finance.
Let me get this straight, out of a budget with $18+ billion in it, everything else in it is so important – building sugar mills, lakes, tossing out goodies to legislators, paying professional sports teams, etc. just to name a few things that seem safely ensconced in budgets and bills – that our two least important priorities are full funding of health care and teacher raises, and that unless we raise taxes one of these has to go?
No, we’re not that stupid to buy into the false dichotomy LeBlanc presents us. And if Leblanc and his boss Gov. Kathleen Blanco are stupid enough to actually believe this, I’ll be glad to raise their intelligence on this matter with two suggestions so they can have both (whether the teacher raise is deserved is another matter entirely), one of which requires no new taxes, and another which does but in a way which may solve the problem without ever having to implement it.
Why does Blanco continue to refuse to implement the conclusions from studies on efficiency in nursing home reimbursement fiscal structures which would save just about $100 million, the same amount of money she initially proposed for teacher raises? Indeed, she seems to have abandoned her efforts to bring about badly-needed reform in this area that is costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars a year and now seems to be drifting in the opposite direction.
And one (relatively) small but vexing problem has been $15 million or so a year the state looks to be forced to pay out to the New Orleans Saints for the next several years under an ill-advised contract designed to assist the team. The revenue sources for this amount have fallen below expectations so the difference (now around $10 million annually) will have to be made up by state taxpayers.
For months Blanco has tried to get Saints owner Tom Benson to renegotiate, but not long after the bill-filing deadline he broke them off. Instead of proposing new broad-based taxes, here’s what she needs to do: announce now publicly she will call a special session with one item only, a bill to raise income taxes on any employee of a professional sports team making over $100,000 a year (which means only the Saints and New Orleans Hornets, who have their own sweet subsidy deal as well) from the current 6 percent to the 25 percent level, including any bonuses paid out.
Being that the Saints had a 2004 payroll around $73 million (of which all players make well over $100,000), that would pump an additional $12 million or so into state coffers, enough to make up the subsidy shortfall. Better, given the options of leaving New Orleans in a couple of years at the earliest and losing the subsidy (and other penalties applying like paying a buyout), or massive, expensive and inconvenient restructuring of contracts to be able to shield only part of that money, or hurrying back to the negotiating table, you can bet Benson will be begging Blanco to restart the bargaining.
Maybe Blanco and LeBlanc feel they can insult Benson with this threat, but they better not dare think they can insult the state’s citizens with the straw man argument about priorities in state spending they are trying to get us to buy.
29.5.05
The Meaning of Memorial Day
This column publishes every Sunday through Thursday after noon U.S. Central Time (maybe even after sundown on busy days) except whenever a significant national holiday falls on the Monday through Friday associated with the otherwise-usual publication on the previous day (unless it is Independence Day or Christmas when it is the day on which the holiday is observed bu the U.S. government). In my opinion, there are five of these: Memorial Day, Independence Day, Veterans' Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas.
With Monday, May 30 being Memorial Day, I invite you to explore the link above.
With Monday, May 30 being Memorial Day, I invite you to explore the link above.
26.5.05
Blanco still proving she is no fiscal reformer
In response to optimistic projections by the Revenue Estimating Conference, it looks like Louisiana has chosen more a path to spend like a drunken sailor that true fiscal prudence.
Of course, part of this comes from the legislative process, where legislators stuff in as much pork as possible. Just to use an example from around here, why is it that Shreveport’s Martin Luther King Neighborhood Association gets $100,000 in state money under the amended operating budget now headed to the House floor and other area associations like Queensborough’s, Broadmoor’s, Captain Shreve’s, and University Terrace’s get nothing? Or why should they get any money period?
But some of it also comes as a result of Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s lack of fortitude. We must never forget that while Blanco is not a big spender in the mold of federal prisoner #03128-095, neither is she a fiscal conservative who wants smaller government (this guy was the gubernatorial candidate in 2003 that was a fiscal conservative).
Of course, part of this comes from the legislative process, where legislators stuff in as much pork as possible. Just to use an example from around here, why is it that Shreveport’s Martin Luther King Neighborhood Association gets $100,000 in state money under the amended operating budget now headed to the House floor and other area associations like Queensborough’s, Broadmoor’s, Captain Shreve’s, and University Terrace’s get nothing? Or why should they get any money period?
But some of it also comes as a result of Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s lack of fortitude. We must never forget that while Blanco is not a big spender in the mold of federal prisoner #03128-095, neither is she a fiscal conservative who wants smaller government (this guy was the gubernatorial candidate in 2003 that was a fiscal conservative).
25.5.05
Landrieu vote changing signals political expediency
What is going on with Sen. Mary Landrieu? For months she rails against Priscilla Owens and nine other Circuit Courts of Appeals nominees by a Republican president, supporting the Democrat leadership in attempts to keep filibusters going to prevent all of them from coming up to a vote. Then she joins a cabal that preserves the rule that allows a minority to block nominees that enjoy committee and chamber majorities from coming up to a confirmation vote.
So then the vote to invoke cloture on the filibuster on Owens comes up and she votes to stop the filibuster. Then the vote on Owens comes up – and she votes to confirm her! Why did she not publicly proclaim this over two years ago when Owens first was nominated? Why did she, on 5/1/03, 5/8/03, 7/29/03, and on 11/14/03 vote to continue debate if all along she wanted to end it and vote for her?
Landrieu can offer two weak defenses for this behavior. First, she could argue that since Owens is for the Fifth Circuit, Louisiana’s, she felt she should support a “hometown” nomination (as did all other of the circuit’s senators, who also all happen to be Republicans). But just because Owens is from Texas and for the home circuit overrides all the past negativity Landrieu countenanced concerning Owens’ suitability to be on the bench?
She also might argue that she was voting with the leadership previously because she wanted to preserve the “principle” of the filibuster applied to appellate court nominees. That argument might actually work if there were any “principle” to it – this concept is two years old, was unprecedented in Senate history before then, and the older filibuster concept in general itself has been altered many times.
Of course, I guess principle has become redefined (“extraordinary circumstances”) with the deal. But let us state what this “principle” really is – a political tool of convenience manufactured by Senate Democrats whose party has been routed from national power, as a way to obstruct the majority and to try to reverse the results of the 2000, 2002, and 2004 elections. That’s what Landrieu defended by her previous votes, and her present votes merely reinforce that.
By voting for Owens twice now, and a likely vote for Janice Rogers Brown, Landrieu is going to try to argue that she votes for Louisiana first and the party leadership second. But her previous record on cloture motions (for Brown, 11/14/03) and the inevitable logic behind them shows in fact she is a party-line Democrat, and deviates from that only as often as she thinks she needs to in order to try to fool the Louisiana people.
So then the vote to invoke cloture on the filibuster on Owens comes up and she votes to stop the filibuster. Then the vote on Owens comes up – and she votes to confirm her! Why did she not publicly proclaim this over two years ago when Owens first was nominated? Why did she, on 5/1/03, 5/8/03, 7/29/03, and on 11/14/03 vote to continue debate if all along she wanted to end it and vote for her?
Landrieu can offer two weak defenses for this behavior. First, she could argue that since Owens is for the Fifth Circuit, Louisiana’s, she felt she should support a “hometown” nomination (as did all other of the circuit’s senators, who also all happen to be Republicans). But just because Owens is from Texas and for the home circuit overrides all the past negativity Landrieu countenanced concerning Owens’ suitability to be on the bench?
She also might argue that she was voting with the leadership previously because she wanted to preserve the “principle” of the filibuster applied to appellate court nominees. That argument might actually work if there were any “principle” to it – this concept is two years old, was unprecedented in Senate history before then, and the older filibuster concept in general itself has been altered many times.
Of course, I guess principle has become redefined (“extraordinary circumstances”) with the deal. But let us state what this “principle” really is – a political tool of convenience manufactured by Senate Democrats whose party has been routed from national power, as a way to obstruct the majority and to try to reverse the results of the 2000, 2002, and 2004 elections. That’s what Landrieu defended by her previous votes, and her present votes merely reinforce that.
By voting for Owens twice now, and a likely vote for Janice Rogers Brown, Landrieu is going to try to argue that she votes for Louisiana first and the party leadership second. But her previous record on cloture motions (for Brown, 11/14/03) and the inevitable logic behind them shows in fact she is a party-line Democrat, and deviates from that only as often as she thinks she needs to in order to try to fool the Louisiana people.
24.5.05
Landrieu decides and benefits politically -- for now
She decided – Sen. Mary Landrieu helped broker the deal that ended up giving more of a victory to the Republicans in the Senate and the White House over judicial confirmations.
The deal carries an immediate promise to confirm three nominees to circuit courts of appeals but doesn’t address four others (with two previously made recess appointments and another withdrawn). Democrats beginning two years ago had taken the unprecedented step of a minority party filibustering appellate court nominees made by the majority party president.
Using its power as the majority, the Republicans could have changed Senate rules (which have been changed many times on this account) to require a simple majority rather than 60 votes to stop the dilatory tactic. But when seven GOP senators said they would not vote to change the rule, and seven Democrat senators said they would not vote to have a filibuster, this meant neither the Republicans could make the rule, nor the Democrats could launch a successful filibuster under the current rule.
Landrieu was one of those Democrats. She must have been praying for this deal to come about because otherwise she would have been in a very untenable political position. She could have stayed with the Democrat leadership, and been pilloried endlessly in the 2008 campaign. What would have been worse would be the deal failed, the rule gets changed, and then she gets forced to cast a vote against all the highly-qualified nominees (particularly regarding Janice Rogers Brown, betraying desires of many blacks in Louisiana). She would have to because then the hard left that has taken over the national Democrats would encourage their Louisianan minions to abandon Landrieu in the campaign which would give her no chance to win reelection.
Now, she can take some credit for this and cast symbolic votes against these nominees (her position on Brown should be interesting), and then maybe defect on a couple, such as Michigan-based nominees being opposed by Democrat senators from those states simply because they object to the majority Republicans preventing confirmations of Clinton-era district court nominees (at lowest court levels, senators essentially can dictate to the president appointees to courts in their home states when they share the same party as the president). This enables her to throw red meat to the hard left on some nominees, but on others she can appeal to the Louisiana public by arguing she showed independence from the national party and voted for qualified nominees.
However, the main event looms – a Supreme Court nomination as early as this fall. The deal leaves open the possibility of Democrats' mounting a filibuster against judicial nominees "under extraordinary circumstances." Hopefully, the attendant publicity would make some of the seven “moderate” Democrats, including Landrieu, think twice about trying to filibuster that kind of nomination. No filibuster ever has been launched against such an appointment where the nominee had not some ethical cloud hanging over his head. So her participation in this matter may have delayed, but not permanently postponed, a political day of reckoning for her.
The deal carries an immediate promise to confirm three nominees to circuit courts of appeals but doesn’t address four others (with two previously made recess appointments and another withdrawn). Democrats beginning two years ago had taken the unprecedented step of a minority party filibustering appellate court nominees made by the majority party president.
Using its power as the majority, the Republicans could have changed Senate rules (which have been changed many times on this account) to require a simple majority rather than 60 votes to stop the dilatory tactic. But when seven GOP senators said they would not vote to change the rule, and seven Democrat senators said they would not vote to have a filibuster, this meant neither the Republicans could make the rule, nor the Democrats could launch a successful filibuster under the current rule.
Landrieu was one of those Democrats. She must have been praying for this deal to come about because otherwise she would have been in a very untenable political position. She could have stayed with the Democrat leadership, and been pilloried endlessly in the 2008 campaign. What would have been worse would be the deal failed, the rule gets changed, and then she gets forced to cast a vote against all the highly-qualified nominees (particularly regarding Janice Rogers Brown, betraying desires of many blacks in Louisiana). She would have to because then the hard left that has taken over the national Democrats would encourage their Louisianan minions to abandon Landrieu in the campaign which would give her no chance to win reelection.
Now, she can take some credit for this and cast symbolic votes against these nominees (her position on Brown should be interesting), and then maybe defect on a couple, such as Michigan-based nominees being opposed by Democrat senators from those states simply because they object to the majority Republicans preventing confirmations of Clinton-era district court nominees (at lowest court levels, senators essentially can dictate to the president appointees to courts in their home states when they share the same party as the president). This enables her to throw red meat to the hard left on some nominees, but on others she can appeal to the Louisiana public by arguing she showed independence from the national party and voted for qualified nominees.
However, the main event looms – a Supreme Court nomination as early as this fall. The deal leaves open the possibility of Democrats' mounting a filibuster against judicial nominees "under extraordinary circumstances." Hopefully, the attendant publicity would make some of the seven “moderate” Democrats, including Landrieu, think twice about trying to filibuster that kind of nomination. No filibuster ever has been launched against such an appointment where the nominee had not some ethical cloud hanging over his head. So her participation in this matter may have delayed, but not permanently postponed, a political day of reckoning for her.
23.5.05
Are Louisiana elected Democrats getting it together?
Although seemingly unrelated, a couple of events happened last week that showed, finally, both major political parties in government in Louisiana are trying to act like, well, political parties.
The Republicans started it months ago by electing party officials who were willing to take a stand on traditional Republican principles of smaller, more efficient, and less corrupt government. Leader Roger Villere more than once has taken the Democrat gubernatorial administration and others of their elected officials to task when they act contrary to these ideas.
Even elected officials got into the act, with the Republican Delegation discussing the merits of opposing any tax increase.The latter was important because such increases in most cases require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature and after the 2003 elections the GOP had better than one-third of each chamber. In fact, since the 1974 Constitution went into effect, the growth of the GOP has been slow but quite steady (click on the images below to get larger representations; there are two separate ones divided by black):
Superior organization beginning first with the minority is frequent. Since they are the minority, they have more to gain by organizing while the majority has the luxury of numbers to continue in power. Eventually, the majority realizes too much power is slipping away too quickly, and that activates it to start its own organization campaign.
Democrats in office seem to have realized this, with their organizing of their own delegation within the Legislature. But another manifestation of this came with their Senate vote on SCR 25 which argued against the Electoral College in favor of a popular vote for determining the presidency. Both arguments have their merits, but SCR 25 particularly was provocative because it invoked the 2000 election and said the results of that election showed “the will of the people as expressed through popular vote can be thwarted in the electoral college.”
But, with the exception of state Sen. Bob Kostelka, the GOP senators were asleep at the switch at this jab and voted for it. There’s little excuse for this inattentiveness since the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee had reviewed the bill and even amended it; particularly its lone Republican committee member Sen. Jay Dardenne should have been on the lookout and/or alerted his colleagues about the resolution (it was there plain as day on the agenda).
If in fact these events show increasing attention being paid to party in the Legislature, this would augur for an increase in legislative power relative to other parts of state government, particularly the governor. The more personality gets removed from the policy-making equation, replaced by party, the more professional will be the Louisiana Legislature, and the better able it will be able to fend off encroachment of executive informal power in our system of state government.
The Republicans started it months ago by electing party officials who were willing to take a stand on traditional Republican principles of smaller, more efficient, and less corrupt government. Leader Roger Villere more than once has taken the Democrat gubernatorial administration and others of their elected officials to task when they act contrary to these ideas.
Even elected officials got into the act, with the Republican Delegation discussing the merits of opposing any tax increase.The latter was important because such increases in most cases require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature and after the 2003 elections the GOP had better than one-third of each chamber. In fact, since the 1974 Constitution went into effect, the growth of the GOP has been slow but quite steady (click on the images below to get larger representations; there are two separate ones divided by black):
Superior organization beginning first with the minority is frequent. Since they are the minority, they have more to gain by organizing while the majority has the luxury of numbers to continue in power. Eventually, the majority realizes too much power is slipping away too quickly, and that activates it to start its own organization campaign.
Democrats in office seem to have realized this, with their organizing of their own delegation within the Legislature. But another manifestation of this came with their Senate vote on SCR 25 which argued against the Electoral College in favor of a popular vote for determining the presidency. Both arguments have their merits, but SCR 25 particularly was provocative because it invoked the 2000 election and said the results of that election showed “the will of the people as expressed through popular vote can be thwarted in the electoral college.”
But, with the exception of state Sen. Bob Kostelka, the GOP senators were asleep at the switch at this jab and voted for it. There’s little excuse for this inattentiveness since the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee had reviewed the bill and even amended it; particularly its lone Republican committee member Sen. Jay Dardenne should have been on the lookout and/or alerted his colleagues about the resolution (it was there plain as day on the agenda).
If in fact these events show increasing attention being paid to party in the Legislature, this would augur for an increase in legislative power relative to other parts of state government, particularly the governor. The more personality gets removed from the policy-making equation, replaced by party, the more professional will be the Louisiana Legislature, and the better able it will be able to fend off encroachment of executive informal power in our system of state government.
22.5.05
Hotel problems again make Hightower look silly
Events surrounding the building of a convention center hotel just keep making Shreveport Mayor Keith Hightower look sillier and sillier. The bids for its construction have gone out and just two came back – one nearly 15 percent higher that the city expected, the other almost 50 percent higher.
This creates an immense practical and another immense political cost to the project. Concerning the former, the speediest option is a negotiation with the low bidder to reduce costs through materials and design changes. Given the over $4 million gap existing, this inevitably means that materials changes alone are not going to close that. It means there will have to be fewer rooms – this regarding a project that no study ever has shown that it would be a money-maker, so reducing the number of rooms will make it even harder to prevent taxpayers from footing the bill.
The other option would be to redesign and rebid the project, but that is even worse. Not only would that also likely result in fewer rooms, but it also runs up against a looming political consideration – state Sen. Max Malone’s SB 260 which would put the brakes on Shreveport’s financing and building of the hotel. It would force a vote of the citizenry of Shreveport (the only government in the state to which the law would apply) in order to sell bonds for or to allow construction to begin on projects for which bonds were sold.
As far as this goes, it has become a race between Malone’s ability to get this bill enacted into state law and Hightower’s ability to get construction started (not to mention the mayor’s race against the judiciary which has before it a lawsuit to declare the state’s contribution of $12 million to the $52 million project illegal). A renegotiation could take up to a month; a rebid much longer.
Meanwhile, even as the head of the local contractor’s association and City Councilman Mike Gibson points out the typical job of this size might attract a half-dozen bids, city Chief Administrative Officer Ken Antee cautions us to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain:
Antee said that there were negative connotations placed on the project by people in the construction community but that their efforts were unsuccessful."It's obvious that people with agendas against Mayor Hightower and the hotel have been trying to poison the well," he said. "But based on the bids, I don't think it had any impact."
That Antee can argue contractors would rather score political points that make a ton of money off this project, and that only two bidders wildly over the city’s estimate constitutes a successful process shows he possesses a rare combination of chutzpah and gallows optimism akin to a man in front of a firing squad who, when asked whether he wanted a last cigarette to go with his blindfold said, “No, thanks, I’m quitting smoking.”
This creates an immense practical and another immense political cost to the project. Concerning the former, the speediest option is a negotiation with the low bidder to reduce costs through materials and design changes. Given the over $4 million gap existing, this inevitably means that materials changes alone are not going to close that. It means there will have to be fewer rooms – this regarding a project that no study ever has shown that it would be a money-maker, so reducing the number of rooms will make it even harder to prevent taxpayers from footing the bill.
The other option would be to redesign and rebid the project, but that is even worse. Not only would that also likely result in fewer rooms, but it also runs up against a looming political consideration – state Sen. Max Malone’s SB 260 which would put the brakes on Shreveport’s financing and building of the hotel. It would force a vote of the citizenry of Shreveport (the only government in the state to which the law would apply) in order to sell bonds for or to allow construction to begin on projects for which bonds were sold.
As far as this goes, it has become a race between Malone’s ability to get this bill enacted into state law and Hightower’s ability to get construction started (not to mention the mayor’s race against the judiciary which has before it a lawsuit to declare the state’s contribution of $12 million to the $52 million project illegal). A renegotiation could take up to a month; a rebid much longer.
Meanwhile, even as the head of the local contractor’s association and City Councilman Mike Gibson points out the typical job of this size might attract a half-dozen bids, city Chief Administrative Officer Ken Antee cautions us to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain:
Antee said that there were negative connotations placed on the project by people in the construction community but that their efforts were unsuccessful."It's obvious that people with agendas against Mayor Hightower and the hotel have been trying to poison the well," he said. "But based on the bids, I don't think it had any impact."
That Antee can argue contractors would rather score political points that make a ton of money off this project, and that only two bidders wildly over the city’s estimate constitutes a successful process shows he possesses a rare combination of chutzpah and gallows optimism akin to a man in front of a firing squad who, when asked whether he wanted a last cigarette to go with his blindfold said, “No, thanks, I’m quitting smoking.”
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