Bossier City, Parish acts increase accountability

In a development that lately has run counter the field of play, the Bossier Parish Police Jury backed down on an issue that involved skirting the law – seemingly, echoing a prominent Bossier City appointee falling on his sword likely over a negative report.

The Jury in recent years has made it a habit of dancing on the precipice of what’s legal and what’s not, in the process violating the spirit of the law if not the intent. As an example of the former, the Jury continues complying with the law concerning transmission of its and its committee meetings, but in the most minimal way possible (although it did recently begin to post its informational packet for each meeting prior to them, years after all other major local governmental organizations in the area). As an example of the latter, for months it illegally allowed its former parish administrator to act as the head of libraries and allowed him to serve as the parish head executive even though he really resided outside the parish contrary to law.

But over two years of openly flouting the law regarding the parish Library Board of Control apparently it couldn’t stomach any longer. Last week, it amended its ordinance about the Board to bring it closer in line with state law. Previously, the ordinance had set membership only at five parish citizens, but the amending expanded it to many as seven and it clarified the length of terms, making it basically the same as in statute.

New center boosts Arceneaux at Young’s expense

Last week wasn’t so hot for Shreveport mayoral candidate Republican Caddo Parish Commissioner John-Paul Young. By contrast, it went pretty well for incumbent Republican Mayor Tom Arceneaux.

At the Commission’s work session Monday, Young offered up a resolution that would have placed a two-year moratorium on data center siting in the parish. He also wanted to advance to Thursday’s regular meeting a resolution by a colleague to require more onerous environmental impact studies on centers.

Instead, commissioners, perhaps because resolutions don’t have the force of law, decided to send the matters to committee. Only an ordinance would be enforceable, but legally the parish can’t pass one on this matter because it doesn’t have a master plan. That came as a consequence of the separation of the parish and Shreveport from joint zoning for a portion of parish jurisdiction a few years ago, leaving a good chunk of the parish unregulated.

PSC must rule to attract centers, help ratepayers

Economic prosperity through data centers is being thrown into Louisiana’s lap. But it’s not enough just to solve the puzzle of economic incentives; political necessities all need attending to.

It turns out that a number of states, run by Democrats, are throwing up roadblocks if not banning outright data centers, on claims that they hog too much water and raise electrical rates. Certainly, the Monroe area, while seeing a surge in business and tax receipts as a result of siting the Hyperion project in Richland Parish, also has witnessed negative externalities that could sour people on the idea.

However, such assertions ignore how other states, many farther along in the game, have engaged in policies that sidestep bothersome spillover effects. After all, they don’t have guns pointed at them, forcing them to hand out no-strings massive incentives.

LA children to benefit from new Head Start rules

Impending rules changes by the Republican Pres. Donald Trump Administration to running the Head Start programs for pre-kindergarten education will be a boon to Louisiana.

The program is designed provide free child care, allegedly with part of that provision of basic instruction to children from infants up to about five years old, to families who are at the 130 percent poverty level (about the same level as those qualifying for free or heavily discounted health care for states with expanded Medicaid), or in foster care, or who are homeless. It exists in parallel to monies spent by states on similar services to nonqualifying families.

It is, however, typically more expensive to taxpayers –- federal ones, as it exists as a roughly $12 billion grant program going directly to states – than spending per slot by state taxpayers for their separate programs, reaching about $20,000 annually on average for the 0-2 age group program and $15,000 for the 3-5. In large part this is due to the far more stringent regulations the programs have than their state, with one exception, equivalents have.

History of wasted BC tax dollars keeps unfolding

Voter apathy and having the wrong people in office cost Bossier City more than first realized.

Beginning almost three decades ago, the city, doing decently financially, went on a spending spree. Dissatisfaction across the Red River with the State Fairgrounds’ arena for events, particularly ice hockey, aroused the City Council to count coup on Shreveport and build its own. Controversy ensued over its siting and costs, with the numbers initially bandied about eventually almost doubled. What followed was a parking garage tied to a private development which soon teetered into receivership, contributing about a third of the expense to a high-tech office building that failed to attract its intended client and took years to find any substantial tenants at all, construction of compressed natural gas alternative fuel stations requiring more expensive city vehicles that quickly turned into a money-losing proposition, and building a $50-million-a-mile road that didn’t do fully what it was supposed to and perhaps has increased accidents.

None of this was needed, but it seemed to be cool and made it appear councilors and the two mayors involved were doing something to make the city more than America’s biggest small town posing as a bedroom community, enabled by an inattentive electorate. Its own arena! A destination outdoor shopping center! A Silicon Valley-like building to land a new Air Force command! Leveraging of shale assets that skims the cutting edge of low-emission transportation! Relieving congestion on major arteries for the growth boom ahead! Which hardly came, although had the Walter O. Bigby Carriageway been built for its purpose of a true north-south corridor from downtown to the foot of Interstate 220 an extra $20 or so million added to the $89 million might have made sense. But that couldn’t be pursued because of the over $100 million wasted on these other things that made the proper extension unaffordable, adding debt and interest owed needlessly.

LA to benefit from deflating alarmists' hot air

With wind power generation from offshore Louisiana now on the back burner, if not moribund, the hypocrisy of Luddites stumping for propagating this enterprise off the state’s coastline has become all too apparent, even as this result saves American taxpayers and/or consumers their hard-earned dollars.

Under the climate alarmist Democrat former Pres. Joe Biden Administration, a lease for this purpose was sold in federally-controlled waters 40 miles south of Lake Charles. Under the equally climate alarmist Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards Administration, the state also leased two more such lands in state waters.

But now the federal lease has gone with the wind. The Republican Pres. Donald Trump Administration, guided by climate realism, gave the German company RWE $1.2 billion dollars to relinquish that claim and offshore sites in other parts of the country.

Trends argue for LA to stop subsidizing movies

So, Louisiana is losing jobs in the film and television industry. That’s a good thing that can knock some sense into lawmakers chasing the bright lights of movie stardom.

A company that rents out spaces often used for film production took some U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and reported that the state lost the highest proportion of jobs in this industry since 2024. Even as there are states with much higher numbers of people working in the field, it still amounted to one of the highest absolute job losses in that time period.

It’s a comedown for the state that pioneered the notion of state subsidization of filmmaking by transferrable and refundable tax credits, passing that legislation in 1992. As many as 44 other states until recent years joined in to offer some kind of incentive, but that number has since fallen by several.

Landry move should reduce N.O. homelessness

Louisiana is a little late to the party, but it’s finally gotten on the right track when it comes to housing policy.

The state recently announced, through the Louisiana Housing Corporation which is a state agency that administers federal and state funds through programs designed to advance the development of energy efficient and affordable housing and run by appointees by various state officials but the majority by the governor, that it bid to oversee housing policy in New Orleans. As federal housing grants have a ceiling that go to an area, if money goes to the state to use, other entities won’t have it.

And almost certainly the state will grab control of the around $50 million the area will get because its plan, unlike the theory behind those of the present lead agency the nonprofit UNITY of Greater New Orleans, is congruent to best practices that the Republican Pres. Donald Trump Administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development recently adopted. While state and local government and nonprofit representatives rank the applications, HUD has the final word.

Another lightweight story shills leftist agenda

Same tune, different verse for some Louisiana leftist media outlets, this time involving Republican Rep. Julia Letlow.

A couple of months ago a media organization that combined forces of three far-left news sites (backed largely by leftist out-of-state foundations) ran a piece on land acquisition and sales that involved GOP state Sen. Jay Morris concerning the Hyperion project in northeast Louisiana. It used what frequently has become a go-to tactic when leftist media wish to disparage a public official: taking disparate actions and events that themselves are perfectly legal and ethical, try to present a misstep, and use that to attempt to connect those even if unrelated as evidence of some kind of corrupt behavior, as a means of discouraging the official from pursuing a goal against the left’s agenda.

In the case of Morris, it was because Morris fronted legislation to right-size various offices around New Orleans held by Democrats, whose government thoroughly is awash in leftist ideas very out of step with the rest of the state and finds itself increasingly leeching off state taxpayers. Now comes a piece from the efforts of regional public radio and National Public Radio doing something similar with Letlow, coming as a desperate attempt to stop her expected big win this fall in the race against a far-left Democrat nominee.

Last ditch Democrats to push House races right

If you want excitement out of Louisiana elections this fall, you’re only hope is a pair of congressional contests that originally would have been settled by now as well.

The state’s six congressional elections found themselves rescheduled and reformatted after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the previous districts unconstitutional, but time was running short. Additionally, Republican Rep. Julia Letlow forwent her Fifth District seat to win the GOP nomination for the Senate, meaning she will win by at least double-digits in the fall.

So too will the party’s nominees for three Supreme Court slots (technically, already elected), two Public Service Commission spots, a seat on the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, and three of the six congressional districts. The Democrats will triumph only in a single House district.