Board wants to buck Court, waste taxpayer bucks

From clown show to freak show, perhaps only the Cypress Black Bayou Recreation and Water Conservation District Board of Commissioners could pull off such ignominy in a span of just over a week.

The regular Jun. 21 meeting featured comedy, doubtlessly unintentional on the part of those who provided it, that for most viewers in Bossier Parish turned surreal upon realization this was their tax dollars at work. It occurred a couple of months after the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that lower courts had to judge whether Executive Director Robert Berry, who also serves as the appointee of the Bossier Parish Police Jury to the Board, was in violation of dual officeholding law by having both posts – with the majority opinion issuing stern instructions that made clear any lower court would have to rule that he was.

That meeting demonstrated several things:

• The Board’s other members – Walt Bigby, Jerry Fowler, Kelly Long, and Gary Wyche, parish political insiders all – had little clue as to what actually has been going on, or even the rules and regulations they are in charge of, in the district. Their general vacuousness reflected an unhealthy reliance on Berry to perform as their agent, reversing the intended flow of authority where instead of him acting on the orders of the Board its members followed his directions. One resident who had interacted with Berry on a matter even stated publicly that Berry bragged how he led the Board around by the nose.
• In over her head was its counsel Alex Vozzella from the politically-connected Ayres, Shelton, Williams, Benson & Paine firm, who kept stumbling particularly on statute and administrative law relating to contracting. This led to her needing backup at the Jun. 29 special meeting in the form of the firm’s senior partner Lee Ayres. Keep in mind that the District spent in 2020 and 2021 nearly a half-million dollars – or about 13 percent of total district expenditures – on legal fees.
• As for Berry, citing the dispute over his officeholding, he withdrew from the meeting just after its start, despite his obligation to act as an appointed representative of the Bossier Parish Police Jury, because of what he knew was coming.
• Which was Republican District 3 Police Juror Philip Rodgers launching a lengthy harangue alleging mistreatment over permits and their enforcement, which illuminated the cluelessness of all concerned except the escaped Berry. Throughout, it became clear Rodgers had received special treatment from Berry partially with Board compliance and who now alleged political reasons for adverse action the Board seemed poised to take against him. In the process, not only did Rogers make it appear Berry dispensed favorable treatment without Board knowledge and in violation of rules, but also that Rodgers’ privileged political insider status allowed him to reap the benefits of that.

This set the stage for the special meeting, with Berry skipping it completely because, well, as the Board noted, someone had to work the front gate to let people in – even though the park officially closed its entrance 15 minutes before the meeting even started. Perhaps because the last meeting exposed how permit processing – necessary for property owners to secure variances to existing rules and to carry out the necessary construction – almost solely resided in the hands of Berry, the Board heard a proposal from Manchac Consulting Group to oversee contractually the process.

Manchac is the entity to which Bossier City has contracted public works services with a series of no-bid deals, despite it having no other experience in running local government affairs and a spotty record with Bossier City, such as botching permit arrangements that forced a permanent closure of a stretch of semi-busy Shed Road. This also would be a no-bid deal.

But where the meeting took on an aspect of a train wreck occurred when the Board brought up a request for the Police Jury to reappoint Berry for another five-year term at the end of July. Friends of Cypress Black Bayou director, long time resident, and long time critic of certain Board actions Renee Hall addressed the Board with text from the Supreme Court decision, including reading the interpretation rendered by the Court to guide lower courts that Berry was in violation of the dual officeholding statute.

Commissioner Long, a lawyer specializing in family law, then invoked every negative stereotype of lawyers as bending the truth to support their positions by trying to argue with Hall that the decision merely said lower courts erred in granting a summary judgment in favor of Berry without a trial, without acknowledging that the Court’s opinion instructed lower courts to rule that Berry was in violation and even contradicting Hall on that point when she pressed her on that.

Then, District counsel Ayres tried to bail out Long further by calling her comments “absolutely correct” and noting a petition for rehearing had been brought to the Court. This is merely a delaying tactic, as the Court is highly unlikely to change its mind mere weeks after its judgment, to buy time to keep a lower court from ruling Berry in violation, giving him cover to his reappointment possibility.

Thereupon followed Hall’s husband David, who made an absolutely cogent comment: with so much uncertainty legally regarding Berry, discretion would be the better part of valor by not recommending his retention. He also elicited from Ayres that the District was ponying up litigation costs on all of this continued legal wrangling.

Nonetheless, the Board voted unanimously to ask the Jury to reappoint the conveniently-absent Berry. This meant they advocated for keeping among themselves somebody who has been accused publicly of playing fast and loose with District rules and alleged to have said he dictates to his fellow commissioners what to do, and who the highest court in the state has said violates dual officeholding law.

On its current course, this is where it’s going to lead: if Berry is reappointed, the Board will spend potentially hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars in a fruitless defense, compounded if the rendered decision ends up fought all the way back to the Supreme Court. At most, this will buy Berry perhaps another year in both positions – and if he holds out to the bitter end will lose the executive directorship and have to pay back the District six months’ salary (if he voluntarily resigned his commissioner job prior, he would owe nothing).

Such a professed desire to waste wantonly taxpayer dollars by Berry, Bigby, Fowler, Long, and Wyche is dereliction of fiduciary duty beyond disgraceful. Yet even more remarkable is, why? Why is Berry so keen on keeping both offices when the directorship is far more important and lucrative? Why are the other commissioners so keen to go to the mattresses for Berry despite the enormous costs and bad publicity that will end in futility?

This behavior tempts the explanation that there is a whole salacious back story out of public view that if revealed might bring to light considerable liability for the District and all involved. Let’s hope it’s just a matter of small people acting stupidly  – and who will have to face voters next year for renewal of the 1.56 mil property tax providing most of the funding for the District.