BC budget presents chance to reshape fiscal mgt

 Bossier City this year took a small step towards smarter fiscal management. Its 2026 budget reveals other opportunities where sweating other small stuff can add up to significant savings.

Tomorrow, the City Council takes up the separate budget ordinances, which largely reflect a measure of prudence. Typically, the city budgets conservatively which has paid off in recent years with a growing general fund balance – until the recently-exited long-in-the-tooth councilors concocted a city-wide pay raise built on political, not fiscal, reasons that promises to deplete that healthy surplus in a matter of years unless the city implements compensatory actions.

The Republican Mayor Tommy Chandler Administration has in a few ways, one of which was a nonstarter: property tax increases. But it did get Council approve to muscle through water and sanitation fee increases that were eating away at reserves, hopefully obviating the need for subsidization from general tax revenues. It also apparently has called a halt to the drunken sailor spending by the departed graybeards on shiny baubles that boosted egos but were fiscally imprudent for the general value they imparted to the citizenry, by making a verbal commitment to using one source of funding for these wasteful capital projects – a sales tax that dumps into the Parkway Capital Project Fund – for its legally-permissible alternative of funding city operating activities.

Still, the level at which the 2026 budget draws from this, about $10 million, isn’t sustainable as only $4 million is budgeted to replenish the $10 million remaining, so that can’t work in the long run. Another trick up the sleeve may try to ameliorate this: a proposal by the Chandler Administration to unlock, which would not happen next year but could be incorporated into the 2027 budget, the $18 million in the Public Safety and Health Trust Fund which would require voter approval. The idea would be to stake some of this as a reserve for paying out health benefits for city employees and retirees, preventing the need to dip into tax revenues.

Guard deployment must fit larger commitment

It’s as bogus, if not disingenuous, as it gets when Republican Gov. Jeff Landry’s request for National Guard troops to be activated for use in crime-fighting efforts in Louisiana’s three largest cities is disparaged.

Last week, Landry asked for the state’s National Guard to be deployed by his administration in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Shreveport, at federal government expense. Other than that, plans are as yet indeterminate as to the details of the operation.

Some Democrat officeholders, predictably, have complained about this effort, where ironically enough the loudest at the local level seem to have come from those whose areas they represent have experienced for decades the worst amount of crime. They moan about militarization and sending a negative message, although perhaps what really concerns them the appearance of troops may highlight that politicians of their stripes have been in office forever with no improvement in crime reduction and that voters might catch on to this cross-generation failure.

Closed primaries: more accountability if fewer run

If you expect candidate choice to go down significantly as a result of Louisiana expanding its (semi-)closed primary election roster, you would be wrong. If you think it would increase accountability, you’d be right.

Starting next year, closed primary elections return for federal offices and will become implemented for Public Service Commission and Supreme Court seats. But along with that, qualification methods changed beyond what was necessary to create a primary system.

Until now, to qualify under the blanket primary system, candidates had two options: get up a petition turned in by a certain date with varying numbers of signatures and locations of signers depending upon the office, or just pay up a certain amount during qualification that varied in amount as to office and what category of political party, if any, in which the candidate would enroll where the two major parties had the highest fees. Both methods remain but now are very different.

Against past type, BC better on pickleball

There is the right way of government doing business and the wrong way. Bossier City did it the right way and Caddo Parish didn’t when it comes to going from zero to 30 pickleball courts in the area.

In September, the Caddo Parish Commission voted to sink $10 million into building a 19-court facility. The appropriation would come in the from of a revenue bond, which means the parish has the chance of being paid back, as user fees it hopes will cover the principal and interest. Even if that happens, the parish will have indirect costs in putting the deal together and keeping the operation of it going, as it plans to farm out the managerial task.

This is the biggest part of the scam, as the facility will be built, and likely not opening until 2027, on land leased by the Northwest Louisiana YMCA at one of its locations, which will be the operator. In other words, the Y is leveraging parish government to get itself built for free a facility it eventually will own.

LA higher education win over DEI far from certain

Declaring victory too soon can lead to an ultimate defeat, the Louisiana Board of Regents chairwoman should know.

Recently, Regent Misti Cordell, who last year was appointed to the Board and ascended to its top position, declared and end to the state’s battle against institutionalized diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in higher education. These efforts, whether in the form of programmatic attempts to privilege students and faculty members on the basis of protected characteristic categories, usually by race, or in the form of behavioral requirements to do the same such as forcing job applicants to explain how they would do that, have stoked controversy as they rely upon the hypothesis that government and societal institutions are irredeemably racist or discriminate against others in certain protected classes, requiring discrimination in favor of the alleged victim classes that thereby becomes discrimination, if not harassment, against those not members of the favored classes.

Cordell asserted that “the DEI nonsense is DONE. The Legislature killed it. The Regents stripped it out. Louisiana is not going back. If it shows up in old paperwork, that doesn’t change the reality – those bad ideas belong to the past, not our future.” But little of that statement actually is the case in any permanent sense.

Case for LA film tax credits weaker than ever

Even the presence of tariffs doesn’t seem likely to halt the root wastefulness of Louisiana’s Motion Picture Production tax credit that doesn’t change through many its iterations — especially when there are better uses for that money coming out of taxpayers’ pockets.

Republican Pres. Donald Trump has reiterated his threat to place tariffs on movies made in foreign countries. Increasingly, film production has moved out of the country, mainly because of lower labor costs. However, the mechanics of doing so don’t lend themselves well to setting up a regime that would provide the benefits of protectionism. And part of the problem also is the falling tide of movie-making and television series because of the rise of streaming services that empty theaters and keep people from surfing the dial as demand for that kind of product diminishes.

Workable tariffs could help Louisiana’s film and television production, which has been losing ground relative to other locations both foreign and domestic. Part has to do with changes last year to the tax credit, which had its cap lowered from $150 million annually to $125 million even as other states are raising theirs. But foreign competition has been most challenging, and not just impacting negatively the state but other states as well.

Elected chiefs bad idea in Monroe, anywhere

Monroe’s politically contentious fire chief appointment saga shouldn’t be the impetus to opening the door to greater folly in the quest for the political power by other elected officials.

After a year-plus political tussle between independent Mayor Friday Ellis and a Democrat-majority City Council over naming a new fire chief, with the Council majority rejecting two appointees for somewhat conflicting reasons, the deadlock was broken this month when Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, under authority granted him by a law backed by Ellis, appointed one of the two Ellis nominees previously rejected. The issue took an ugly turn when members of the Council majority, who are black, called Ellis, who is white, “anti-black” because both nominees are white who would head up a department in a city whose population is almost two-thirds black.

In the wake of the resolution, two of the majority, Rodney McFarland and Verbon Muhammad, speculated that perhaps Monroe, in a move that would require changing the city charter, should have both its police and fire chiefs chosen at the ballot box. That’s an idea that if it ever made it onto the ballot should be rejected by voters.

Recent act adds impetus for jettisoning RTOs in LA

And this is why, even if it became the first state to adopt an anti-renewable portfolio standard, Louisiana isn’t out of the woods from its energy policy being affected in negative ways by other states’ faith in the existence of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.

This summer, the state passed a law that essentially made it state policy to pursue the most reliable and inexpensive energy as possible. By doing so, it disallowed the Public Service Commission if it ever desired to do so from trying to impose an RPS on power utilities operating in the state. An RPS would force production of that power through the use of renewable resources to reach a certain proportion of all produced. Almost half of states have one, and in some the eventual target as early as 2040 is 100 percent.

As the higher the proportion of renewable sources reaches the more average expense is attached to that production for consumers, because of both the technology required and the vastly higher degree of production unreliability endemic to relying on renewable resources, Louisiana’s new law guards against consumers having to bear this burden just to kowtow to the myth of CAGW that increased renewable sourcing theoretically alleviates. But, as a recent incident illustrates, state boundaries can’t stop foisting the unneeded RPS costs onto ratepayers’ power suppliers not even subject to an RPS.

New LA bishops bring hope to resolving bad pasts

It’s been an interesting month for Louisiana Catholics in the state’s southeastern corner, hopefully presaging the beginning of the end for turbulent times.

The pederasty – and make no mistake, that’s what it is as 75-80 percent of all sexual abuse cases known against priests involved male minors – that was tolerated among a small coterie of priests (about four percent of the total) claimed an unfortunately high total of victims in the Archdiocese of New Orleans. So much so that the archdiocese declared bankruptcy to avoid financial ruin and shamefully has been lowballing a settlement.

But earlier this month a new offer of $230 million was made to the several hundred members of the affected class. If enough accept, the settlement will become official.

Prudent BC budget still must avoid landmines

Bossier City’s 2026 executive budget exemplifies a greater commitment to transparency, and in doing so highlights the sins of its policy-making past and warnings to avoid their consequences  in the future.

The budget doesn’t see much increased spending past the expected 2025 baseline, although reviewing general fund numbers might belie that. This is because of an accounting change that moves expenses for all of the ancillary functions attached to the sanitation fee on utilities bills that the general public mostly associates with trash pickup. That became a controversial point over the rate increases instituted this year where apartment complexes that previously had been billed for only a few addresses, or even just one, the city began to bill for all units. Complex owners argued that they had their own waste removal and so shouldn’t have to pay, but they discounted the ancillary functions the fee covers such things as mosquito abatement, sweeping and mowing, beautification, and animal control.

A compromise was reached that billed at 80 percent of total units. Perhaps as a result, the Republican Mayor Tommy Chandler Administration now plans to budget separately for those items and transfers their functions to Public Works. Thus, the portion of the sanitation fee that covers these functions for bookkeeping purposes now appears in the general fund, inflating year-over-year spending. It’s the right move to make for greater transparency and accountability.

Bizarre postcard incident defies obvious motive

A bizarre incident involving Louisiana legislators leaves perhaps only one thing for certain: the sender(s) of so-called “lynching postcards” seem to have caught a case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that makes the act appear inexplicable using reason and logic.

Recently, several representatives – all Republicans except for a Democrat and apparently chosen in alphabetical order, various reports reveal – received in their official mail two kinds of postcards depicting lynchings, with one identified as nearly a hundred years ago in Indiana and the other over a century ago in Minnesota. They state “Thank you” have Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s name attached to them, and were sent from Denver.

This raises many questions. Why Louisianans? Why only representatives? Why just names close to the beginning of the alphabet and sent to official addresses as if plucked from the website? Why is Noem’s name attached? Why depicting lynching? Why the scrawled sarcastic message? Perhaps these and others will be answered as the Federal Bureau of Investigation has gotten involved because this could be construed as a threat using the postal service. Even if no threat is determined to be present, the Comstock Act as amended makes it illegal to send these through the mail.

Monroe Council Democrats play race card on pick

As always when it’s dealt, the majority Democrats on the Monroe City Council played the race card from the bottom of the deck, exposing their misbegotten and counterproductive agenda.

Last week, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry announced that Monroe’s new fire chief would be Timothy Williams. A new law gave him the power to do this, breaking a stalemate between the Council majority and independent Mayor Friday Ellis stretching past a year where the Council rejected two of his appointees.

The majority gave somewhat conflicting reasons for their rejections. Ellis’ first choice, Monroe Fire Department’s Daniel Overturf scored middling on the civil service exam and the majority said the city could do better, despite his strong rank-and-file backing. Williams, Bastrop’s fire chief, scored highest on the exam, as well as had a strong record in Bastrop, but then the Democrats switched their objection to he didn’t have managerial experience in a larger department. But besides having their candidacies sidelined by the Democrats, who are all black, the two had something else in common: both, like Ellis, are white.

Bossier school absenteeism tactics not working

The Bossier Parish School District, that powerhouse of public relations, splashes its motto “Win the Day” around, while it really needs to pursue students showing up that day, before being in a position to win it.

The BPSD regularly pumps out whatever good news the district can scrounge during Board meetings and through web videos as part of its “On the Record” series in addition to news releases, such as its deserved seventh best improvement in early grade reading proficiency among the state’s 69 districts. But noticeably absent from any publicity, not even issuing a measly media release for perhaps understandable reasons, were a couple of items celebrated across the rest of the state, if not next door.

One was the annual disappointment in National Merit Scholar semifinalists, announced earlier this month, which at least had the consolation of the district doubling up on the one honoree from last year, which also doubled up on how many that the parish’s only private school produced. That sterling scholar from a student body of about five percent in size of the 1,452 BPSD high school seniors was part of a class that averaged 28 on the ACT standardized exam, compared to the 19 scored by BPSD seniors, below the national average of 19.4 but above the state average of 18.2.

More govt aggravates NO housing shortage

The problem with New Orleans and its affordable housing difficulties Edmund Burke captured some 235 years ago: to make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.

And New Orleans isn’t. Certainly, it has its ramshackle charm, but that obviously isn’t enough to prevent its depopulation, which in turn has made it just about the worst housing market in metropolitan America. In the 2022-23 period, it was the third largest loser in percentage terms of residents among core metropolitan cities, and from 2020 it has been the biggest loser of those, in raw numbers nearly 26,000 residents or 7 percent. In the past ten years it has been 3.3 percent, and since 1950 nearly by half.

This has been reflected in a lousy housing market. Of the 100 largest metropolitan areas, it ranks from 2012 96^th in price appreciation, because of soft demand. Meanwhile, at 7.4 months on average on the market it has the 11^th highest housing supply and its mortgage default rate is 30^th highest at 13 percent. If it were just New Orleans and not also including six surrounding parishes the figures likely would be worse.

Graffiti is, brings out overwrought reactions

Let’s shed an ocean of tears for the special snowflakes running the day-to-day affairs of Louisiana Democrats, seemingly sent into paroxysms of terror by a single word appearing on their headquarters’ easement that, in fact in another context, contains commentary rather than threat.

Recently in Baton Rouge on the city easement leading from the street to the back parking lot of the state party headquarters appeared, within 48 hours of the assassination of conservative political commentator Charlie Kirk, a spray-painted scrawled “MURDERERS.” Possibly somebody aggrieved with Kirk’s murders may have done this, motivated by connecting the relentless drumbeat for years of Democrats and leftists calling Republicans and conservatives vile names and casting highly negative aspersions about their motives over policy disagreements, or perhaps because tens of thousands of leftists on social and other media had gloated over the event, or both (although one social media commenter raised the possibility that this was a self-inflicted feint, perhaps designed to draw attention away from leftist culpability for Kirk’s killing and to generate sympathy for the left, at least in Louisiana).

Regardless of motivations for the graffiti, the state party administrators decided it only could mean open season on party operatives. It filed a police report and announced staffers would work outside of the headquarters for a while and that they would take measures to see that they were “safe.”

Ellis again wins sparring with Monroe Council

Last week’s meeting of the Monroe City Council provided yet another chance for its majority to butt heads with independent Mayor Friday Ellis, over both old and new issues, with the power of the mayor’s office triumphing again.

Some closure finally came to the city’s disciplining of former interim police chief Reggie Brown. He had been appointed temporary top cop by Democrat former Mayor Jamie Mayo a few months before delayed 2020 elections and immediately courted controversy when he denied to multiple requestors public records requests that in the past had been fulfilled and was backed in this by the Mayo Administration, with Mayo seemingly intent on having Brown take the job permanently.

Then, a few days prior to elections, a police brutality incident that later would send the officer involved to prison Brown initially refused to refer to the Louisiana State Police despite the city attorney recommending that, and did so only the Monday after the election where Ellis defeated Mayo. Ellis and others believed the delay not only was poor administration but also political favoritism for Mayo. After Brown failed a polygraph exam (later disputed by one legal expert) on whether he had allowed politics to interfere with his decision – because revealing a police brutality incident could make negative news for Mayo right before the election – and denied in subsequent official forums he ran any interference, Ellis’ new chief Vic Zordan fired him for that breach.

Policy must discourage leftism assassination chic

Conservative political commentator Charlie Kirk was assassinated last week, the surface evidence suggesting it was for political reasons linked to leftist ideology that so far other evidence is confirming. Is it now open season on those of us with something of an audience for conservative political commentary, and what can we do about preventing that in Louisiana?

Understand firstly that this event broadens the shooting gallery. Trying to kill politicians is nothing new, or seemingly out of vogue, because they personalize political conflict and are seen in the warped minds of their attempted assassins as dangerous change agents. Stop them, and the threat is reduced, whether it be because Louisiana Republican Rep. Steve Scalise is one of the most powerful conservative politicians in the country leading a partisan faction, or because Minnesota Democrat state Rep. Melissa Hortman was viewed as an impediment as part of a scheme to advance a faction of her party to greater heights, as dreamed up in a demented fantasy by an appointee of Minnesota Democrat Gov. Tim Walz (and to bring it back to Louisiana, the reason why 90 years ago this past week Democrat Sen. Huey Long was assassinated, shot by a relative of a victim of Long’s intraparty machinations).

But Kirk was killed, it is becoming increasingly obvious, simply because he was successfully disseminating conservatism to the masses, particularly on college campuses. It drives home two particularly and complementary ugly points.

Progressivism pushing Shreveport crime higher

Maybe Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson is on to something when he muses about Shreveport’s high crime rate.

Last week, GOP Pres. Donald Trump broached the idea of sending the National Guard into high-crime cities. It’s more complex than it sounds to pull that off, principally in that Democrat-run big cities with crime problems often are in Democrat-monopoly states, whose governors can mostly neuter the attempt, but it aggravated them to no end to hear that option, especially on the heels of Trump doing this with Washington, DC which immediately saw a significant reduction in violent crime.

Now, Trump and Johnson are floating the idea of a national crime bill, and one critique Democrats had was Johnson didn’t have credibility on the issue because of Shreveport’s crime numbers in his district. Johnson replied this was because a “progressive prosecutor” – namely Democrat District Attorney James Stewart – was gumming up the works. This kind of district attorney charges fewer and downgrades more cases, on the assumption that the criminal justice system is too punitive in a manner that discriminates against lower-income individuals, often non-whites – a recipe for higher crime, opponents of the idea say, with weakened deterrence, while advocates claim it’s a better use of resources.

LA moves to increase confidence in elections

Thanks to the Republican Pres. Doanld Trump Administration, Louisiana can have elections that inspire a little more confidence that the fundamental condition of representative democracy, fair elections, can be achieved.

Recently, the state gained access to the Systemic Alien Verification for Entitlements database, kept by the federal government to vet applicants for eligibility (citizenship or permanent residence) for transfer payments. Taking that data and cross-matching it with voter registration rolls for the past few years, GOP Sec. of State Nancy Landry’s office determined that 390 noncitizens (permanent residents are ineligible) illegally appeared on voter rolls, of which 79 actually had voted in at least one election.

The state hadn’t pursued this layup to improve election integrity because until Trump’s reelection strangely the federal government charged $1.75 a name – meaning to plug in each registered name would have cost the state around $3.5 million a shot – for information federal agencies had to collect by law anyway and which would cost nothing to search. The outcome is disturbing, because (except for the provisional ballot process) Louisiana has pretty airtight procedures for registration and vote casting, so likely illegal documentation (or sloppiness at a registrar’s office) caused this problem.

Simple story of new LA GOP senator most credible

It doesn’t work well to hyperventilate about the intriguing 2026 Louisiana Senate race when Occam’s Razor will do.

Concerning the upcoming contest, a piece at Townhall.com by a Paul Hidalgo, whose brief biographical line lists as his only source of expertise on the subject matter is he’s a resident of Marrero. Twists itself into knots. Townhall as an open-door policy to contributors, and while some are good (Louisianan Jeff Crouere, longtime conservative activist and radio show host whose day job flummoxed the state’s largest newspaper the Baton Rouge Advocate, reprints his weekly column there), this one leaves the reader more confused than prior to laying eyes on it.

At its core, Hidalgo seems to think there’s a realistic chance that Louisiana could give away a GOP seat in the Senate. This is because, he writes, incumbent Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy is polling so miserably for an incumbent he would end up losing against a Democrat, with Hidalgo specifically mentioning Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards as the foil.

Some LA cities could use Nat'l Guard deployment

Deploying the National Guard to perform law enforcement functions in Louisiana is easier than you think. It’s just whether the benefits gained aren’t derailed by the politics and policy involved.

Republican Pres. Donald Trump ordered Guard deployment in Washington, DC to enforce the law. It has been an unqualified success, with significant drops in crime commission basically across the board. As a result, Trump has talked of deployment elsewhere, including Louisiana.

However, that’s a different situation. DC has a special constitutional status, run by the federal government, while states have limited sovereignty including in the area of law enforcement. Essentially, a state has to invite the Guard to mobilize or else it can do little in the way of law enforcement, essentially left with protecting federal property.

Caddo School Democrats flex muscles with rerun

Haven’t we seen this game of Caddo Parish School Board Clue before: the Democrats did it in District 8 with Jeri Bowen?

Recently, this space mused whether the Board’s six Democrats would duplicate what they did in 2020 when a Republican member of the Board resigned to give Democrats a temporary one vote majority, which was then used to appoint a Democrat in the solidly Republican District 8 – 49 percent GOP registration then, 57 percent now – which hadn’t elected a Democrat (who later would switch to the GOP) in 30 years. The situation replicated when Republican Christine Tharpe resigned her seat as she moved out of the district.

At the special meeting this week, the Board considered three volunteers to serve until an election next spring. The only Republican was Cheyenna Newman, who hadn’t lived in the district long and hadn’t involved herself much in local education but who said her background in legal issues would commend her service to the Board. But, she mentioned an interest in promoting social emotional learning – a thinly-evidenced, faddish approach to learning reeking of wokeness expressly repudiated by the state’s board of education the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education that would make any conservative Republican blanche at supporting her. As it turned out, none did, although being in the minority it wouldn’t have made any difference.

Campbell PSC dynasty try off to amateurish start

If Democrat Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell wants to see dynastic rule of his position, his son Nick is going to have to do a lot better job, if not hope for a sea change in voter attitudes.

 Foster Campbell at the end of next year will end a half-century career in political office, the last 18 on the PSC. Although term-limited, it had become clear in his last 2020 election that voter patience with his cornfield leftist populism was coming to its end. In that election he faced longtime Ouachita Parish Police Juror Republican Shane Smiley, who spent around $10,000 or more than $700,000 fewer than Campbell, yet Campbell won only 53 percent of the vote. As he has in three elections since 2014, Campbell lost his home parish of Bossier.

For 2026, attention mainly has focused on the candidacies of Caddo Parish Commissioner John Atkins and state Rep. Larry Bagley, both Republicans at the western end of the district. But apparently testing the waters is Democrat Nick Campbell, Foster’s son and until recently colleague in his insurance agency, presently working for Democrat Rep. Cleo Fields. It’s not his first foray into the political world; he has been a party activist for a number of years and served as a delegate at the party’s national convention last year.

New national, LA SNAP policies to help poor

This month kicks off momentous and welcome changes in Louisiana’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, with an assist from Republican-led federal government changes, to the benefit of taxpayers and SNAP clients.

Much pearl-clutching and hand-wringing has occurred over the programmatic changes of the federal-state effort, as a result of budget reconciliation legislation passed earlier this summer. Endlessly and erroneously referred to by the political left and media as “cuts,” in reality the changes – better restricting eligibility to citizens and lawful permanent residents, expanding the pool of individuals who must meet community engagement requirements, eventually penalizing states that pay insufficient attention to their inappropriate payment rates, and eventually shifting more of the administrative costs to states – promise a reduction of overall spending on it of up to 20 percent through fewer ineligible recipients and more efficient administration.

SNAP is generous, nationally adding $6.20 per person per day or a large portion of daily food expenses for a person willing to shop intelligently and to prepare food at home without overeating or excessive snacking. This is in addition to the myriad of other welfare programs for which someone may qualify under the same criteria.

Senate race varies big by whichever female runs

It’s now certain that a prominent female politician will enter Louisiana’s Senate contest held next year. But which one makes a big difference.

For months, rumors have circulated that Republican Rep. Julia Letlow will join the fray. She apparently has been courted by GOP Gov. Jeff Landry, who doesn’t seem jacked with the current field. Incumbent Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy likely signed his own political death warrant when he gambled on GOP Pres. Donald Trump losing massive influence among Republicans and voted for Trump’s impeachment and conviction on spurious charges, a mistake in Louisiana especially when Landry, who has political ties to Trump and his family, assumed the governorship three years later.

But neither does Landry seem to like as alternatives Republicans Treas. John Fleming and state Sen. Blake Miguez, who have feuded with Landry on some issues. For whatever reason, the entrance of GOP Public Service Commissioner Eric Skrmetta after them hasn’t discouraged Landry from encouraging Letlow to run.

Monroe needs to review privatized trash pickup

Not only are Monrovians’ taxes not going up, but also maybe a critical city service will become cheaper and even improve in delivery.

Last week, the Monroe City Council passed into ordinance 2025 property tax rates, holding these steady at last year’s levels. This came after the Council’s majority Democrats for the past month had talked up a tax increase of 1.81 mills to provide more dollars for unspecified spending they claimed necessary.

But at the meeting where the agenda had called for a public meeting to raise rates, instead that essentially was waved off when a promised amendment was entertained and passed unanimously keeping the 2024 rates. For whatever reason, the Democrats walked back from the tax hike.

Katrina +20: No NO silver lining to offset it

The silver lining from the Hurricane Katrina disaster was that its major victim, New Orleans, eventually would come out of it a better place to live. We now know in fact that hope has faded away.

I was more optimistic in my review five years ago, where I concluded things were better both at the state and local, New Orleans, level despite a disaster that cost around 1,400 lives and, in inflation-adjusted terms two decades later, over $200 billion to sort out. In New Orleans, I noted how there had been positive change in terms of education and flood protection that came from overcoming political hurdles the dismantling of which became possible because of the widespread devastation that made revolutionary reforms possible.

The hope was the momentum would continue, for several reasons. With traditional populist-based political networks disrupted, perhaps candidates and organizations focused more on getting stuff done than dividing spoils among supporters would strengthen. Perhaps attitudes would shift to place greater emphasis on industriousness to benefit private sector activities that would include less government intrusiveness that catered to special interests and ideology. Corrupt activities would diminish and more attention would be given to sore spots such as crime fighting.

Cassidy digging deeper hole on vaccine policy

Chalk up a W for Republican Rep. Clay Higgins and an L for GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, resulting from Food and Drug Administration decisions on Wuhan coronavirus vaccines.

This week, the FDA, under the Department of Health and Human Services, ended blanket emergency use authorizations for these vaccines, reducing availability from 6 months on up in age to those individuals who had a co-morbidity risk. The process starts with an assessment by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, at panel with eight members at present, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, another HHS component.

That panel made news recently when HHS Sec. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. dismissed all members because he felt it had a slavish mentality towards acceptance of widespread and indiscriminate vaccination recommendations. Kennedy prior to his assuming the top position at HHS made his name as a critic of indiscriminate vaccinations, questioning whether the benefits outweighed the harm to individuals although sometimes these featured claims with thin scientific evidence behind them.

LA gives roadmap to negate current VRA assumption

Louisiana has given a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court what it wants, argumentation to cancel one of the greatest con jobs in legal history.

Today, the state turned in its brief in Louisiana v. Callais as requested by the Court. Heard last spring, the Court took the unusual step of delaying any decision on the case that has invalidated the state’s congressional map, pending the addressing (scheduled for Oct. 15) of the question whether Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act conflicts with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The state had complained there was conflict, claiming it had to follow the Allen v. Milligan precedent that said states had to follow jurisprudence from Thornburg v. Gingles on down, which fleshed out Section 2. That line led to the assumption that if a minority group in a jurisdiction met certain criteria (the “Gingles Preconditions”), no matter whether there was any discriminatory intent it was assumed that any reapportionment plan, regardless of how well it adhered to traditional principles of reapportionment (such as keeping communities of interest together, contiguity, reasonable compactness, etc.), if there wasn’t some kind of rough equivalence of the proportionality of majority-minority districts among all to the proportionality of the minority race in the constituency then this constituted “vote dilution” that by definition was discriminatory, justifying the use of race as the preferred criterion in drawing a map.

Order may bring end to Orleans cashless bail

New Orleans is in the crosshairs again of the Republican Pres. Donald Trump Administration with his executive order designed to determine which state and local jurisdictions use cashless bail regimes and then find means to withhold federal dollars from recalcitrant ones.

Orleans Parish will make that list because of an initiative begun several years ago. New Orleans eliminated bail for anything but more serious crimes, and Orleans Parish courts further circumscribed its use partly by choice and partly because of law suits. Worse, the “progressive” prosecutions sought by Democrat District Atty. Jason Williams have caused a voluntary disarming of sorts by his office on even major crimes asking for reduced bail amounts, if not outright dismissal of felony charges.

Naturally advocates of more lenient measures to ensure court appearances have gotten into an uproar over this, although whether the order will make a significant difference remains to be seen. Much will depend upon the degree to which jurisdictions actually practice cashless (or very reduced) bail policy as well as the potential leverage with what federal monies could be withheld. For example, New Orleans would have about 5 percent of its revenues at risk should Trump be able to cordon off federal funds (that $47 million does also include state money, so this would be even less), an amount if forgone which may or may not convince its elected officials to abandon the experiment.

Monroe Council Democrats seek veto-proof majority

Monroe City Council majority Democrats are determined to overcome the agenda of independent Mayor Friday Ellis with their own and by increasing taxes to do so, the Aug. 12 Council meeting demonstrated.

At it, the three Democrats, who are black, passed a resolution authorizing study of district boundaries with an eye towards mid-cycle reapportionment, which municipalities nationwide rarely do and is unprecedented in Louisiana. Those councilors spoke of potential demographic changes since the 2020 census, even though only those data legally may be used for reapportionment purposes, as well as alleged citizen dissatisfaction over the 2022 exercise hammered out by the previous Council that since then gained two new members.

By the census, Monroe has a 65 percent black population with its councilor districts having black proportions in percentage points of 14.63, 45.41, 86.35, 80.32, and 95.62 percent. In fact, District 2 has a white proportion of only 45.17, meaning Monroe has three majority-minority and one opportunity, or black plurality, district out of five, which suggests a 70 percent or more black population. And given Monroe’s population concentrations and somewhat sinuous borders, with tentacles shooting north and south, it seems difficult to draw a map that could pump up much District 2’s black population proportion.

Caddo Democrat Board majority may play for keeps

So, how many times do residents of southeast Shreveport who have sent Republicans to seats on the Caddo Parish Commission and Caddo Parish School Board for the past three-plus decades have to put up with Democrats imposing somebody not a Republican on them as their representative for months at a time? As long as it takes for Democrats to gerrymander their way to a majority in parish-wide governments, it would seem.

That may be three times pulling the same trick, pending a decision early next month about the District 8 School Board vacancy declared when Republican Christine Tharpe had to resign upon moving out of the district. Too late to have the matter placed on the fall ballot, the new elected member to serve out the remainder of her term at the end of 2026 will be held in the spring.

Tharpe’s resignation gives Democrats another chance, which history shows they will take, to give themselves at least a 7-5 majority for a few months, and crucially during consideration of the budget. And maybe in that stretch they could take a lesson from the Commission and rig things permanently their way.

Good week for LA, not so for CAGW acolytes

A bad week for catastrophic anthropogenic global warming enthusiasts nationally was even worse for their Louisiana counterparts.

Since their taking of offices, Republican Pres. Donald Trump and the Republican-led Congress have turned off the firehose of tax dollars going to the renewable power industry. Additionally, greater administrative scrutiny and more precise application of existing environmental and conservation law have held the permitting and startup of solar and wind to a higher standard, if not outright banning their presences in federal offshore waters, with the latest announcement this week that eligibility for financial aid would become further curtailed.

This mean Louisiana may have no wind projects going on for years to come. None were active before Trump announced a permit moratorium earlier this year, and now that subsidies have been yanked and the permit process presented with an end date even the contemplated one at Port Fourchon looks like it never will get off the ground (pun intended).

Story takes shot at Fleming stalking horse

Readers of the Baton Rouge Advocate/New Orleans Times-Picayune received an excellent reminder of how the media try to promulgate their political agendas with a story about one of the state’s leading talk show hosts as a stalking horse.

Written by veteran political reporter Tyler Bridges, it examines Jeff Crouere’s multifaceted professional career, which at present includes radio station owner and manager, talk show host, online columnist both in print and video, political consultant, entertainment master of ceremonies, and communications director for Republican state Treasurer John Fleming. In the past, he also worked as a GOP functionary and political organizer. (As a side note, we attended Vanderbilt University at the same time and I’ve known him since his return to the New Orleans area upon our graduations, having over the years on a few occasions appeared on his radio show.)

As part of his political communications, he has been stumping for his boss’ run for U.S. Senate against incumbent Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy. Crouere, like Fleming, was on the GOP Pres. Donald Trump bandwagon well before most Republicans and never has been shy about enunciating his support of Trump. Nor has he in recent years been shy about criticizing Cassidy who famously tried to convict Trump of bogus crimes.

Opaqueness keeps Bossier Jury from getting busted

As Maj. Reisman in The Dirty Dozen told prisoner Wladyslaw, in the stockade for shooting a deserter, “you only made one mistake, huh … You let somebody see you do it.” That’s why the Caddo Parish Commission majority Democrats are in trouble, and why the Bossier Parish Police Jury continues to skate, largely by its own design of secrecy.

This week, Republican Atty. Gen. Liz Murrell lowered the boon on the seven commissioners, charging them with violating open meetings law. The precipitant event was during a visit to the area by socialist provocateur independent Sen. Bernie Sanders presenting him with a laudatory proclamation not voted upon by the entire Commission in an open meeting. Republican Commissioner Chris Kracman caught this and publicized the matter, lodging the complaint (which led to retaliation against him).

It gets worse. Even after Kracman publicized it, the suit contends the majority did something similar twice more. The eventual penalty is more embarrassing than punitive, with the suit asking for what would be minor civil penalties, court costs, and acknowledgment of future compliance.

New vignette begs end to elected police chiefs

 As if Louisiana policy-makers needed any more reminders of why every municipality should be rid of elected police chiefs, there is this story.

Last year, independent Michelle Lafont narrowly defeated incumbent no party Troy Dufrene for police chief of Golden Meadow. Dufrene had been appointed to a vacancy in 2020 and won the office later that year. He had served as a Lafourche Parish School Board member while employed with the Greater Lafourche Harbor Police for nearly three decades, where, interestingly, Lafont’s husband worked during that span.

Lafont had decided to run in the constituency of over 1,100 voters when she saw social media critical of Dufrene’s accountability launched by Republican Mayor Joey Bouziga, now in his seventh-plus term. This led to a confrontation between Dufrene and Lafont when he heard she was running to replace him, with him as the aggressor.

Monroe Council majority outs its obstructionism

The cold war to date that has evolved between Monroe’s City Council majority Democrats and independent Mayor Friday Ellis erupted to hot – and at taxpayer expense – as the majority councilors admitted to their intentions, but just in time for their bargaining position erode over the issue of a new fire chief.

Twice Ellis has nominated experienced individuals to the post, and twice the majority has turned him down for changing reasons that on the surface seem more like excuses rather than serious objections. Multiple attempts by Ellis asking for Council majority input on the matter were ignored almost entirely. But then Ellis made an end run by encouraging what would become statute giving Republican Gov. Jeff Landry the power to appoint the chief.

That touched off a special Council meeting earlier this month with the issue revisited at the last regular meeting. At both, the Council majority – Democrats Rodney McFarland, Verbon Muhammad, and Juanita Woods – initiated a long shot law suit to overturn legally the statute, Worse, that measure allowed the Council to bypass city counsel and hire legal help from the outside, guaranteeing extra needless expenses imposed on taxpayers because it is constitutionally correct for the state to override portions of charters it grants local governments and it was done in a procedurally correct manner.

GOP-led Bossier Jury endorses dumb leftist issue

The yokels who populate the Bossier Parish Police Jury got sucked in, and maybe more of Louisiana’s local government will follow their lead in endorsing a deal that’s good for politicians but bad for taxpayers.

Last week, the Jury resolved, unanimously with one juror absent, to urge creation of a national infrastructure bank by Congress. The idea can trace its roots to the controversial Bank of the United States nearly two centuries ago, and the idea has kicked around Congress in earnest since the start of the century.

This institution, following recent legislation and as pitched by its leading interest group backer, would be a creation of Congress with directors appointed by it and $5 trillion to lend. Its capital would involve swapping $500 billion in Treasury debt with the private sector for equity in the bank, the proceeds from then would be loaned to state and local governments at low interest rates. Interest payments would pay off the equity dividends and create a reserve for bad loans, plus administrative expenses. The principal would be loaned again and again.

Taxpayers, ratepayers save with solar program end

Denying Louisiana grifters of $156 million in federal taxpayer funds wasted on cost-ineffective energy tactics leaves everybody else in the state better off.

The Environmental Protection Agency, as part of its continuing reorientation away from politicized decisions about the environment, under Republican Pres. Donald Trump recently halted a federal spending program known as Solar for All. The move came when the recently passed budget reconciliation bill yanked its $7 billion authorization.

Louisiana, with its version known as “Solar for Y’all, had its $156 million allotment cancelled. The program was to provide solar energy panels and batteries for lower-income households and an opportunity for renters in multi-unit residential complexes to subscribe to a share of a solar farm. In both instances a net metering regime would be established that would allow a credit on power bills for the solar power fed back into the grid. The Democrat Pres. Joe Biden-era program alleged that participants would save 20 percent on their bills and increase the resiliency of the grid by having in the wings a power source for the grid when outages occurred. It was part of a larger program costing $27 billion supposed to reduce carbon emissions.

Some district teaching results strain credulity

Stupid kids or adult gamesmanship? Only one of these two explanations can answer why Bossier Parish students score decently but not all that well on normed exams while nearly three-quarters of their teachers score highest on state evaluations -- with a similar relationship observed in other parish and community school systems in Louisiana as well.

Recently, the Louisiana Department of Education released the latest evaluation scores by local education agency of their teachers, following up last month’s release of LEAP 2025 scores. LEAP test passage is required for advancement and ultimately graduation of students. Earlier this year, the ACT organization made public statewide results of its exam and the College Board released Advanced Placement test numbers; these are tests taken by high school students for admission and college credit purposes.

Within the state, Bossier Parish students performed above average, often just in or close to the top ten districts on the various LEAP measurements for 4^th, 8^th, and 12^th grade, as well as on the ACT and various AP exams. While LEAP exams are specific to the state, the others are national and when stacking up Bossier students with their national peers, they underperformed by the numbers. (The National Assessment of Education Progress test for 4^th and 8^th grades is national in scope, but NAEP doesn’t publicly have figures broken down by LEA although by state which shows that Louisiana, while improving recently to some of its best results ever, still ranks below average overall).

Aced Monroe councilors plan tantrum with tax bucks

Monroe independent Mayor Friday Ellis showed the Democrat majority on the City Council there was more than one way to skin a cat, and its members are not amused to the point they’ll waste taxpayer dollars to vent their frustration.

For months the two majoritarian branches of city government have been locked in a stalemate over appointment of a fire chief. Ellis has sent up one in-house nominee popular with the rank-and-file, only to have the Democrats reject him as nit scoring highly enough on the civil service exam. Then Ellis forwarded the highest scorer, who the Democrats then rejected as only having been a chief in a smaller department.

So, Republican state Sen. Stewart Cathey stepped into the frame, with Ellis’ blessing. He sponsored SB 220, now Act 452, this past legislative session that adjusted local government powers relative to operating their business enterprises. At the session neared it end, having sailed to passage with only one vote against (oddly, the House speaker’s on initial passage), he signaled rejection of the slightly-altered Senate version and the bill went to conference.

Chandler's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Bad 10 Days

New Bossier City Council, same dynamic as the old: spirited dialogue between councilors and speakers. But in this version, instead of now-departed councilors berating inquiring citizens, it’s embattled Republican Mayor Tommy Chandler and members of his administration suffering political defeats and fending off inquiring councilor minds that could lead to much worse for him and some staffers.

The first days of August have not been kind to Chandler and his subalterns. The day prior to month’s beginning the Council altered, over his objections, a new fee schedule for sanitation that will negate collection of several hundreds of thousands of dollars this year and every year to come. Then, without prior warning to the Council his administration called a public hearing for a property tax increase of about a million bucks a year that within a couple of days every single councilor publicly opposed, making the scheduled Sep. 9 meeting futile.

Days later, SOBO.live’s Wes Merriott published evidence that Chandler, his Chief Administrative Officer Amanda Nottingham, Public Information Officer Louis Johnson, and the city’s Assistant City Attorney Richard Ray were illegally operating city-owned vehicles – Chandler, Nottingham, and Johnson because their vehicles were unmarked as city vehicles and Ray because, although his was marked, he is a part-time employee without authorization to use such a vehicle. Under R.S. 49:121 every vehicle owned by the state or any political subdivision, including cities, is required to display the name of the public body to which it belongs except in instances used for undercover law enforcement.

Caddo stuck on stupid by subsidizing pickleball

It only took Bossier City government over 30 years to wise up, yet despite that example Caddo Parish is about to launch itself further into stupidity when it comes to supposed economic development.

Over the past few years, the Caddo Parish Commission slowly but surely has been careening farther off the rails. If it’s not general inanity such as commissioners exhibiting Trump Derangement Syndrome or attempts to violate the Constitution, it’s flailing about with useless symbolic gestures opposing everything under the sun out of its jurisdiction but crossways to the majority Democrats’ sensibilities or advancing wasteful spending based on economic ignorance. And, of course, there is flouting of open meetings law that may bring civil penalties. But now it’s entertaining graduate studies in economic development asininities.

The tipping point seems to have come with an alleged agreement between the parish and a truck stop in an economic development district narrowly defined to include only it at present for a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes for improvements made by the business that the parish apparently got snookered on. Unwilling to wait out an apparently extremely long payback period, the parish then authorized this spring a special sales tax increase at the location even as the business was subject to a raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the fallout of both leading the enterprise to sue Republican Commissioner Chris Kracman – who blew the whistle on the open meetings violation – for negative comments he made about the business and the raid (and who the parish refuses to defend; payback, anyone?).

LA needs trigger law to reckon with inevitability

Louisiana needs to have better preparation for the inescapable future when Medicaid spending meets reality.

With Democrats far out of the mainstream on the issue, with them and their media allies still spreading the falsehood that there are “cuts” to the program over the next few years (when, in fact, the recent budget reconciliation increases spending over the next several years), the state still should prepare itself for reduced federal allocations. The active authorizations moving forward over the next several years assure the state will continue to receive the same federal funding in proportion to the portion of individuals eligible to receive services.

However, if the state is cross-subsidizing Medicaid recipients, that will be inconvenient. That means that the state takes advantage of the cynical and purely political apportionment designed by Democrats when rammed into law of federal Medicaid assistance: the far healthier expansion population has the state paying for only 10 percent of the costs – over $400 million annually at last count in Louisiana – while for the far less healthy adult population receives (varying slightly from year to year) the state must pay around 25 to 35 percent (this year about 32), an arrangement that beggars the less-healthy and provides no better care for all than if they were uninsured. If the latest budgetary changes result in fewer people qualifying for Medicaid – because they were (about a third) ineligible in the first place or they are unmotivated enough to try to qualify – those excess federal dollars from this population can’t be shuttled over to the needier population.

Report confirms renewable power blackout cause

A report last month confirmed much of the blame for the Caddo and Bossier Parish blackouts of Apr. 26 rested with the pell-mell rush of power providers into use of less-reliable renewable sources of energy.

Urged by the Public Service Commission, this document by American Electric Power-Southwestern Electric Power Company (AEP the parent of SWEPCO) and the regional transmission organization to which it belongs the Southwest Power Pool detailed why tens of thousands of structures were left without power for several hours. It claimed essentially that a degraded environment for power provision suffered bad luck that could be mitigated to some degree in the future with changes to more conservative procedures until that environment improves.

The environment, it explained, was degraded for two reasons: insufficient transmission capacity and local generative capacity. What it didn’t explain was the more general transition away from fossil fuels by utilities towards especially wind and solar sources, and particularly by SWEPCO, were the root causes of less capacity and therefore greater need for transmission lines into the service area.

Decision signal to impact LA govts at all levels

The U.S. Supreme Court gave its strongest indication yet that it would rework, if not abandon, reapportionment jurisprudence that increasingly has pushed creating maps where the proportion of representatives mirrors the proportion of racial minorities in the population – based on a Louisiana case that also would affect Louisiana cases at other levels of government.

The first shoe dropped when in late June the Court issued a statement it would rehear Louisiana v. Callais, an appeal to a ruling that the state’s congressional districts had been drawn impermissibly on the basis of race and the only case it heard all year on mandatory appeal, this fall. Assoc. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, saying the facts were clear and that the Court shouldn’t avoid addressing conflict between current Voting Rights Act judicial interpretations and the Constitution about to what extent race could be used as a criterion in apportionment.

Thomas got his wish when the other shoe dropped last week. The Court scheduled submission of briefs essentially asking that question. Further, it did it on a timeline that portends the hearing with that additional question at the start of its term, which could set things up for an early decision in time to govern the 2026 election cycle for the state.

BC must reject graybeard legacy of higher taxes

Just like herpes, the mismanagement of Bossier City by several former city councilors and mayors over the past three decades flares yet again to inflict pain on its citizenry, this time with the specter of higher property taxes.

In last year’s budget workshop, Chief Administrative Officer Amanda Nottingham noted that the city had to make two major revenue upcharges to keep the budget balanced. The first shoe to fall was fee hikes on sanitation and related activities that started early this year, but which also included excising a break multiple occupancy owners were getting by not charging them by the occupied residence (typically, apartment complexes have just one or a handful of meters where renters pay a fixed water rate in their rent and the complex does its own sanitation) the public works fee that covered roads upkeep and pest/animal control on public thoroughfares.

That controversy flared up earlier this summer when many of the few apartment complex owners, apparently inattentive to their own businesses, found their bills skyrocketing and complained to the city. After some negotiation, this week the Council  adjusted the enabling ordinance by charging for 80 percent of residences (assuming a fifth at any given time were unoccupied) and suspending its implementation until next year in order to give owners a chance to adjust rental contracts and rates.

Best constitutional outcome delays new LA map

It’s best that Louisiana hold off on a congressional reapportionment special session, even with a powerful argument to proceed with one posthaste.

As signals mount from the U.S. Supreme Court that it plans to decouple race from partisanship in deciding the role race plays as a factor in reapportionment except in instances where a jurisdiction deliberately intends to discriminate against a community defined by a form of racial solidarity, calls have come from the White House on down that Republican-led states should proactively begin the reapportionment process, years ahead of the next census results that would necessitate this. Driving this desire is an expected close House of Representative election next year that could go either way. In fact, the coming election has threatened to trigger a line-drawing arms race where several states controlled by one of the major parties have vowed, or even started to, redraw their maps in the hopes of seizing partisan advantage without race playing such a prominent role as the judiciary has assigned it since the operative Alabama cases opened the door to having states draw boundaries in rough proportion their racial compositions.

Which the Voting Rights Act specifically denies without a showing of deliberate discrimination intent and is why the Court seems on the verge of saying any rationale for giving race such prominence needs review in the light of changing times, deemphasizing that outcome necessarily must mirror intent. Section 2 by word prohibits specific mirroring of the proportion of district majorities to population proportions but by judicial interpretation has erred on the sides of results bearing a large role in determining intent. That seems set to change with a Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais to be decided next year that likely will redefine case law addressing Section 2 away from this thinking or excising it completely on the basis that societal conditions have made the results-equal-intent view timebound and no longer applicable.

Elected police chiefs increase corruption chances

As noted yesterday, one good reason not to have elected police chiefs in Louisiana is increased chances of reduced administrative competence complemented by greater confusion when parceling out public safety from other executive functions. But there’s a far more insidious and damaging reason for rejection of that selection method: reduced oversight that makes the office more prone to corruption.

There’s nothing new here; scandals among elected Louisiana police chiefs have occurred all too frequently, unfortunately. Yet recently an alleged wide-ranging scheme only emphasizes the point.

Earlier this month, acting Western Louisiana District Attorney Alexander Van Hook along with other federal criminal investigators announced grand jury indictments against three present and past police chiefs and one marshal (an office itself prone to corruption) and a businessman for a criminal enterprise involving fake crime incident reports over a decade that claimed nonexistent crimes committed against noncitizens as a method to illegally grant these noncitizens legal status in the country. The businessman would solicit money from the aliens to pose as crime victims or witnesses to qualify for the visas designed to aid authorities in criminal investigations.

Elected police chiefs stoke governing confusion

There are two good reasons to get rid of elected police chiefs in Louisiana, one of these being just the confusion in city administration that occurs which can allow interpersonal conflicts to flourish that, in at least once instance, prompted the law to be disregarded in multiple ways.

The drama unfolding in Minden stands as prime example. Through a quirk in statute that allows a marshal to serve as a municipality’s police chief and be elected, it’s one of the largest cities in the state with an elected police chief, a selection method which separates from an otherwise unified administrative structure perhaps the most important function of a city. Likely that’s why the interrelations between no party Police Chief Jared McIver, two officers, no party Mayor Nick Cox, and the City Council produced a bizarre sequence of events that still are far from resolved.

Early this year, veteran Minden Police Department officer Chris Hammontree made an arrest connected to what is described as a “well-known” Minden resident. In February, he also made a stop of a couple passing through town that eventually involved his opening a stuffed animal that carried a container which he opened, holding the ashes of the woman’s child. A dispute has arisen as to whether he had sufficient probable cause to do so.

LPSC must follow through on good data center deal

Louisianans racked up a big win as parameters of the impending Meta, Inc. data center in Richland Parish put the effort on course for delivering maximal economic benefits with minimal consumer costs.

A number of special interests tried to prevent that. Some were anti-fossil fuel/pro-catastrophic anthropogenic global warming believers who primarily oppose the effort because it would encourage significantly more natural gas use and secondarily as they desire guaranteed greater use of more expensive/less reliable renewable sources of energy for the project. Others are aggrieved large-scale consumers who want to create alternative paths for energy acquisition without having to go through Entergy Louisiana, the supplier for the project.

Over the past few months, activity has involved attempts by opponents to delay the expedited approval process, but an administrative law judge sidetracked multiple efforts to do so. This led to a two-day hearing earlier this month that will lead to a recommendation by the judge about the parameters for approval by the Louisiana Public Service Commission, but public aspects of that already have been worked out in a settlement agreement among all parties. The LPSC must give eventual approval because Entergy wants to build and operate three natural gas plants as the bulk of power for Meta’s operations.

Skrmetta entrance increases Cassidy headache

As another likely competitive candidate enters the Republican Party Senate primary, GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy’s chances become dimmer.

This week, Republican Public Service Commissioner Eric Skrmetta joined the fray in challenging Cassidy. The incumbent already faces Republicans Treas. John Fleming and state Sen. Blake Miguez among candidates with the resources to knock him off.

Given Cassidy’s intraparty vulnerability, a third competitive challenger wouldn’t spell out good news for him. Because he placed a wrong bet – he thought GOP Pres. Donald Trump was history after the 2020 loss and, for whatever half-baked reason, decided to hitch his fortunes to Trump’s opponents and to play footsie with Democrats – he essentially divided Louisiana Republicans into three camps: those against him, the modal category; those for him; and those that in the absence of someone they perceive as a quality challenger will stick with him (who likely comprise a big portion of the undecided vote, and some of the Cassidy intended vote).

Disingenuous lies spread on Medicaid reforms

Ignore the panic that the political left tries to foment in Louisiana about changes to Medicaid. Instead, consider how their lies crumble against the reality that the new law will improve program delivery for those who truly need it.

The biggest falsehood to emerge from the left’s talking points is the myth of Medicaid “cuts” (excoriated on the floor of the Senate recently by Republican Sen. John Kennedy). There are absolutely no cuts in Medicaid spending in the reconciliation bill now known as the One Big Beautiful Law. In fact, Medicaid spending is set to increase by an average of three percent annually over the next decade.

Nor will any eligible person lose Medicaid coverage who is a disabled adult or one who has dependents younger than 14. The only change here is that able-bodied adults without all but older dependents will have to meet a community engagement requirement of employment, enrollment in an educational program, or volunteering only 80 hours a month. In fact, most ABAWDs already meet these criteria.

Switch to new accreditor should start now

You don’t need a task force: Republican Gov. Jeff Landry should have simply ordered each university system in Louisiana to prepare for exiting the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges instead of studying the idea of transferring accreditation to the new, depoliticized incipient higher education accreditor the Commission on Public Higher Education, if CPHE is approved.

Last month, six southern states created the CPHE as an alternative to SACSCOC, concerned over the increasingly ideological meddling SACSCOC was enabling as part of the accreditation process. Federal law allows forming such agencies for self-policing of institutions to ensure they provide a legitimate education and have the means to do it, where an institution must be accredited to enjoy federal government largesse such as grants and the ability for students to receive federal government aid.

The effort started in Florida, kicked off when SACSCOC pressured a university system in Georgia and a university in Florida from accepting as candidates for leadership individuals who ideologically appeared at odds with the near-monolithic leftism infused throughout academia. It accelerated when states began to ban diversity, equity, and inclusion schemes as foundational parts of admission, instruction, and employment regimes at institutions. And it came into fruition when Republican Pres. Donald Trump earlier this year issued an executive order to make it easier to transfer among accreditors and to start new ones.