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.
Finally, on Aug. 7 City Council Pres. Republican Chris Smith called a snap meeting for the next day to discuss conclusions, in less than half of the time allotted for such a report being drawn up, of a committee formed to get to the bottom of the parking lot fiasco in the waning months of the previous governing terms. Chandler and City Attorney Charles Jacobs had given public, conflicting statements about how the city ended up using taxpayer dollars to upgrade two parking lots of private businesses with no Council appropriation or authorization that involved an amount apparently necessary to have mandated public Council scrutiny.
GOP Councilor Brian Hammons, who originally had brought the matter into the open, prior to the special meeting convened the committee. At it, he complimented several officials for complete cooperation in the investigation, which drew upon the City Charter’s grant of power to the Council to “make investigations into the affairs of the City and into the conduct of any City department, division, section, office or agency. For this purpose they may subpoena witnesses, administer oaths, take testimony and require the production of evidence.”
However, he pointed out that all of Chandler, Jacobs, and Ray had refused to submit requested information, and what he said the committee had received from all due to the lack of information made it difficult to verify what had happened pertaining to the incident. He recommended, and the subcommittee agreed, that the whole Council should refer the matter to other government investigatory agencies.
Despite that legally the subcommittee didn’t have to take comments, Ray insisted on adding his own two cents. In the course of interrogation, he made several remarkable and disturbing admissions.
For one, he admitted that he, and perhaps the Legal Department as a whole, had violated R.S. 44:36 that mandates that persons in a state agency or subdivision retain official records for at least three years unless it had an exception in law or a different schedule, which the city doesn’t have. Ray claimed he kept e-mail messages only for 30 days. (Regardless whether he used a personal e-mail account as a part-time employee, the records from several months ago should still be retained on some servers somewhere, but may require a court order to access.)
He also claimed he wouldn’t forward documents because they were compelled under a power he alleged the Council didn’t have, requiring oaths against perjury, attestation which didn’t come with documents he did forward. But that’s the whole idea behind a subpoena, to compel factual production of information, including not just testimony but also documentation (duces tecum) that an oath would validate – and there’s nothing in statute that prohibits a state subdivision granted subpoena power through a charter from exercising that, nor does the Charter deprive the Council of that ability.
Yet consider the most breathtaking implication of Ray refusing to release demanded documents or not attaching an affidavit to ones that were, as he and the Legal Department (and presumably Chandler) wouldn’t ascribe to production under the penalty of perjury: the production could include false information or unwillingness to produce factual information. You couldn’t do more to scream publicly that you’re hiding something of great culpability than to say you refused to swear to the truthfulness of what was submitted or even not submitted.
Most of the committee meeting ended up as a bickering between Hammons and Ray, for which both apologized and Smith apologized on behalf of the Council at the following special meeting. (This wasn’t Ray’s first such incident eliciting an apology, which occurred during his controversial tenure advisory the recent Charter Review Commission which drew up a product soundly rejected by voters.) Ray continued tapdancing as fast as he could when faced with criticism by Merriott, who attended the meeting, during the public comment phase by repeating his unsustainable argument about sworn statements but, tellingly, offered no defense against illegal records destruction.
Although there is nothing that compels the Council to deal with the matter in executive session, which it may do so under statute, eventually the Council decided, with Hammons’ negative vote, to revisit the issue at its regular meeting next week after a discussion in executive session because, Ray argued, there may be other legal issues involved – although, as Merriott alluded to in his remarks, this was akin to the fox giving the henhouse legal advice. After the meeting, Merriott said he witnessed, and recorded some of what transpired through it, Ray broaching another angle in talking to a reporter about what he claimed was “privileged” information that he didn’t have to reveal through releasing the e-mail messages. However, the Code of Civil Procedure, which applies to subpoenas in the judicial system, does not list that as a mitigating circumstance not to obey a subpoena.
Hopefully, the Council will authorize at its regular meeting next week bringing in outside investigatory agencies to review the parking lots controversy, completing Chandler’s defeat on that issue. But the Council agenda indicates he’s poised additionally to suffer yet one more defeat at that meeting.
The Council will hear, despite Chandler’s advertising for a public meeting his raise of property tax rates, an ordinance keeping millages at their current levels. If that passes, his miserable 10 days will have grown to two weeks’ worth, with more to come should the Council invite other agencies to investigate an increasingly suspicious pattern of behavior within his administration, possibly involving him.
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