Democrats use playbook on PSC candidate Atkins

Democrats’ national playbook surfaced in the candidate forum between Republican Caddo Parish Commissioner John Atkins and Democrat City Councilor James Green.

They contest the Public Service Commission District 5 seat, which stretches across north Louisiana. Incumbent Democrat Foster Campbell faces the three-term (18 years) limit at year’s end, although he served an additional one after being grandfathered in.

Atkins works in asset management, principally in energy. He has served the three-term limit on the Commission and is due to leave office at the end of 2027. His latest campaign financial disclosure, which doesn’t include anything from regulated utilities since he eschewed publicly donations from them, isn’t hurting with nearly half a million bucks bankrolled through late last month.

NO housing issues exemplify leftist misdiagnoses

The cognitive dissonance, or perhaps strategic planning to sustain its mission, of the political left truly can amaze at times, as continuing housing provision struggles in New Orleans and conflicting government housing policy demonstrate.

Last month, the Louisiana Housing Corporation took another step in reorienting the state’s housing policy away from the failed housing first model to a treatment first paradigm. The former insists on finding or building permanent spaces for the homeless regardless of whether behavioral problems hold back persons from engaging with the world in a way that permits them to use own resources in housing provision, while the latter emphasizes temporary housing for them while they participate in procedures and programs designed to produce positive behavioral change that facilitate their abilities to obtain housing using own resources.

One vocal critic was the nonprofit organization HousingNOLA, which advocates for greater government involvement in encouraging or building “affordable” housing in New Orleans, i.e. housing designed for residence by lower-income individuals. But only days later the Republican Gov. Jeff Landry Administration’s shift in approach found vindication when a report critical of the city’s housing efforts came out, with almost simultaneously the city changing policy of a few years that tried to strongarm developers into building more low-income units.

Huge money advantage boosts Arceneaux chances

If winning the Shreveport mayor’s race were only a matter of money, Republicans would control that office for another four years. As it is, that only may determine which Republican advances to a runoff.

After months of campaigning in 2026, submission of campaign finance reports through Sep. 24 were released yesterday. Incumbent GOP Mayor Tom Arceneaux lapped the field with resources remaining of about a third of a million dollars, after having spent almost that much, although raising only around $78,000 in this period. His donors this year to date comprised a number of long-time party activists (he sat on the City Council four decades ago) as well as a few from the near the city, and his spending reflected a broad spectrum of campaign communications.

Technically, challenger Republican Caddo Parish Commissioner John-Paul Young outraised him by a $100,000, with the bulk of his contributors being from his Highland area neighborhood. But his biggest contributor by far was himself, plunking down $130,000 of his own dough on himself that meant others’ donations were fewer than $50,000 that left him with just over $50,000. He spent disproportionately on electronic media and billboard advertising.

LA needs comprehensive wind power regulation

With recent help from the federal government, Louisiana can ensure wind power advocates don’t take advantage of the state.

A recent article in leftist media lamented how Republican Pres. Donald Trump short-circuited efforts to spread windmills from sea to shining sea. Trump appears to have a visceral dislike of wind power and early in his second term basically brought offshore wind power to a halt by declaring no permits would go to new projects and by discouraging, even in a sense through bribing, existing projects from moving forward.

But states control wind power regulation on land except for that owned by the federal government, and that has steadily marched on. However, Trump did address an unfair advantage that wind power had, federal tax credits, by eliminating with the help of Congress those for projects not started by the middle of this year or if not completed by the end of next year. There was no defensible intellectual reason to give preference to this source of intermittent energy production when none existed specifically for other fossil fuel-based reliable power-generating activities.

Best for Caddo voters to reject ballot requests

Caddo Parish voters will face one boondoggle and a subset additionally will deliberate about a search for relevance in their making decisions next month about two tax propositions.

On the ballot Nov. 3 will appear a measure that authorizes the Caddo Parish Commission to blow $70 million on a sports complex. As previously noted, it’s a bad idea that’s not even totally funded – the issue would be only up to $60 million, with $10 million more to be found elsewhere preferably by donations – which rests on pie-in-the-sky hopes of attracting tournaments (which will have the effect of crowding out less-affluent families from having children participate in sports) in an area with plenty of all of government, nonprofit, and for-profit venues. It would waste a lot of money with little return even on the account of amorphous “quality of life” and doesn’t even guarantee that property taxes won’t rise to find it as it only disallows raising the rate for the first year of issuance.

Shreveport voters will have a crack at another one, an item that on the surface begs to renew. The city’s quasi-independent Downtown Development Authority has 9.04 mills – 1.05 mills higher than the expiring levy, due to a decline in the value of downtown properties in aggregate – ready to ramp up in 2028 for 25 years. That funds the agency that many may think doesn’t cost them anything, as the tax is levied only on commercial properties in the district for administration, operational expenses, acquiring property, project expenses and/or the retirement of bonds or other evidences of indebtedness.