One last mistake greets Wilson on his way out

Apparently on the cusp of his declaring for the Louisiana governor’s race, Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards cabinet member Shawn Wilson received an unwelcome parting gift that only adds to the ammunition against such a foray.

This week, the Department of Transportation and Development that Wilson departed shortly thereafter announced the results of bidding to build a new four-lane Jimmie Davis Bridge over the Red River connecting Shreveport and Bossier City and to retire the old two-lane structure into a linear park. This treatment came as a result of the span’s deteriorating condition and takeover by endangered birds, meaning neither extensive refurbishment of it nor its demolition could occur and requiring a new structure.

The winning bid of two came in a shade under $362 million. But the state estimated a cost of only $223 million, and with the lowest so far in excess of the state’s guess the whole process stops not only to conduct a review of the state’s numbers which may trigger starting the bid process over but also warns that more money likely will have to be corralled for this to come to fruition.

Consent decree support part of leftist gamble

Next week the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear a Louisiana case that could have vast ramifications for how elective judicial districts are drawn, with potentially some unintended consequences for those seeking to change the system in a way that would boost Democrats’ presence on the Louisiana Supreme Court.

Chisom v. State of Louisiana fights the state’s effort to end the consent decree that forces the state to maintain a majority-minority state Supreme Court district. A district court ruled against this last year, maintaining that the state, represented by Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry, didn’t show that the problem of voter discrimination had been solved completely without the decree in effect and the situation – presence of the district creating significant malapportionment – hadn’t changed significantly to jettisoning the decree. (Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards by virtue of his position was party to the request, but he failed to participate in its defense.)

Landry had argued that three decades of having a black jurist serving in that district proved the problem of discrimination solved, in that a change from the previous geographically larger district that elected two members at-large in a majority-majority district with a large number of racial minority residents to splitting it essentially into two single-member districts, as the other five across the state were, had done the trick. Further, he argued the present arrangement sustained severe malapportionment, with a deviation spanning over 50 percent, that dissolving the decree could reduce substantially. But Democrat Pres. Barack Obama-appointed Louisiana Eastern District Judge Susie Morgan found the reason wanting, despite the fact that the SMD district as opposed to its MMD predecessor made it extraordinarily difficult not to have a M/M district, especially with districts not malapportioned.

Bossier officials finally in compliance, for now

At last, after a year both the Bossier Parish Police Jury and Parish Administrator Joe Edward “Butch” Ford got on the right side of the law.

Their legal missteps began early last year when the Jury promoted Ford from parish engineer to administrator, running afoul of the law in the process. State statute requires that the chief appointed officer of a parish also be a registered voter in the parish, and for nearly four decades Ford had been registered at a Caddo Parish address – facts surely inescapable to any juror.

Ford remained illegally employed for about 10 months, until just after this space published Oct. 19 details about the law and records showing Ford remained registered in Caddo when he changed it to a Bossier address on Oct. 21. This, however, created another problem in that state law mandates that a voter had to register at his homestead, if he had one, and Ford continued to declare his homestead at the Caddo address, a fact brought out in this space published Nov. 15. In fact, Ford’s Bossier registration address was at property apparently not owned by him nor was a declared homestead.

Panel jockeying reflects electoral politics

Intrigue, backtracking, if not hypocrisy all featured in the latest Louisiana State Bond Commission meeting driven by election year politics.

This special meeting was called to consider whether to institute a process that could ban financial institutions adhering to so-called environmental, social, and governance criteria in their investing and lending decisions from competing for state bond business. Both Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry and GOP Treasurer John Schroder, two SBC members, have spoken out publicly about the inappropriateness of the state using these firms for a variety of reasons, including conflicts with state law, higher costs for taxpayers, and their discriminatory behavior towards lawful business sectors including some large contributors to the state’s economy.

It didn’t follow through. Landry, who had a representative at the meeting, had led the charge to disqualify such firms, but didn’t find any backing. Republican Sen. Pres. Page Cortez took the lead to shoot down the proposal, saying while his polling of legislators showed sympathy for the goals of the proposal, at the same time they also didn’t like the idea that this would restrict free enterprise in a fashion and might drive up costs.

Sour grapes hopefully won't cost taxpayers

Sour grapes aren’t reason enough for taxpayers to make up for the choices made by whiny Louisiana university faculty members, and hopefully the legal system won’t put taxpayers on the hook to gratify them.

A couple of such individuals have filed suit to reverse their participation in the state’s optional retirement program (ORP) and force their transfer into the long-existing, heavily underfunded defined benefit program (DBP). This has come after legislation to accomplish the same has gone nowhere in the Legislature.

With good reason. The ORP takes both the employee’s portion of salary that goes to retirement, typically eight percent before taxes and matched by the state, and allows these to be invested by the employee in vehicles chosen by the state’s contracted investment advisers from which the employee typically has several choices. This may follow the employee to other employment and upon retirement then may be drawn like an individual retirement account from principal and investment earnings.

Port seeks payoff for BC councilor investment

The Caddo-Bossier Port Commission hopes to have pay off the over $600,000 it has shuttled over the years to Republican Bossier City Councilor David Montgomery as he literally carries water on a deal likely to be favorable for it but to turn sour on Bossier City residents.

This week, in its meeting the Council delayed a motion by Montgomery to begin approval of a cooperative endeavor agreement between the Port and city. Its complicated nature reflects the maze of interests involved.

The Port seeks to have an alternative source of water and its treatment to its present hookup with Shreveport. It pledges to issue $35 million in bonds to allow buildout of additional capacity for both. However, it wants Bossier City to run the facility and pay for its construction and maintenance in the city’s exchange for transmission and distribution of water and treatment of resulting wastewater to the Port and its users with those entities paying it for that service.

Political fashion leading to police tragedies

Almost three years of a collective insanity arose to make police departments woke, Shreveport appears to be paying the price in a manner that may cost lives.

Recently, a black fleeing suspect named Alonzo Bagley was shot fatally by white Shreveport police officer Alexander Tyler. This occurred not long after black Memphis police officers appeared to break every rule in the book in the apprehension, then death, of a black suspect Tyre Nichols.

The Memphis case has drawn far more attention and commentary echoing a worldview that began taking prominence in the late spring of 2020 with the death in Minneapolis of George Floyd, a black man who died in custody of non-black police officers. From that the widespread trope, up until then largely confined to certain academic quarters and political circles, developed that unarmed black suspects dying in arrest situations was a function of police brutality as a specific manifestation of systemic racism inculcated into American society and institutions.

Shooting handling to test no drama Arceneaux

Even though whatever Shreveport can do New Orleans can do better, Republican Shreveport Mayor Tom Arceneaux’s first stiff challenge is to ensure that stays true.

Last weekend, during the Krewe of Gemini parade shootings occurred at two different locations along the parade route. The one along Shreveport-Barksdale Highway resulted in a non-life-threatening injury, but the one on Clyde Fant Parkway – and in the designated “family zone” no less – left an out-of-town teenager dead.

Not to be outdone, a day later in New Orleans during the Krewe of Bacchus parade a shooting there just yards from the route took one life and injured five. Of course, this has become old hat in the Crescent City, where in the last decade shootings on or steps from parade routes have occurred in 2015, 2018, and 2022.

On cue, Edwards produces one last bad budget

A tax-and-spend liberal to the bitter end, Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards’ last budget request reflects the irresponsibility emblematic of his fiscal policy-making that he hopes has staying power.

State governments have lived on a sugar high for two years with record-busting national deficit spending force-feeding money to them, creating false economies fattening state coffers besides allocating bonus bucks to spend. This all will dissipate starting this year. Further, Louisiana has scheduled sales tax relief commencing in a couple of years and faces escalating payments to move its pension funds towards solvency.

The responsible approach would make few if any new commitments and find ways to shrink government. Then there’s the every-man-a-king approach taken by Edwards which ignores this reality and treats the state’s finances as if throws from a carnival krewe.

Edwards legacy: more govt, worse-off citizenry

After seven years of mendacity and braggadocio, the Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards managed to top itself on those accounts when introducing Edwards’ last budget.

Last week, prior to getting into the nuts and bolts of the fiscal year 2023-24 request, Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne pelted the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget with his version of the state’s financial health prior to and during Edwards’ terms. The presentation noted how through the eight years previous to Edwards each year at some point the Revenue Estimating Conference declared a budget deficit, how budgets routinely used funds sweeps or taking idle money out of accounts that had little or no possibility of being spent for their assigned purposes, and then since Edwards took office how those years had declared surpluses without any funds sweeps with a couple of more forecasted surpluses in the future.

Implied was the tax cuts previous to Edwards had a negative impact while the tax increases staged by Edwards and insufficiently resisted by a Republican-led Legislature had brought a bounty. A laundry list of items into which the state poured money in the period followed, and as a side note observed the state had the lowest unemployment rate ever.