BC debt binge foists higher rates onto residents

The reckless spending by Bossier City over the past quarter-century has come back to haunt citizens in another way, this time through increased sanitation rates.

This week, the City Council voted to jack up rates on users, inside and outside of the city. Beginning in February, the flat resident charge for water will go from $8.54 to $10.16 and the pre thousand gallon charge of $3.03 will rise to $3.61; for nonresidents, the flat rate will go from $15.80 to $18.80 and the per thousand gallon charge of $4.55 will rise to $5.41. While nonresidential users without water service won’t see increased rates for waste pickup, residents will see theirs go from $24 (curbside or disabled side yard) or $28 (side yard) to $36 monthly; commercial customers will have theirs rise from $28 to $40; churches will see theirs go up from $24 to $36; and containers for use will cost $8.50 rather than $4 (after the free first one, except for side yard pickup). The typical household would see about an $18 a month increase, with the bulk of that coming not from water but sanitation.

There wasn’t much the city could do to avoid the water rate hike. Having accepted money from the state’s Water Sector program in the forms of loans and grants, the state conditions this on sufficient revenue generation potential as determined through a rate study. The results argued that the rate structure for water since 2007 hadn’t kept pace and an increase immediately plus one built in for the next fiscal year would satisfy the program’s conditions. The FY 2026 gap would be resolved with a two percent increase on rates.

NO officials' misjudgments likely increased risk

Sadly, the tragic terrorist incident in New Orleans’ Vieux Carre, contrary to what city officials have tried strenuously to produce as a narrative, was likely preventable because of decisions made by them and their predecessors.

A very few hours into 2025 an American citizen but with potential links to the terrorist group the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Daesh) swung a vehicle onto Bourbon Street around Canal Street and barreled three blocks to the east, killing at least 15 revelers and injuring dozens more before wrecking and engaging in a gun battle with police that led to his being shot and killed. It could have been worse, as later improvised explosive devices were found further east around the street and an explosion some blocks away out of the French Quarter tentatively have been tied to the action.

For many years, in contrast to a couple of decades prior, Bourbon has been open to through traffic. In 2016, city officials recognized that the relatively open nature of a byway with considerable pedestrian traffic could lead to a situation as this, so they reinstituted placing bollards on Bourbon along with removable barriers, but this system proved cumbersome and prone to malfunction because of detritus – much of it Carnival-related – interfering.

Landry effect continues, chagrining leftists

Perhaps more fun than watching the Republican Gov. Jeff Landry effect take hold is how those invested in the rather opposite agenda of his predecessor try to deflect from that.

On the heels of data centers announcing their intended arrivals in Louisiana – with one firm explicitly said to have begun making the locational move after Landry took over from the departing Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards – has come further news that the change in administrations has jumpstarted economic development in the state. After losing population in the last three years, 2024 apparently saw a small gain and along with it more jobs.

In fact, losing population was a major theme throughout Edwards’ two terms. When he left office, about 120,000 fewer people lived in the state than when he entered it. That resulted in essentially zero job growth even as the unemployment rate slid downwards to a modern low. But that was deceptive: it went down because the labor force participation rate fell to a nearly half-century low (Wuhan coronavirus pandemic excluded) as increased government benefits that Edwards backed kicked in, meaning a higher proportion of the work-able population exited the workforce, joining those discouraged who couldn’t find a job.

LA marshal compensation comparatively outsized

For different reasons, marshals of north Louisiana’s two mid-sized cities show how you can remain an honest cop yet at the same time bring home some big paydays.

That’s what a Louisiana Legislative Auditor report reveals that investigated all marshals of city courts in the state. There are almost 50, with some of the smaller jurisdictions making few demands and paying accordingly. Others, however, earn a lot more and even in some places that don’t have larger populations.

Marshals serve as enforcement officers of courts but can have duties beyond just carrying out security and court orders, as varied as state law and contracting opportunities allow. For example, Baton Rouge’s run the city jail, Bossier City’s monitors probationers from its city court and provides security for City Council meetings, and Oakdale’s has a patrol division hunting down speeders.

Results in FL argue for LA public union reform

If Florida can ameliorate the effect of zombies, surely Louisiana can do it just as well, if not better.

In its original sense transported from Africa to the Americas, zombies are a reanimated creature from the dead found in voodoo practices, whether they know. Voodoo finds its way into Louisiana folklore, but in other places like Florida they’re more often found in labor unions.

That’s the conclusion a recent article drew about the state of these organizations in the Sunshine State’s public sector. Since that state, like Louisiana, doesn’t make employment in a bargaining unit subject to a closed shop – to work at that place you must join a union – but permits a bargaining unit to form and to negotiate on behalf of all employees regardless of whether they join and pay dues, those assessments essentially become optional.

Good LA crypto moves should exclude reserve

Suddenly, Louisiana has found a cutting edge technology gear with policy changes that landed a pair of data centers in the state and cryptocurrency use . But it shouldn’t take the step that some states and the incipient Republican Pres. Donald Trump Administration have under consideration, establishing a cryptocurrency, specifically bitcoin, reserve.

Trump in his campaign talked this up, and GOP Sen. Cindy Lummis followed through recently by introducing a bill to do the same. The idea is for government to buy bitcoin tokens (the federal government already has a couple of hundred thousand or so bitcoins seized from law enforcement actions) in order to provide some financial backstopping as well as use these as investment vehicles that could take a bite out of the huge $36 trillion debt.

Bitcoin is “mined” by solving complicated computational problems, open to anybody. Thus, wealth is created in two ways: by mining bitcoins or portions thereof which become recognized as a unit of account, or by a marketplace bidding up the value of a bitcoin in other currencies.

Christmas, 2024

This column publishes every Monday through Friday around noon U.S. Central Time (maybe even after sundown on busy days, or maybe before noon if things work out, or even sometimes on the weekend if there's big news) except whenever a significant national holiday falls on the Monday through Friday associated with the otherwise-usual publication on the previous day (unless it is Easter, Thanksgiving Day, Independence Day, Christmas, or New Year's Day when it is the day on which the holiday is observed by the U.S. government). In my opinion, in addition to these are also Memorial Day and Veterans' Day.

With Wednesday, Dec. 25 being Christmas Day, I invite you to explore this link.

Bossier Jury shaping image to avoid controversy

It’s almost as if the Bossier Parish Police Jury is striving to keep attention away from any of its potentially controversial doings, given the disconnect between the parish’s news release about the latest Jury meeting and what happened at that meeting.

Not that the Jury is known for its transparency. Unlike other major governing authorities in Bossier and Caddo Parishes, its agendas contain almost no supporting documentation so citizens can make informed commentary about them. It broadcasts its meetings through the non-robust Facebook Live platform that makes difficult following and replaying, and it doesn’t publicly archive at all its committee meetings although it did recently start to do that for its two utilities the governing boards for which are all the jurors. There practically is zero discussion on almost all issues except specific zoning requests even for some vastly important things (the 2025 budget and 2024 amendments to the budget each were handled in less time that it takes to flush a toilet), so citizens remain in the dark about such significant matters unless they file a public information request or troop to the courthouse during business hours and ask to see stuff – a 20^th century mode of operation despite the first quarter of the 21^st coming to its conclusion.

Rarely do the media attend Jury gatherings and if they report on these they use the news releases issued by the parish. For the Dec. 18 meeting, the release highlighted comments from the Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau, tax notice information from the Sheriff’s Office, Jury efforts to coordinate better zoning changes, and broad parameters of the parish’s Three-Year Overplay Program and even more generally transportation.

Elites panic at LA Health's holistic messaging

More interesting than the news that the Louisiana Department of Health has taken a more holistic view of public health is the motivation behind those, including the media, who bemoan it.

Last week, National Public Radio ran a breathless piece about how LDH had deemphasized indiscriminate pushing of vaccines for the Wuhan coronavirus and influenza and maybe the flu-like mpox, although its incidence in the U.S. in its weak form is rare and in its more virulent form nonexistent. Allegedly, LDH officials instructed employees not to make vigorous efforts to advise the public to get these vaccines and noted the department “is shifting away from one-size-fits-all paternalistic guidance to a more informative approach aimed at enabling individuals, in consultation with their doctor, to make better decisions for themselves.”

That is an entirely appropriate and productive approach to these illnesses, all of which share the same characteristics, to varying degrees, that people with healthy immune systems and/or co-morbidities rarely become seriously ill from these. Mpox potentially is the most serious but can be taken care of with smallpox vaccination, although the less prevalent vaccine version in the U.S. dedicated to it does present a relatively high 1 in 175 rate of developing myocarditis/pericarditis among other less severe side effects, while the more prevalent vaccine hasn’t been studied enough to come up with a hard number although it is thought to be less deleterious.

New Landry panel should cite grifting well deal

There’s a layup waiting for Republican Gov. Jeff Landry’s new Fiscal Responsibility Program which it should take: cancelling the behind-closed-doors grifting by political insiders that has contributed to the state’s inability to reduce the numbers of orphaned oil wells.

This week, Landry created this new board designed to find savings in state government through reviewing spending choices, seeking efficiencies in expenditures, and vetting contracts. One of the very first things it needs to look into is the Louisiana Oilfield Restoration Authority’s sweetheart, if not illegally-administered, deal with the state.

Created during the Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards Administration, LORA formed in response to a law that attempted to mitigate the incidence of orphan oil wells. These once-productive wells were abandoned by owners when faced with cleanup costs, leaving the state to have to deal with them. This method of contracting out rather than the state handling it (through its own resources or federal grants) sought to build a fund from well production into which owners paid that could be used to address abandoned wells, operating like a form of insurance and less expensively to encourage closure rather than abandonment.