Krewe du Vieux

Fired up indeed!

and the Krewe of Delusions – marchers only, no floats and did not see Harry Shearer

Buddy Diliberto

is rolling over in his grave tonight

Super Bowl Bound, WHO DAT!!!

United States, Inc.

I’ve followed the Supreme Court over the years, intrigued with the end result of the legislative process, and have watched with interest the glacial ebb and flow of the highest court in the land. Its quite fascinating to see how the SCOTUS works, and the way their decisions impact Americans, be it good or bad. The one thing that can guarantee a president’s legacy for decades to come.

On Thursday, the SCOTUS belched out a pretty big whammy, or a big victory if you’re Wal-Mart, AIG, Goldman-Sachs, Berkshire-Hathaway or any huge company seeking to wield political influence. They overturned the century ruling, and as of Thursday, government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections.

What does this mean? Average Joe and Jane will be subject to the millions upon millions of big bucks that big business will dump on us via the media for their cherry-picked candidate.

How can we take on corporate America? Most Americans don’t give a shit. But copious amounts of letter writing, and voting out of office any politician that bows to big business instead of their constituents. I pray that Americans are smarter than that, and will vote their conscious instead of their brand loyalty.

a resignation…

…that has rocked Jefferson Parish. Aaron Broussard has quit his elected position as president of Jefferson Parish.

C brought me back down to earth this evening as I watched everything unfold on the 6:00 news. I was happy to hear Broussard was out of there, but saddened that this had to happen in the first place. Listening to the staccato delivery by Bert Smith CAO of what’s next, and seeing the terror in his eyes means everyone in Elmwood and Gretna are scrambling from the federal pressure. And Bill Hubbard must be singing like a canary getting deferral after deferral for his future sentencing.

I tell you what, I wouldn’t want to be in Jose Gonzales’ shoes right now. Elevated to CEO yesterday, and Parish President today and nary a special election in sight until October.

Good riddance to politics as usual in da parish.

Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard resigns
By Times-Picayune Staff
January 08, 2010, 11:04AM
Jefferson Parish President Aaron BroussardUnder scrutiny and criticism of business dealings of his former top executive and his own interests, Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard announced his resignation this morning.

Parish officials said Broussard’s resignation takes effect today at 6 p.m. At that time, Jose Gonzalez, who yesterday was elevated to the chief administrative officer’s post under Broussard, will become acting parish president. Gonzalez had previously been head of the parish’s Public Works Department.

Parish administrators said Broussard showed up for work as normal this morning, but left the Joseph S. Yenni Building in Elmwood around 9:30 a.m. Around 45 minutes later he held a telephone conference call with his top administrators and told them he was resigning.

The administrators said Broussard was his normal, jovial self early today before leaving the building.

“He sounded good . . . like the typical Aaron Broussard. He hugged me as he usually does and was making jokes,” Gonzalez said.

Bert Smith, another one of Broussard’s top administrators, said Broussard “told us he is not the target of any investigation.

“He’s resigning on his own terms for the good of the parish and the administration,” Smith said.

Under the parish’s charter, Gonzalez will be acting president until the Parish Council chooses an interim parish president, possibly next week. The council has 30 days to appoint an interim president.Gonzalez expressed surprise at being thrust into the role of parish president.

“I was just appointed CAO yesterday and all of sudden I’m going to be acting parish president for a few days,” he said. “It came as surprise, but I can do it.”

Broussard’s resignation comes as several members of his staff were set to appear before a federal grand jury in New Orleans this morning in the wake of a criminal investigation into former Chief Administrative Officer Tim Whitmer’s personal business dealings with parish contractors.

Councilman John Young said that under the Parish Charter, the council has 30 days both to name an interim parish president and to set a special election to fill out Broussard’s term, which expires in January, 2012. Whoever is appointed interim parish president cannot run in the special election, which will be held Oct. 2, officials said.

Reaction to the news included surprise from even close friends and associates of Broussard.

“I’m very surprised to see him resign,” said Parish Councilman Elton Lagasse, who taught Broussard years ago at Kenner Junior High School. “Very seldom have I seen him run from a fight.

Lagasse said that while he’s disappointed that his longtime friend and colleague will resign, his departure “will allow us to regroupand restore public faith in government. This has been like a little black cloudn hanging over our heads.”

Parish Council Chairman John Young said Broussard called him Friday afternoon to tell him about his resignation.

“He sounded upbeat. He sounded at peace with himself,” Young said. “He said he prayed on it and decided it was the best decision from himself and for the parish.”

Charlotte Burnell, who served as Broussard’s chief administrative officer for much of his 8 years as mayor of Kenner, said Thursday she saw Broussard just a few days ago. “I am as surprised as anyone else,” she said.

But Burnell said it wasn’t unusual for Broussard to make a difficult decision quickly and decisively.

“The decision, I’m sure, was based on what he thinks is best for the parish.”

Broussard’s top lieutenants and some Parish Council members were gathering at the Yenni Building in Elmwood and an official announcement was expected later in the day.

pretty sweet vay-cay home

I want to stay a week in Nova Scotia. I’ve been before, but never to the western side of the island near Yarmouth. I am tired and extremely stressed out and am ready to leave today. I don’t really care if its winter or not, I like the snow too.

This place looks nice

I want to book a room at the “vendor” rate since I’m a taxpaying citizen and all that. Dear Mr. Broussard, can you scratch my back please? Considering I’ve and most of my family have been footing your bill for dozens of years, I deserve it just like you.

Aaron Broussard’s vacation property in Nova Scotia draws scrutiny
By Richard Rainey, The Times-Picayune
January 06, 2010, 9:47PM

This story also was written by Paul Rioux
Trout Point Lodge in Nova Scotia, above, is the focal point of a resort community where Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard owns a stake in a home.

Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard owns a Nova Scotia vacation lodge that the Metropolitan Crime Commission suspects he rents to parish contractors, commission President Rafael Goyeneche said Wednesday.
In a letter to the state Ethics Administration program, Goyeneche said confidential sources told him that Broussard had rented the Canadian property to a handful of business people holding public contracts with Jefferson Parish government.

Neither Broussard nor his attorney, Mike Ellis, could be reached for comment.

The crime commission’s actions come on the heels of Goyeneche’s earlier request that the state Board of Ethics look into the private insurance agency of Broussard’s chief administrator, Tim Whitmer, who resigned Monday amid a growing federal criminal investigation and public pressure. Since October, news media reports have shown that Whitmer’s agency, Lagniappe Industries, did business with at least three public agencies and six companies that have contracts with Jefferson Parish.

Whitmer also hired Broussard to do $5,000 worth of legal work for Lagniappe, and Broussard said he sent potential clients to the brokerage.

Broussard’s state financial disclosure reports say he and his wife, Karen, are sole owners of one Kemptville, Nova Scotia, company, Public Works Investments, and have a one-third interest in another, Kempt Wilderness Lodge Services. His report describes Public Works Investments’ purpose as “development of rental properties” in Nova Scotia and Kempt Wilderness’ purpose as “management and ownership of rental properties” in the province.

The records do not further describe the rental properties.

aaron-broussard.JPGMatthew Hinton / The Times-PicayuneJefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard’s state financial disclosure reports say he and his wife, Karen, are sole owners of one Kemptville, Nova Scotia, company, and have a one-third interest in another.

But Bennett Powell, owner of Creative Risk Controls, a Metairie insurance claims-adjusting firm that has done business with Jefferson Parish, identified the Broussard property as Trout Point Lodge. Powell said he owns about a 1 percent share in the lodge and that he once spent four or five days there with Broussard and the late state Senate President John Hainkel of New Orleans. Powell said that as a co-owner, he may choose to stay at the lodge in lieu sharing in its profits.

“It’s been pretty successful. It’s a beautiful lodge with gourmet food. I really wish I could get up there more often,” said Powell, who has contributed more than $37,000 since the mid-1990s to various Jefferson Parish political candidates, including Broussard.

Its Web site describes the eight-suite Trout Point Lodge as sheltering “its guests in an utterly civilized outpost amidst the pristine Acadian Forest” and “offering remarkable hospitality and designed for absolute Haute Rustic comfort.” It has cottages scattered about the property. Room rates are $119 to $415 per night in Canadian money.

Nova Scotia public records show that Lawrence Stoulig Jr., Roy D’Aquila and James Smith Jr. also have owned shares in Kempt Wilderness Lodge Services since 2003.

Stoulig, an accountant, said he invested in the property as a means “to come together with a group of friends, and I think Aaron was a part of that group.” He said it was a “beautiful development” of private property surrounded by a federally owned nature park.

He said he couldn’t recall all the partners, nor who rented the lodge. He said he never had more than a 4 percent cut in the property and that he sold his stake five years ago. No money exchanged hands, he said, because all transactions were handled through bank notes.

In 1993, Stoulig was sentenced to 30 months in prison for federal fraud and conspiracy.

D’Aquila is a principal at the law firm D’Aquila, Volk, Mullins & Contreras, where Broussard is a lawyer and whose address is listed for the lodge’s Canadian registration. D’Aquila could not be reached for comment.

Smith is a lawyer whose company, New Orleans Paddlewheels Inc., went bankrupt in 2006. He did not return a message seeking comment.

Whitmer resigns

that’s all I got to say about that…for now

he’ll probably show up in a year or two as a highly paid consultant for da parish

herein lies the rub

So the latest installment of Whitmergate appeared in the Times Picayune today, and this quote by Louis Congemi was the most disturbing, and the most insightful of the recent problems out in da parish

“It’s very hard because there’s a lot of stuff you can’t talk about.We really can’t talk to Tim Whitmer. So you’ve got a guy you’ve known for years, and we can’t talk to him now. It’s very difficult to deal with a guy who has been your friend all these years and then you have to make this determination.”

I think the council needs to throw the book, err pink slip, at Whitmer on Wednesday. Congemi and plenty others over in the Yenni building forgot the old adage, don’t shit where you eat. Plus I don’t buy the blind support of Whitmer by Broussard, everyone is replaceable. And Whitmer’s wife is obviously capable of supporting them, therefore his retirement must remain in the pockets of JP taxpayers.

Jeff council to take judicial role
Members feeling heat over Whitmer
Sunday, January 03, 2010
By Richard Rainey
East Jefferson bureau

Having scheduled a rare special meeting outside its regular calendar, the Jefferson Parish Council will put down its lawmaking mantle this week to take up that of judge and jury.

For the first time in 30 years, the council has invoked its investigative authority under the Parish Charter, and council members are talking as if they will decide the fate of Tim Whitmer, the embattled chief administrative officer to Parish President Aaron Broussard. Broussard has refused to fire Whitmer, so council members — under extraordinary pressure from an outraged public — are moving to take matters into their own hands.

Exactly how the hearing will unfold and how it will affect Whitmer’s employment, however, is unclear, owing in part to the novelty of the process and the opacity of the laws governing it.
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“We’re plowing new ground here,” Councilman Elton Lagasse said.

What is clear, from news media reports in the past two months, is that Whitmer and his wife, Dawn, own a private insurance brokerage, Lagniappe Industries, that has done extensive business with government agencies and with contractors whose work he indirectly oversees as the No. 2 executive in the Broussard administration. Such a position is fraught with the potential for ethical conflicts if not outright criminal activity, and the FBI is now poring over thousands of documents and e-mail messages that parish officials began delivering under subpoena Dec. 4 to the U.S. District Courthouse in New Orleans.

Equally obvious is the public’s hue and cry for Broussard to fire Whitmer or, absent that, for the council to move more forcefully to have his employment terminated. Whitmer has announced plans to retire Feb. 1, the earliest date he would be eligible to begin collecting a $172,000 annual pension. If he were to resign or be fired before then, he would have to wait five years for retirement pay.

Broussard, who has said he did legal work for Lagniappe Industries and referred business to the brokerage, cautioned against a rush to judgment. He said neither his own administration nor other agencies have gathered all the facts. But on Dec. 16, he suspended Whitmer from work, albeit with pay.

That was a week after the council decided to investigate Whitmer and to ask the Louisiana attorney general’s office to act as its adviser.

A three-page petition served on Whitmer by Assistant Attorneys General Billy Belsom Jr. and Richard McGimsey focuses on a single insurance deal letting Lagniappe Industries share commissions on policies that B&A Insurance sold to employees of the parish-owned West Jefferson Medical Center. The hospital’s contract with B&A forbade commission splitting, and the Parish Charter states no employees may “participate in any financial transaction” of Jefferson government agencies “if he has any direct or indirect financial interest in such transaction.”

The attorney general’s petition also states the council need not find that Whitmer violated the charter to fire him, because he is an “at will” employee not shielded by civil service or other protections.

And yet the charter provision that the council invoked to call Wednesday’s hearing at the Joseph S. Yenni Building in Elmwood says nothing about firing administration employees. The section, 2.01(A)(4), says the council may “make investigations of parish affairs,” subpoena witnesses, take sworn testimony and demand records, but it is silent on what action the council may take beyond investigation.

Another section of the charter, 3.03(B) gives “the power to appoint and remove ” all administrative officers” to the parish president.

The parish Code of Ordinances has an investigations section that alludes to “decrees, rulings or judgements” of the Parish Council but doesn’t otherwise define them. It says any appeal of a council investigative decision may be taken to state 24th Judicial District Court in Gretna within 10 days.
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Parish law suggests the hearing will be conducted somewhat like a civil trial, following the same rules for evidence, testimony and the right to cross-examination as in state court.

Whether it will be open to the public is another question no one seems to have a solid answer to. Council members said the attorney general’s office has recommended a closed hearing because it is a personnel matter, but that they have the authority to open or close it.

“They’re not going to make decisions for us,” Councilman Chris Roberts said.

Lagasse, a former public Jefferson Parish school superintendent, said the laws governing tenure hearings for teachers let the subjects of the hearing determine whether it should be open or closed. If that serves as a precedent, it could be up to Whitmer himself to decide whether the Parish Council does the business in public or in private.

Donald Hyatt II, a new attorney on Whitmer’s team, wouldn’t state his client’s preferences or even whether they will mount a defense.

“This case seems to change about every 10 minutes,” Hyatt said. “We will show up because we are under subpoena. Beyond that, it’s premature to say much of anything.”

Beyond the public controversy, the Whitmer case has created a fractious political clime within the council itself about voicing opinions in public before the legal proceeding begins. Some members preach caution, warning that any evidence that they have made up their minds in advance will doom chances to terminate Whitmer. And one member, John Young, has gone on a solo crusade for Broussard to fire Whitmer or for Whitmer to resign.

“Some people have chosen to politicize the issue, and especially in John’s case he has chosen to capitalize politically,” said Roberts, who described Young’s declarations as “grandstanding.”

Young said his comments reflected the options facing Broussard and Whitmer, rather than what his decision will be when the council convenes.

McGimsey, the assistant attorney general, advised council members not to talk about Whitmer or the investigation. That, plus their past reliance on Whitmer to get things done for constituents, has made the whole case awkward for council members.

“It’s very hard because there’s a lot of stuff you can’t talk about,” Councilman Louis Congemi said. “We really can’t talk to Tim Whitmer. So you’ve got a guy you’ve known for years, and we can’t talk to him now. It’s very difficult to deal with a guy who has been your friend all these years and then you have to make this determination.”

Meals On Wheels stalled

Jefferson Parish is cutting almost 300 elderly people off from their Meals on Wheels delivery. I can’t imagine this being a very costly program with volunteers delivering the meals, and a donated truck to go from point A to point B.

An easy solution would be to fire Tim Whitmer, all the layabout administrators, and take all their “gift” monies to el jefe Broussard, and meanwhile get Broussard to donate some of his campaign funds, and the Meals on Wheels program would become solvent for the next decade.

Scores of elderly people stricken from Jefferson Parish Meals on Wheels program
By Bob Ross, The Times-Picayune
December 31, 2009, 7:00AM
van.jpgDonald Stout / The Times-PicayuneHarrah’s Foundation donated this 15-passenger van in 2008 to the Jefferson Council on Aging, which now is cutting back on its home-delivery meals program for elderly people.

Nearly 300 elderly Jefferson Parish residents have been removed from the Council on Aging’s meals program because of what officials say is dwindling revenue.

The program, often called Meals on Wheels because the offerings are delivered by volunteers, provides a daily meal virtually every weekday. Letters arrived in the past week to notify many residents that the meal service will end Monday unless they find a way to pay for the food themselves.

“We heard there were issues with the program … but this letter came as kind of a surprise,” said one 80-year-old Metairie woman who relies on the meals to help feed her 87-year-old husband, who has Parkinson’s disease. “I knew there were going to be cuts, but I didn’t think they’d put one to the aging folks that quickly,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified in case parish officials take issue with her comments.
MEALS123109.jpg

The problem is twofold, said Al Robichaux, executive director of the Jefferson Parish Council on Aging.

First, the Title III federal dollars that help to pay for the program have declined slightly in the past several years while demand has increased since Hurricane Katrina.

The second issue is a surplus millage fund discovered by parish officials in 2007 and applied, in part, to the Council on Aging. That money, which has paid for nearly 1,200 meals in the past three years, is about to run out. Officials expect the millage to pay for only 163 meals in 2010.

“That is having a major impact,” Robichaux said.

Officials have been able to soften the blow for the upcoming year by securing a one-year grant from the state for $350,000 in supplemental senior center financing that can be used for the meals program, Robichaux said.

That money won’t be available in 2011, Robichaux. That could mean even more difficult decisions about whom the parish will help a year from now.

Even before making the recent cuts, Robichaux said the meal program had a waiting list of 200 people. Adding the 291 now being removed puts that waiting at almost 500 people.

“It’s heart-wrenching to talk to a person who has a need when you know you just can’t meet that need,” Robichaux said.

The situation is being felt throughout the New Orleans area and across the state as well, Robichaux said. Jay Bulot, head of the state’s Council on Aging program, couldn’t be reached Wednesday for comment.

Robichaux said the 291 people now being terminated from the program are the ones who had been added most recently. Council on Aging workers have been looking through the list of 291 and trying to offer any help possible.

An option for some is the Food for Families program through the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans. That program, which provides a 40-pound box of groceries once a month, is strictly income-based, while the Jefferson meals program is not, Robichaux said.

Some of the other people on the waiting list could be included in the Jefferson meals program soon. On average, the meals program has a monthly attrition rate of 35 to 50 customers, Robichaux said.

“Hopefully, the attrition rate will allow us to attack some of that waiting list,” he said.

Parish Councilman John Young said council needs to get involved.

“Certainly we need to overturn every stone we can to try to restore those services,” he said.

As for the 80-year-old Metairie woman and her 87-year-old husband, they will figure out a way to pay for the $5.50 cost per meal — $1,375 a year — because of the help it provides. But the woman, a retired schoolteacher, said she worries more about other elderly residents who don’t have the options available to her and her husband.

“There are people who are alone and they just don’t eat,” she said. “I feel like some of these people will just accept whatever happens and I worry because they don’t have someone to fight for them.”