Day: November 13, 2011

The Times Picayune tackles a topic that has appeared here many times: A why Gwen Bollotte should have been fired years ago update.

In our coverage of Jefferson Parish Government we’ve run across the name of former Jefferson Parish CFO Gwen Bolotte a few times, normally with me expressing the opinion she needed to be fired for not doing her job as Parish Finance Director.  I termed her a doormat in fact and that is a good description of her job performance in both the Performing Arts fiasco and the Parish’s ham handed dealings with Waste Management in trying to cancel the contract with them so that the Parish’s garbage could be hauled to the River Birch Landfill at considerably more costs to parish residents.  I mention this because Bob Ross has a curious story in today’s Times Picayune that allows John Young and Chris Roberts to capitalize on Bolotte’s departure for purely self-serving public relations purposes. Roberts using this issue is particularly sickening given he employes the Master of Disaster Deano Bonano as a council aid at a nice 6 figure salary despite Bonano deserving the same fate as Bolotte. Instead Roberts recycled him from John Young’s chop shop.  First lets visit with Ross and his story for the Sunday Picayune:

Bolotte’s decision is more troubling, Roberts said, given her position as chief financial officer in Parish President John Young’s administration.

“Gwen is a CPA. She has a fiduciary duty to hold her ground in certain situations. I would expect our CFO — and I’ve told this to John already — that if she’s put in a compromising position that she knows may or may not be in the best interest of the parish, that she make a decision to stand up and say: ‘We have questions about this and I’m not comfortable, and we need further documentation.'”

Turning a “blind eye” to Whitmer’s order, as Roberts described Bolotte’s reaction, was not in Jefferson’s best interests. “That’s a real problem,” he said. “How many time have you heard her say over the years, ‘I was instructed to do that by my superiors.'”

Young generally agreed with Roberts’ assessment.

“Hindsight is 20-20, but if she had questions, she shouldn’t have processed the check,” he said recently, before Bolotte announced her retirement. “I can tell you this: We made sure Gwen knows that nothing will be paid without proper documentation. That will not happen again. Also, nothing will be paid without accounting doing the proper checks and balances.”

Both men act as if there was not an existing policy to never pay expenses without documentation in Jefferson Parish and of course there was and is such a policy. Continue reading “The Times Picayune tackles a topic that has appeared here many times: A why Gwen Bollotte should have been fired years ago update.”

Phildo predicts “Personhood” will come back up in Mississippi’s legislature and introduce more government into the daily lives of Mississippians.

Folks we get the best of both worlds today as new AP reporter Jeff Amy has a story in today’s Sun Herald about Mississippi Gov elect Phildo Bryant, the defeated personhood amendment and how he is backtracking off calling 58% of Mississippi’s voters Satan. Here is a snippet:

Some lawmakers already are looking at further ways to regulate or restrict abortion, said state Sen. Michael Watson, R-Pascagoula.

“I think it’s going to be something that a lot of senators talk about because of the amendment,” Watson said Friday, adding that some abortion opponents were surprised by the defeat.

Bryant backed away from comments he made at a rally Monday in Tupelo. Standing next to the Rev. Donald Wildmon, founder of the American Family Association on election eve, Bryant said the defeat of Initiative 26 would mean “Satan wins.”

I was frankly surprised at the attention paid this issue by the nation.  Boss Hogg, as always, had the right talking from the jump:

“If it had gone to the Legislature, the wrinkles in it would have been worked out, the ambiguities would have been understood and eliminated. Instead, these were some people from Colorado who had an initiative they tried twice to pass in Colorado and they couldn’t,” Barbour said. “And they thought, ‘What’s the most pro-life state in the country?’ Well it’s Mississippi. So they came to Mississippi with a half-baked initiative.”

I’ve ripped Governor Hogg a few times here on Slabbed but I’m going to miss him come January because with him you knew this type of crap, brought to Mississippi from out of state religious fanatics would have never seen the light of day.  The incoming Phildo cuddles up with these folks and the charlatan preachers that prey upon weak-minded souls aka the proverbial true believer.  Editorially my personal opinion is that I love Freedom of Religion as much as I love our constitution. It would be nice if the true believers concentrated all their efforts on gaining entrace into Heaven for themselves instead of worrying about everyone else.  After all Freedom of Religion means the government stays out of matters of faith, not help weak minds impose their beliefs on everyone else.

sop