Day: May 21, 2014

Analysis: Candidates set for November Mississippi judicial elections (Corrected)

Normally sitting judges do not attract opponents as members of the local bar typically refrain from crossing sitting judges. The recent municipal elections in New Orleans underscores that basic fact. Here in Mississippi that is not the case however:

Fields for November judicial races are set ~ Sun Herald

Luckily for everyone I was given the back story on two races. First up is this:

In Circuit Court District 2, which includes Harrison, Hancock and Stone counties, three additional candidates have qualified to run for the judgeship that John C. Gargiulo holds. They are Robert Fant Walker, Chris Schmidt and Myles Sharp.

This was the biggest head scratcher for me but Phillip Thomas at Mississippi Litigation review solved this mystery last month:

Word on the street in Gulfport back at Mardi Gras identified Judge Garguilo as slated to become the new federal court magistrate in Gulfport.

Next up is the Chancery Court race over Jackson County way per the Sun Herald article linked above:

In Chancery Court District 16, which includes Jackson, George and Greene counties, the judgeships held by D. Neil Harris and G. Charles “Chuck” Bordis have additional candidates.

Pascagoula City Judge Michael Fondren and Pascagoula attorney Gary Roberts have qualified to run for the seat Bordis holds….

So the back story goes Judge Fondren’s wife April was Continue reading “Analysis: Candidates set for November Mississippi judicial elections (Corrected)”

Greenlit no more: A playing on the Internet Update

And it turns out Aircheck will remain a man of mystery, likely forever, and that is not necessarily a bad thing in my opinion.

DOJ report found that Perricone, Mann acted alone and in secret ~ Gordon Russell

Judge Lemmon and Magistrate Wilkinson appear to have received an education normally reserved for newspapers, bloggers and the like. This snippet from Gordon’s story sums it up:

The judges also pulled the plug on Jackson’s efforts to unmask two other nola.com commenters that the former city official suggested were federal officials as well. The first, “aircheck,” was the subject of a subpoena to nola.com, which turned over a raft of materials to the court last month after failing to persuade Wilkinson and Lemmon that the commenter’s First Amendment rights as well as those of the newspaper were being violated.

The judges have been reviewing those documents in chambers, the motion says, but they’ve been unable to determine the identity of “aircheck” — who apparently used various devices to post comments, and posted from a range of locations — and they conclude in their motion that further study of the issue is pointless.

The key for me is that Aircheck used different devices because it is the often the identity of the device that is key. This is why the International House Mystery Commenter used the Internal House to begin with. And it why I still think a key logger was used in that instance. Continue reading “Greenlit no more: A playing on the Internet Update”

The Technical Term is “In-substance defeasance”

In-substance defeasance is an accounting term for removing debt from an entity’s balance sheet though the debt itself is not cancelled. The debt is considered paid from an accounting standpoint if a dedicated sinking fund is created with a financial intermediary that is sufficient to extinguish the original debt over time. In the case of the City of Bay St Louis, the proposed Utility Fund refunding bonds would In-substance defease the previous refunding bonds that In-substance defeased the original bond issue.

In layman’s terms this would mark the second time the original Water and Sewer capital improvement bonds have been refinanced. Having a bit of experience with the back end of this type of transaction, I can say first hand that it is complex and carries hefty legal and professional fees as the Bay City Council found out first hand at last night’s meeting.

In other news:

Bay eyes cuts, new projects to fix budget ~ Dwayne Bremer

To the council’s credit, public input was welcomed, even on an impromptu basis, though the nice lady from Ward 6 that wore out Mayor Fillingame did end up being gaveled by Council President McDonald. Continue reading “The Technical Term is “In-substance defeasance””