Month: August 2016

Slabbed explores allegations that the Bay St Louis Facebook Page is a Hizzoner partisan political activity

Folks I’ve never understood why newspapers couch a story around a massive fib, especially when they know it is a fib. Monday night’s workshop witnessed a number of transparency errors but what interested me most was insubordinate City employee Jerry Beaugez, a crony of Mayor Fillingame arguing with the City Council after being given a direct order to stop streaming the workshop on Facebook. While such an order against a member of the public would certainly be an ethics no-no, a City employee faces a far different set of legal questions vis-a-vie the exercise of free speech while on the taxpayer’s dime. Let’s start with the massive falsehood Beaugez told to Dwayne Bremer of the Echo:

One possible reason for the council’s concern is that there have been accusations that Facebook comments were being edited or deleted to reflect only “pro-Fillingame posts.”

Beaugez said anyone can see the comments on Facebook and they could not be edited or deleted. He said that the Facebook settings are set to not allow vulgarity, but the administrator cannot delete or edit a post.

Individuals, however, can delete their own personal posts, he said.

Beaugez also argued that the meeting was public and that other entities such as local media are allowed to record meetings.

The owner of the Facebook page can delete any comment from anyone posted on it, as any 12 year old with a Facebook account will tell you. It’s real simple, simply mouse over the “x” on the upper right of the comment, click it and then confirm the delete. Since Beaugez is either a Facebook simpleton or a liar, can we discern which condition is the case here? I think so folks, mainly by presenting one of the comments deleted from the City’s Facebook page: Continue reading “Slabbed explores allegations that the Bay St Louis Facebook Page is a Hizzoner partisan political activity”

The 1st Amendment under attack by the City of Bay St Louis, A Place Apart | Updated

First up with the debut of the LesLie Mobile, an act of political expression by local resident Jeff Harding aka the Poolman. Slabbed was there to cover it in Old Town Bay St Louis last Saturday:

The people I saw looking at the vehicle thought it was pretty funny, after all it is far better to laugh than cry at the current state of affairs in the Bay:

Let’s circle the LesLie Mobile for now and fast forward to last night’s Bay St Louis Council Budget Workshop: Continue reading “The 1st Amendment under attack by the City of Bay St Louis, A Place Apart | Updated”

Letters to the Politicians and Others: A Good Longread

It all started innocently enough with an email to Treasurre Lynn Fitch by Port Policy Wonk Dan Norfleet:

Good Morning Treasurer Fitch:

Edison Chouest Offshore learned to create subsidiaries to be responsible for repaying the money when the jobs do not materialize. Failing to do this in Galveston cost the company $9 Million and could have cost tens of millions of dollars more: Louisiana offshore firm owes Port of Galveston $9 million. Anything built in Mississippi will not be an Edison Chouest project, but will be “LaShip” or “TopShip,” or “MyShip”—a newly formed corporation with no track record and virtually no chance of making good on its promises but trading on the past record of Edison Chouest. As usual, the MDA is being played. This is just another making-energy-out-of-mud project that will put Mississippi further into the economic hole.

Never one to waste a good link I clicked the link in Dan’s email and ended up liking the story so much that, despite it being several years old, Slabbed put it out on Twitter.1 It was recognized as a quality link in short order by Lee Zurik’s investigative assistant Tom Wright.

The bottom line is the Chouest family well learned its lesson from its Galveston experience in 2006:

Could Topship end up in the same boat as Louisiana affiliate? ~ Anita Lee Continue reading “Letters to the Politicians and Others: A Good Longread”

To the Editor: Municipal Donations to Non-profits

To The Editor:

It is Budget preparation time again for our public officials. While we appreciate the effort they put into managing our tax dollars, we would like to make a couple of suggestions since all are working with tight budgets and face many needs to be met for their communities.

  1. As always, public officials are solicited by “non-profit” organizations for donations of public money to help meet their needs. When considering your contribution of our tax dollars to these groups, please make every effort to determine if there is anyone on their staff or in their organization that is paid more than your entity’s highest paid employee or elected official. If so, the answer has to be “no.” If a “non-profit” can out compensate the entity they are soliciting, they do no qualify for public assistance.
  2. If you have outstanding accounts payable that cannot be resolved in the current fiscal year, and have to be carried over as expenses to the next, please do not use our tax dollars for anything other than our immediate financial obligations.

We appreciate the work of non profits and belong to several ourselves. However, we do feel there are other avenues of approach to meet their financial needs such as fund raisers and raising membership dues.

Lana Noonan, Chairman
Ron Thorp, Co-Chairman
Hancock County Alliance for Good Government

What I see is an elected official in deep denial: How much is a money losing community hospital worth?

And how much federal tax money will have been pissed away on construction that will never fetch more than 20 cents on the dollar in the real estate market.

Lafontaine: Selling hospital is ‘not viable’ ~ Dwayne Bremer

Last month, a consultant told the Hancock County Hospital Board that he believed HMC was worth between $14 million to $22 million.

Hancock County Board of Supervisors President Blaine Lafontaine said Friday that he believes that number is “very low.”

According to Lafontaine, HMC received much more than $22 million from the federal government to rebuild the hospital.

“I don’t have the exact figures, but it could be between $80 million to $100 million,” Lafontaine said. “Selling the hospital is not a viable option at this time. Our conversation needs to be on how to enhance the hospital.”

The truth is $14 million may be too high when you factor in the consistency of the 15% operating losses which can’t be sustained unless one subscribes to the Mayor Fillingame theory of economics. Further, any valuation that is a function of earnings or cash flow indicate a money losing business is worth exactly zero. Worse is the fact the supervisors are fooling themselves thinking the problem can be solved by growing the population of the county. Continue reading “What I see is an elected official in deep denial: How much is a money losing community hospital worth?”

It will take arrests and convictions to change things at Hancock County DHS: Where is the FBI?

I’m pretty sure much of the funding for social services at the Mississippi DHS is federally sourced and it is clear a crime has been committed in the spoilation of case records. As well intentioned as Hancock County Sheriff Ricky Adams is trying to bring the perpetrators to justice, IMHO only the resources that can be brought to bear by the FBI will crack this case and enable meaningful prosecutions. I know a few folks in the building off Drinkwater where it appears criminal acts were commissioned so I do not write this lightly but anyone with culpability including the supervisors should be immediately brought to justice.

Mississippi took their kids away — so this couple started recording everything ~ Wes Muller

The graft associated with removing children from their homes has to end.

Anita finds Ava’s Lawsuit that Mona Saw…..

How’s that for a headline! Whew. Point of disclosure, I scanned the lawsuit Ava Coleman filed against DMR and Jamie Miller and there was no sign of the Cake Eater so there may yet be more out there. This much is clear, based on what I am hearing from well placed but third party sources, Ms. Coleman’s lawyer has put a gag order on her and is not interested in “trying the case in the media”, which I put in quotation marks because it is a standard lawyerly response not to be confused with a direct quote, which Anita could not garner:

Lawsuit claims former DMR manager was harassed, demoted, fired ~ Anita Lee

Here is the first amended complaint for those that are so interested: Continue reading “Anita finds Ava’s Lawsuit that Mona Saw…..”