Tag: DMR Executive Director Jamie Miller

Spin it baby……

This is not Bill Walker’s Department of Marine Resources.

Why a state agency paid $291K for a boat ‘fishermen dream of’ ~ Anita Lee

True dat on this not being Bill Walker’s DMR. In several respects my own opinion as a DMR watcher would be that its worse. Despite his penchant for self enrichment Walker was a scientist while his replacement is a local GOP good ol’ boy political hack. And the wasting of tax money continues regardless.

Anita’s story had a quote from Miller implying this boat would be used in a law enforcement role but Slabbed’s sources have all insisted it is used to catch Red Snapper (to the delight of the Delta Supper Club). The contradiction in using a tricked out fishing boat for law enforcement could be why the commentary on Miller summoning the Sun Herald for a PR moment was so immediately negative.

Hat Tip to Captain Mullet on Twitter for providing the inflection point while Slabbed’s original post breaking this topic continues to generate great interest on social media, coming in second in 2016 to Scott and Trinity Walker. Continue reading “Spin it baby……”

Jamie Miller must be taking some politicians fishing today…..

Still no official state markings for Jamie Miller’s new fishing boat, purchased with BP settlement money. Hot off the twitter folks:

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…..”

Slabbed Introduces the newest addition to the DMR Fleet: Ain’t she a beaut!!

With the tip of the hat to our tipster I’d like to share with everyone the boat DMR Executive Director Jamie Miller authorized for use in the snapper sampling program per Slabbed New Media’s source, who is been granted anonymity as they are not authorized to publicly discuss such matters. The next step was to issue the call for pictures:

It is the boat true, die-hard fishermen dream of. The boat that has but one reason to exist: to help you catch the kind of fish that win tournaments – plain and simple.

And with a bigger tip of the hat to a photographer who answered the call and was able to sneak a pic: Continue reading “Slabbed Introduces the newest addition to the DMR Fleet: Ain’t she a beaut!!”

DMR Miscellany: Public Notice plus meet the Marine Fisheries Employee of the Quarter

First I’d like to introduce everyone to Jeff Grant, who was recognized as Marine Fisheries Employee of the Quarter less than a year ago.

Courtesy of Jeff Grant
Courtesy of Jeff Grant

Jeff was even recommended for a promotion last October. Continue reading “DMR Miscellany: Public Notice plus meet the Marine Fisheries Employee of the Quarter”

Let the Midnight Special….

My experience is a semi-monthly payroll works best for salaried employees due to the vagaries of overtime calculations and such for hourly employees. Holding back two weeks of time is at least one week more than what I’d term normal in the local private sector (and the limits of what is legal in many states) but don’t take it from me:

Are you paying your employees correctly? A guide to payroll frequencies ~ Carla Savchuk

Holding back two weeks of time tells me it is either understaffed in accounting, the people in accounting are lazy and/or incompetent or that Jamie Miller and his executive team did not think this memo that he sent out completely through before he sent it. It was leaked here to Slabbed as DMR employees are too afraid to ask these very basic questions of their leadership. Make no mistake however, the new DMR payroll frequencies are within the limits of what few Mississippi laws there are in this area so you employees would be wise not to complain or you’ll get in trouble with the man.

Courtesy of Anonymous
Courtesy of Anonymous

Feel free to place your DMR dirt here

Its been a while since I’ve heard this much chirping out of the Bolton Building but I’m not ready to repeat specifics quite yet:

Anyone wishing to add to this is welcome to share in comments.

Comment bumps: DMR Oyster Farm a Political Boondoggle for the Gov’s $$$$$ Supporters?

What I think is interesting is how the DMR is trying to present the narrative by comparing what they propose to do to a private company in Grand Isle that obtained its own aquaculture lease. That is not really a good apples to apples comparison to the state sponsored collective farm Comrade Miller is proposing to fund with your tax money. Some of the families being mentioned own copious amounts of marshland where aquaculture would only interfere with recreational fishing, which likely explains the water bottom grab off Henderson Point.

It is at this point I’ll add that about a year ago a source familiar with the operations of state government indicated to me that the entire DMR Oyster Council was a boondoggle. If the plan is to use tax money to grease the skids so some of Phil Bryant’s supporters can profit truer words were never spoken to Slabbed on that topic. In any event the comments from long time commenter Point Park and others begins here.

I have a bump of paying work to do before I can shake this tree but I will say the Harrison Sups resolution against the Bay St Louis site truly reflected the will of the local people that will be impacted. Also worth noting is the fact that a certain supervisor tried playing both sides of the issue thus the framing of the Sun Herald story of the local residents being NIMBY refusnicks to the idea of aquaculture overall when it is pretty clear that is not exactly the case.

Speaking of aquaculture, I happen to know a bit on the overall topic and it is not necessarily a panacea to all that ails the Mississippi Oyster Industry, which was virtually wiped out by the dual blows dealt by Hurricane Katrina and the Macondo well blowout. The first link contains some of the very latest information:

Infectious diseases in oyster aquaculture require a new integrated approach ~ Fabrice Pernet, Coralie Lupo, Cédric Bacher & Richard Whittington

Disease Management Strategies for Shellfish Aquaculture: The important role of hatcheries ~ Milford Aquaculture Seminar Slides 2014, Rhode Island University

Slabbed intends to monitor this matter.

Where’s Waldo Part 1: Hiding in the no-bid DMR Consulting Contracts that’s where

What would appear at first blush to be a straight forward post has gotten a tad more complicated so what I am going to do is identify what the crackerjack Slabbed Investigative Journalism team found plus a bit more and then put some more meat on the bones in subsequent posts.

I guess the first question would involve identifying Waldo and for that we turn to this Google search string to accomplish that. I used Google instead of homegrown Slabbed links to illustrate that the gang at Frontier Strategies has attracted a good bit of statewide media attention and that attention has not necessarily been positive. I’ll let Wayne Weidie explain via this post on the Weidie Report dating back almost a year ago concerning the bruising primary battle between Senator Thad Cochran and State Senator Chris McDaniel that left the incumbent Senator in second place behind the newcomer McDaniel. Here is a snippet:

Poor campaign decision from the start

For his campaign leadership, Sen. Cochran had Kirk Sims and Josh Gregory fostered on him by Sen. Roger Wicker and Gov. Bryant. Sims was Bryant’s chief of staff before he was named campaign manager. No small factor is that Sims is Wicker’s son-in-law. Gregory has always been the man behind the throne for Bryant, and Gregory is already looking for his next horse to ride into the Governor’s Mansion after Bryant presumably is re-elected and serves his second term.

While the Cochran campaign had other able campaign professionals, by any measure, the management of the campaign was a disaster.

For people that make their living doing political coms consulting, the golden children of the Boss Hogg administration have not fared as well since Boss’s coattails departed the Govs mansion back in 2011 and the above criticism, from an well known, seasoned political operative had to sting.  And yet it is more than just giving bad campaign advice as issues involving the maturity certain of the GOP golden boys have also been raised right here on these pages but the focus of my search was for Frontiersman Joe Cloyd and his long rumored no bid contracts with Mississippi DMR that morphed into a long term project.

You see folks normally you’d head straight over to the Mississippi State Transparency portal and pull up all the contracts by state agency and then locate the one you’re looking for – wham, bam, boom its done. But nothing connected with Joe Cloyd ever came up thus the issue became one of resolving the information imparted to Slabbed by sources in the Bolton Building Janitorial Department, an impeccable source of information on all things DMR without cluing the General in as to which sanitation engineer was leaking Slabbed New Media. Continue reading “Where’s Waldo Part 1: Hiding in the no-bid DMR Consulting Contracts that’s where”

Comment bump | Tidelandgate: Never a dull moment here in the Bay

Slabbed can add confirmation of Desdemona’s comment (edited):

Little fun fact for those interested… Good ole Rep Eure is REALLY good friends (like county club good friends) with the famous Miller Time. If my memory serves me correctly, I believe there was some kind of spat (not sure of the details) between Baria and a few employees of Marine Resources some time back (i could be wrong, yet it could have been a rumor) Eure being on the Appropriations Committee controlling money that is managed by Marine Resources… Coincidence? I think not. So, whatever shall we do with the remaining money boys? Same game, different players my friends…

In summary:

  • Rep. Eure is REALLY good friends with Jamie Miller, who is also very good friends with Joe Cloyd.
  • There was a confrontation between Rep Baria and DMR staffers
  • Rep Eure controls the house purse strings over DMR Tideland funding.
  • Rep Baria is currently on the bench in the State House as it is controlled by the GOP
  • Rep Baria and Bay Waveland School Superintendent Rebecca Ladner politicized the local public school district back in January with Ladner’s participation in the Democrat response to Gov Phil’s State of the State address, an action that continues to generate local criticism all these months later.
  • The City of Bay St Louis track record of financial mismanagement under the Fillingame Administration speaks for itself.
  • The Fillingame Administration removed the Harbor wave break from the State Funded Harbor design plans.  The pavilion at the Harbor where the bands play is super nice though.
  • BWSD Superintendent Ladner was recently rewarded for her actions with a new three year contract.

If this sounds like a FUBAR type situation to you, then we’re all on the same page.  And of course the people that suffer from the partisanship are the people that live here but that’s normally how it works.

In other news, Rep Baria’s replacement in the State Senate, Phillip Moran, the guy that Rep Baria tried putting under the bus in the early news coverage of Tidelandgate [Seacoast Echo story here] is on Tuesday’s City Council agenda: Continue reading “Comment bump | Tidelandgate: Never a dull moment here in the Bay”