Tag: Jefferson Parish Councilman John Young

I’m the FIRECHIEF ding ding ding ding ding.

Folks there is reality and then there is reality.  Reading Rich Rainey’s 2:36PM story on the firing of East Bank Fire Chief Paul Smith you’d think Young just made up his mind on this and really does not have anyone in mind to replace Smith, the guy who did the repair job in the aftermath of a Deano Bonano’s hatch job on the department for those of you keeping score. (Whew that was a mouthful!)

I’m a Mississippi guy and over here we like our fire personnel to be trained and professional.  Not that long ago for example the City of Gulfport hired a new Chief whose credentials speak for themselves.  There are just some jobs where politics should be kept to a bare minimum IMHO.

Here at Slabbed we’ve known that Mr Smith was a dead man walking literally for a month, maybe more in fact and that his replacement is Joe Greco, a Young campaign supporter who was hired because he was a Young campaign supporter. Greco reportedly has harbored fantasies of being the fire chief for quite some time.  This gives him something in common with my then 3 year old son, who would watch one of his big trucks videos and then run around the house with his fire hat on singing the words in title of this post.

2 other staffers that I will not name also got the axe today as well.

Something tells me the firefighters union won’t be real happy with this turn of events.

I now return you to our regular programming.

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Peggy Barton: Wilkinson’s Continuing Legacy of Arrogance and Incompetence to Further Facilitate Corruption Part II: Council Votes in Violation of Jefferson Parish Code of Ordinance 23-132.1. A Guest post by Whitmergate.

Having Capella vouch for Barton was not exactly what I was expecting or hoping for. And I would venture to guess that his trite comment did not assure anyone that the Parish Attorney’s Office had been purged of the decadent influence of Tom Wilkinson. This snippet from the Times-Picayune story Jefferson Parish Attorney Tom Wilkinson resigns by Paul Rioux illustrates:

Despite the upheaval, parish officials said the law department remains in capable hands.

“I have full confidence in Peggy Barton,” Councilman Tom Capella said. “We’ll continue moving forward doing the people’s business.”

Of course Capella in referencing the “people’s” business, most likely means his people: his family, cronies and contractor, consultant, lawyer campaign contributors. That would account for his “confidence” in Peggy Barton to carry on Wilkinson’s legacy of facilitating the corruptive conduct of those she depends on to keep her job.

My question to Mr. Rioux: What “upheaval” are you imagining? Barton is Wilkinson…where have you been! Haven’t you been covering the “Gretna Mentality” circus over on the west bank for several years now? Sorry, but your thinly veiled attempt at comforting the citizens of Jefferson Parish announcing that the appointment of Peggy Barton as Parish Attorney would somehow suddenly invest that office with professional competence and ethical standards failed miserably. Continue reading “Peggy Barton: Wilkinson’s Continuing Legacy of Arrogance and Incompetence to Further Facilitate Corruption Part II: Council Votes in Violation of Jefferson Parish Code of Ordinance 23-132.1. A Guest post by Whitmergate.”

I hate it when blogging gets in the way of work: Some transparency over at the Picayune sure would be nice.

LA State Senator Julie Quinn

Bunhare gets the hat tip in comments concerning a Brendon McCarthy story on a gun going off at Galatoire’s during lunch on Friday. The comments to the story identified the shooter as Louisiana State Senator Julie Quinn, current squeeze of Jefferson Parish President to be John Young.  I checked in on the story a time or two myself and noted a couple of the early comments were deleted. The story attracted over 130 total comments as of 6ish AM this morning. 

I mention this because Whitmergate sends this via email: 

I just went to the NOLA story and 23 posts have been removed all having to do with Young/Quinn…only one remains 

I took a peek and sure enough the axe indeed fell on McCarthy’s story, which did not identify the owner of the gun which was reported to have accidently discharged. 

I’ve had journalists tell me privately they do not read the comments to their stories and I think I remember Jarvis DeBerry writing same in an OpEd he wrote not that long ago. Coming from the finance boards at places like Yahoo, I’m a firm believer in the Predictive Value of Stock Message Board Sentiments so I read the comments, even the ones from the many idiots who post newspaper story comments. There are lots of idiots on the stock boards too so I can speed filter to the discriminating bloggers.  Ironically after Bunhare first posted with us I noted this person as a quality Times Picayune poster applying these concepts so I guess it is only natural Bunhare would give us the tip on Quinn.  Great minds obviously think alike.  😉 

So what do we know at this point: Continue reading “I hate it when blogging gets in the way of work: Some transparency over at the Picayune sure would be nice.”

Jefferson Parish news miscellany. Another Wilkinson in print. Cock-up before conspiracy? Providence Engineering now in the game.

A reader sent me this link to a Mark Waller story late yesterday afternoon with a simple observation.

???

The question of course, regards Terri Wilkinson, assistant planning director in Jefferson Parish.

We’re normally not the type of place that would drag the families of disgraced, soon to be indicted former Parish employees into the mud gratuitously but with Tom Wilkinson in law Nancy Cassagne running West Jefferson Medical Center despite a complete lack of qualification and given that Terri likely would have fallen under Tom’s special friend Debbie on the old organization chart makes this topic fair game IMHO.

Speaking of Tom Wilkinson I wonder if he ever figured out the extent to which he was despised in the Yenni Building.  I’ve had several current parish employees tell me of Tom’s fondness for calling department heads into his office for the singular purpose of shouting at them for kicks.  Asking the victim/employee to shut the door behind them after he was done cursing them I’m told Wilkinson would then giggle at the pointless dressing down he laid on his hapless victim. Continue reading “Jefferson Parish news miscellany. Another Wilkinson in print. Cock-up before conspiracy? Providence Engineering now in the game.”

How about of video of Marnie Winter's "explanation" of the background check done by the Parish on MSW Resources and its owner Bryan Griesbach. Plus allow me to introduce the Wino to the Slabbed Nation

Marnie Winter oversees Environmental Affairs for the Parish and was part of the evaluation team on the River Birch contract. Skip to the 4:00 in the video and see if councilman John Young gets any sort of straight from Marnie before Theriot jumps in. I again note how Waste Management is the boogie man in the room, not River Birch which is rumored to be owned by several area politicians. In this strange world it is not a conflict for Bryan to have paid to play with the Parish when he was overseeing IESI’s business dealings.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9kQQhsOMyE]

Of course we now know all about Bryan Griesbach and the local rats that associated with his former employer. This brings us back to the person that ends up with egg on their face Miss Marnie Winter. Unslabbed described Winter this way: Continue reading “How about of video of Marnie Winter's "explanation" of the background check done by the Parish on MSW Resources and its owner Bryan Griesbach. Plus allow me to introduce the Wino to the Slabbed Nation”

Jefferson Parish News Miscellany: Ethics and self serving idiots dominate the headlines

While I was circling back through the Times Picayune’s coverage of Team Theriot dropping their lawsuit against the blogosphere I ran across an update of an update on Rich Rainey’s original report on team Theriot dropping the lawsuit against the Blogosphere. I’m linking that expanded report today as I’m no longer leaving aside the fact that every time John Young opens his mouth a turd falls out as he evidently suffers from a bad case of bullshitites. Rich nails it:

Young said Tuesday he was unaware Alessandra had filed the lawsuit until reading news media reports about it. He supported its dismissal.

“I think that’s the correct and proper thing to do,” Young said.

But other council members have said they learned about the suit in an executive session before it was filed and understood it to be part of a parish investigation of one or more employees….

Is John sleeping on tower or does the gang need to spend more time getting their lies straight?

Next up is ethics in Parish government. Ok, stop laughing long enough to visit with this recent story also by Rich Rainey on the new ethics panel over at Yenni: Continue reading “Jefferson Parish News Miscellany: Ethics and self serving idiots dominate the headlines”

Gentleman start your attorney! Phil Bryant may not smell oil on the coast but the bar smells money. Slabbed updates the Oil Spill.

This post has a little something for everyone as the media frenzy on BP’s little mess is exceeded only by the feeding frenzy of the legal profession as seemingly every ambulance chasing lawyer in the nation has descended upon the Gulf Coast like a swarm of locusts. And we have some video for those folks that are wondering what the heck Jefferson Parish Council at large members John Young and Tom Capella are doing these days besides suing the blogosphere as it appears they are hunting a new washed up celebrity to pal around with as their boy Steven Seagal is currently out of the picture (due to recent accusations involving making a staffer his sex slave during filming of reality TeeVee show). Well, either that or they are cuddling up with the managing partner of Wendell Gautheir’s old firm, John Houghtaling, hoping they can finagle a redo of the Pan AM Flight 759 crash from 1982 when then Kenner mayor Aaron Broussard managed to steer the boys at the Gautheir firm the lion’s share of the after crash legal work. Lets begin with this Channel 4 video of a washed up Kevin Costner, the gang from Jefferson Parish and Costner’s contraption which he claims will cure the slick:

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more about “New Orleans News, Local News, Breakin…“, posted with vodpod

So with much of the gang in Jefferson Parish accounted for let’s shift over to New Orleans City Business and Ben Myers who covered the attorney problem a bit over a week ago: Continue reading “Gentleman start your attorney! Phil Bryant may not smell oil on the coast but the bar smells money. Slabbed updates the Oil Spill.”

Young at heart – well, not exactly, but… Jefferson Parish felt the heat, Young claims to have seen the light on Public Records

Val Bracy had the story – Public records bill under fire from councilman – but,I’m not so certain Jefferson Parish Councilman John Young, or anyone on the Council for that matter,  really understands the concept of open government.  Young’s proposed resolution is a step in the right direction but it should not take heat for any elected official to see the light on open public records:

The Jefferson Parish council is expected to undo a controversial step it took at its last meeting. The council voted in favor of having the parish’s legislative delegation sponsor a bill that would make changes to state public records laws.

On Wednesday, Councilman John Young will introduce a resolution rescinding the council’s support.

“I think there was some communication and some misinformation. Obviously, it was our understanding, or my understanding, that the US Attorney had a problem with the grand jury subpoenas. I’ve since learned that that’s not a problem,” said Young.

While Young “makes nice”, Senator Danny Martiny offers an excuse that only a Parish-puppet would let come out of his mouth: Continue reading “Young at heart – well, not exactly, but… Jefferson Parish felt the heat, Young claims to have seen the light on Public Records”