Tag: Jefferson Parish Deputy Chief Operating Officer Richard Hart

Adventures in Jefferson Parish Leadership Fails. John Young and his ghosts plus Barry Bordelon sticks the tab on the taxpayers plus Sheriff Noodles on hot seat

Whew folks that is a mouthful! I am pleased to announce Slabbed will remain on the Jefferson Parish beat as there is never a dull moment in the “aorta of corruption”! First up is Parish Prez John Young.

After studying this millage renewal thing for a few weeks I now draw 2 conclusions:

  1. There is a critical mass of people that will not vote for any new taxes for the local politicians and their cronies to squander and loot. (See below)
  2. Last week’s emergency council meeting on the failure of the Jefferson Parish water and sewer millage renewals, disgraceful as it was with all the itinerant grandstanding, is mostly John Young’s fault.

Say what?  Is Slabbed blaming John Young for the defeat of the renewals?  No.  His fault is a lack of leadership. Clancy DuBos explains for Gambit:

Instead of admitting he dropped the ball, which is what a real leader would do, Young repeatedly tried to deflect blame onto others, including the parish’s bond counsel. He also claimed that his administration mounted a bona fide effort to educate voters about the millage. That was simply untrue. All in all, Young’s performance during and after the “campaign” was a classic, and classless, display of political cowardice.

Drop the ball or not Young threw his own people under the bus last week. Bad form, very bad form indeed. Speaking of bad form even John Young and Clancy DuBos would be forced to admit I called this whole Richard Hart disaster from wayyyyyy far back. Let’s review with this snippet from my first post on the topic:

Next up is deputy chief operating officer Richard Hart. Hart, John Young’s #3 man in the Parish pecking order came to the Parish from his gig as executive director of the state Department of Agriculture and Forestry and is credited for helping pick and poach Chris Cox from the US Attorney’s office for the #2 spot in Team Young. I mention Hart because some of the birdies are telling me he is the new administrator that most reminds them of Tim Whitmer in terms of being a ruthless snake in the grass. The birdies tell me that Hart has a checkered background that makes him a most worthy candidate for further exploration here on Slabbed so I’ll float the balloon and see if our readers can fill in some blanks.

And then less than a year later Slabbed broke the bad news: Continue reading “Adventures in Jefferson Parish Leadership Fails. John Young and his ghosts plus Barry Bordelon sticks the tab on the taxpayers plus Sheriff Noodles on hot seat”

OK who squealed Part Deux: Channel 6 picks up coverage of the report on the turmoil in the senior ranks of the Young Administration

You guys may remember that Slabbed broke the story about former Jefferson Parish Deputy COO Richard Hart causing a ruckus  in the senior ranks of the Young Administration with his boorish behavior towards women.  Then we covered who squealed to the media in Councilman at large Chris Roberts, a man with a purported need to see himself on the TeeVee regularly. Finally we covered Hart’s weekend departure from Jefferson Parish Government which supposedly brought this saga to an end.

I mention all this because Tom tipped us in comments yesterday evening that Travers Mackel at Channel 6 ended up with a copy of the supposedly confidential report prepared by Parish consultants on Hart, albeit a redacted version, and yes Virginia, all the bad things that were said about Hart’s workplace treatment of women were evidently true. Let’s review:

The report found that “several employees interviewed described the organizational climate as very intimidating and (one of) low morale.” Individual names are redacted, and the parish administration considers the investigation a personnel matter. Parish officials said they would have no comment and declined to answer questions regarding the investigation and its findings.

The initial complaint, according to the report, came from a female manager who raised concerns that Hart had created a “rude, demeaning and hostile workplace environment.” Among the specific incidents that are cited: Continue reading “OK who squealed Part Deux: Channel 6 picks up coverage of the report on the turmoil in the senior ranks of the Young Administration”

OK who squealed? Channel 6 picks up coverage of the turmoil in the senior ranks of the Young Administration

What can I say folks except that I was taken to the woodshed yesterday over my post on a supposed harassment lawsuit filed by John Young’s CAA Heather Hilliard against Deputy COO Richard Hart.  Now the person that registered the complaint to management at Slabbed did so very nicely and I appreciate that. The person pointed out 2 things:

  1. This is supposed to be a confidential personnel matter.
  2. It was leaked to Channel 6 in order to make John Young look bad.

Naturally this made me think about who in their right minds in the chain of command would leak a confidential investigation to Channel 6 and the community (I got my tip from people outside Parish Government)? I think we can narrow down the list of suspects but first let’s get the skinny from WDSU:

The Jefferson Parish Council has called a special executive session for Wednesday in hopes of learning details about an internal investigation involving a top-level member of the administrative staff, the WDSU I-Team has learned. Continue reading “OK who squealed? Channel 6 picks up coverage of the turmoil in the senior ranks of the Young Administration”

How about a bit of workplace gossip from the Hive…..

Two quick notes from the birdies that have been chirping about the recent goings on at the Yenni Building.

The first is Peggy Barton and her new job in HR, taking over for Junior Mendoza.  Junior was let go along with Jimbo the Clown’s brother Clem Donelon a couple of weeks ago by Team Young in a move that flew under the radar.  Young is proving adept at manipulating the bureaucratic chess pieces and I’ll add there are still senior administrators on staff that are dead men walking at Yenni.

Back to Ms Barton, I opined in comments to the HR post that the only reason Ms Barton was on staff at all was a sense of gratitude for her stepping into the breech for the soon to be indicted Tom Wilkinson.  Our readers universally do not like the fact Ms Barton is employed by the Parish period given her proclivities to play around with public records responses. I hear from the chirping birdies that the feeling is somewhat mutual as Peggy sees her transfer to HR for what it is: a demotion.  I’ll add with Barton now in HR her ability to massage certain critical records is also now at an end.  New Parish Attorney Deb Foshee does not have a vested interest in protecting Barton that I can see but Foshee’s own track record with public records is frankly very bad, as we’ll explore in a future post.

Next up is deputy chief operating officer Richard Hart. Hart, John Young’s #3 man in the Parish pecking order came to the Parish from his gig as executive director of the state Department of Agriculture and Forestry and is credited for helping pick and poach Chris Cox from the US Attorney’s office for the #2 spot in Team Young. I mention Hart because some of the birdies are telling me he is the new administrator that most reminds them of Tim Whitmer in terms of being a ruthless snake in the grass. The birdies tell me that Hart has a checkered background that makes him a most worthy candidate for further exploration here on Slabbed so I’ll float the balloon and see if our readers can fill in some blanks.

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