No one that lives, works or conducts business in Jefferson Parish is immune as this story posted last night on the Times Picayune’s website by Becky Mowbray illustrates:
Arthur Sterbcow, the public face of the largest real estate firm in New Orleans, was terminated as president of Latter & Blum, Inc./Realtors Tuesday for providing information to The Times-Picayune about assessment values and home prices in Jefferson Parish for a story published on Sunday.
The information, known as broker price options, showed a 14 percent gap between home sale prices and property tax assessments made by Jefferson Parish Assessor Lawrence E. Chehardy.
Going in, seasoned Jefferson Parish observers understand it takes a certain amount of testicular fortitude to report the story. The lack of sack exhibited last night on Fox 8 about Debbie Villio’s political fund-raiser illustrates that fact. When it comes to getting out the story, the local media becomes an enabler when they bow to threats and intimidation. I suspect that is why Jim Brown opined during my short interview with him last Friday night on WJBO in Baton Rouge along the lines that it takes a Mississippi guy to blow the lid off the corruption in Jefferson Parish as we continue: Continue reading “You speak out and we break your legs. The Jefferson Parish way of doing business via fear and intimidation on display as Latter & Blum fires Arthur Sterbcow.”