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Hannah Williams Steadham, 29, a resident of Morgan City, died Saturday, Feb. 2, 2019.
She is survived by her husband, Jeremy Steadham; and three daughters, Cheyenne, Fiona and Natalie.
Visitation will be Friday, 6-9 p.m., and Saturday from 9 a.m. until services at 11 a.m. at Hargrave Funeral Home. Private services will be held at a later date.
Kevin Verdun, 58, a resident of Patterson, died Monday, Feb. 4, 2019, at Tulane Medical Center in New Orleans.
Jones Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements, which are incomplete at this time.
SPECIAL OLYPMICS
The Donna Adams Memorial Special Olympics Track and Field Meet starts at 10 a.m. Friday, March 1, at J.C. Dry Stadium, Franklin High School. Athletes from St. Mary Parish schools participate. Public invited to cheer on the athletes.
CHILDREN’S GALA
Sponsored by Arise Women Ministry has moved the date from Feb. 9 to Feb. 16 due to a death in the family.
MT. ZION
Baptist Church, Morgan City, celebrates the Rev. Larry Frank Sr.’s 13-year pastoral anniversary at 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 24. Guest minister the Rev. Dr. Louis C. Clark, St. John Baptist Church, Berwick; Mt. Olive Baptist Church, Gray; New St. John Baptist Church, Napoleonville. Theme: “God’s Servant: Steadfast and Unmovable Regarding the Work of the Lord.” Public invited.
Shipbuilder Metal Shark has delivered a custom welded-aluminum pilot boat to the Brazos Pilots Association in Freeport, Texas.
The new vessel, “Brazos Pilot,” is a 64-foot by 19-foot Defiant-class monohull pilot boat designed by Metal Shark and built at the company’s Franklin shipyard.
This new pilot boat is intended to replace the pilots’ smaller, single-engine 40’ pilot boat, improving safety for crews while enhancing service to operators and providing around-the-clock service at Port Freeport.
Key operators who rely on the services of Brazos Pilots Association include Dow Chemical, Enterprise, Phillips 66, FLNG and BP.
Following a christening ceremony Jan. 31, the new vessel is now in service.
“The 64 Defiant Pilot employs a very stout, extensively proven deep vee hull for stable operation in heavy seas,” explained Carl Wegener, Metal Shark’s vice president of commercial sales.”Meanwhile, the decks, pilothouse, and belowdecks spaces are a showcase of modern pilot boat design.
"The entire vessel has been thoroughly optimized for pilots, with an emphasis on comfort, convenience, efficiency, and safety.”
Members of the Cajun Coast Visitors and Convention Bureau staff and board pose for a picture after the agency won a Louisiana Travel Association Louey Award as best such agency in its budget class. Shown are, from left: Christal Carter, office manager, Danny Donham, board member, Vanessa Spinella, sales director, Carrie Stansbury, executive director, Kim Walden, chairman, Sandra Marshall, secretary, and Regina Wiese Wheeler, Visitor Center supervisor.
Teche Regional Medical Center's Star of the Quarter for the Fourth Quarter of 2018 was named at a ceremony Jan. 30 in Café Teche. Employees were nominated by their fellow employees. They are individuals who take initiative to significantly improve patient, customer, and employee service. They also help to increase patient, customer, and employee satisfaction. The Star of the Quarter is Jerry Douget, RN, from the Emergency Department, shown with CEO Aphreikah Du-Haney West.
As January gives way to February, the three declared candidates for governor are building up their staffs in anticipation of the campaign to come.
Incumbent Gov. John Bel Edwards is shouldering the additional burden of having to juggle personnel in his own administration. For instance, his former deputy chief of staff, Richard Carbo, is now serving as the campaign manager. Linda Day, Edwards’ 2015 campaign manager, will be on staff as a senior advisor. Two other veterans from the 2015 race, media consultant Jared Arsement and GOTV constant Ben Jeffers, will be returning to their old posts.
The fresh faces over at Edwards HQ include pollsters John Anzalone and Zach McCrary, digital strategist Julie Ager and finance director Katie Penland, who comes to Team JBE from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. She’ll be working with Emilie Tenenbaum, who has handled the governor’s fundraising since 2016.
Congressman Ralph Abraham’s effort will be led by campaign manager John Vick, who perviously worked for U.S. Sen. John Kennedy and the Republican Party of Virginia.
Courtney Alexander, a former staffer for Abraham’s congressional office and U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy’s 2014 campaign, will be taking over as the campaign’s political director, while Bill Skelly and Causeway Solutions will be handling polling and data analysis. Lionel Rainey III will be Abraham’s general consultant, while fundraiser Allee Bautsch Gruenwald will be tasked with keeping the doctor’s war chest full.
Baton Rouge businessman Eddie Rispone has named Bryan Reed as his campaign chief. Reed was previously the deputy political director for U.S. Sen. Rand Paul’s 2016 presidential campaign. Sarah Harbison, who formerly worked for U.S. Sen. John Kennedy and Treasurer John Schroder, is the new political director, and veteran fundraiser Sally Nungesser will be raising money. Tony Fabrizio, who was the chief pollster for President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, will be crunching the numbers for Rispone, too.
Ruckerts Make BOLD Moves
After three years of running his own shop, BOLD Strategies, consultant Kyle Ruckert is expanding his portfolio again by adding his wife Lynnel and Andree Miller to the rolls. Both worked in the trenches for former U.S. Sen. David Vitter, alongside Kyle.
Lynnel spent the majority of her career on Capitol Hill, including an eight year stint as Minority Whip Steve Scalise’s chief of staff, and recently left her position in Attorney General Jeff Landry’s office. Miller previously worked for St. Jude’s before joining Vitter’s Senate staff and eventually working for Lynnel.
In addition to handling the Louisiana Committee for a Conservative Majority, BOLD’s clients include Landry, U.S. Sen. John Kennedy and Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon.
Political History: Where
dat? (The followup)
In the summer of 2001, the talks between the New Orleans Saints and the state of Louisiana seemed at an impasse. Owner Tom Benson and his executives wanted a new stadium for the NFL team, while the state wanted to find the cheapest way to keep the Saints in New Orleans.
The state’s lead negotiator was Stephen Perry, then-Gov. Mike Foster’s chief of staff. Through his contacts in Mississippi politics, Perry had found out about a series of clandestine meetings that Benson had with Gov. Ronnie Musgrove and U.S. Sen. Trent Lott in an effort to move the Black and Gold to the Magnolia State.
Musgrove and Lott had put together a formal proposal for large retractable-roof stadium and an accompanying development just off of I-10 in Hancock County. Benson and his executives had heard the final pitch from Mississippi officials just days before heading to a meeting with their Bayou State counterparts.
Perry, incensed at the idea that the Saints could be leaving, opened the meeting by telling Benson, team vice president Arnie Fielkow and the assembled teams of negotiators that he was well aware of the discussions over in Mississippi. “You’re not negotiating with us in good faith,” he said.
After a few more minutes of tense talks, Benson’s team, visibly frustrated and enraged, stood up and announced to the room that they were ending the negotiations with the state of Louisiana. “It was a very short meeting and it broke down quickly,” Fielkow told LaPolitics.
Perry then headed for the Superdome where he called a press conference and announced that the he Saints had walked out of talks with Louisiana and appeared to be inching away from New Orleans. While rumors had been bouncing around for months, Perry’s statements were the first official confirmation. “It would be a catastrophic mistake for the franchise on every conceivable level,” he told reporters.
Later that evening, Benson responded in his own press conference. “I’m particularly disappointed and frustrated by the allegations that the Saints have acted in bad faith during these negotiations,” he said, his voice rising with emotion.
After about a week of silence, tempers cooled and the two sides agreed to meet in Baton Rouge. While Gov. Foster had let Perry lead the talks, he sat in on this meeting, speaking directly with Benson himself. “The governor was pretty clear that a new stadium was going to be very difficult,” Fielkow said.
Leaving Foster and Benson, a small team of negotiators from both sides huddled in a small room. After some haggling, they worked out the framework of a deal. The state would pay the Saints $186 million over ten years to help supplement the team’s revenue. In return, the franchise would drop their demands for a new stadium.
The deal was overwhelmingly approved by the Legislature, giving the Black & Gold a permanent home (again) on Poydras Street.
For more Louisiana political news, visit www.LaPolitics.com or follow Alford and Rabalais on Twitter via @LaPoliticsNow.
How do you put a dollar value on the worth of a public official? How about this idea. Shouldn’t receiving any salary increase be based on results?
LSU football coach Ed Orgeron will pocket some $3.5 million this year, making him one of the highest-paid football coaches in the nation. He received such an enormous salary package based on results. It’s the old adage that you get what you pay for. LSU won 10 games
Should time and work be the only criteria in paying public employees? Why not pay the governor, the secretary of economic development, the superintendent of education, and across section of other public officials that directly affect our lives based on a scale of how well they perform and wha tresults they achieve?
Experimentation with performance pay in the public sector is on the grow. A New York City charter school is promising to pay teachers $125,000 a year, plus bonuses based on classroom and school-wide performance. Sure, this is a lot of money, but those in charge are looking for a significant increase in student performance levels.
Bottom line — results.
All of this aside, the heart of our query is about pegging the pay of the governor and his top assistants to performance. I would surmise that most voters in Louisiana would think it’s a good idea, but how do you do it? When you talk about results, it is certainly easier to define in the private sector. Results are measured in the stock price of a publicly traded company or by profit in any other company. The more the company makes, the more its managers can earn.
But can you create an accountability and production index in government? I think you can. This would be a challenge for key economists at Louisiana universities. Develop a formula that would give a “performance index.” Sounds difficult, but why not give it a try? If you take the economic figures below and compare them with other states,
Louisiana comes in 48th in the nation.
— Five-year Louisiana GDP annual growth rate 0.1 percet (third argest decrease)
— 2017 GDP: $207.9 billion (25th largest)
— Unemployment: 4.7 percent (tied, fourth highest)
— Annual employment growth: 0.4 percent (second- smallest increase.)
I suggest starting a Louisiana “misery index.
Go ahead and pay Gov. John Bel Edwards and his brain trust the big bucks. The governor should make $1 million a year. But this amount woul dbe adjusted by the misery index.
Right now, the index is high on poor growth and low on performance, so Edwards’ salary would be close to what he now makes: $125,000. Now this should just be the beginning.
As Gov. Edwards often tells us, future economic growth in Louisiana is tied to job skills through education. Therefore, we should build into the formula increases in high school math performance, elementary student test results, reduction in the state’s troubling pollution levels, and maybe the number of new movies that are shot in Louisiana each year.
Leave out the LSU national football ratings but include the student athlete graduation rates.
Finally, I would factor in consumer confidence. Are the voters getting tangible results? Are they happy with the performance of their top public officials?
If you own shares of stock, and have little confidence in your company investment, you simply sell the stock. The average Joe ought to be able to put in his two cents’ worth as to the value he’s getting out of Louisiana government. Get his opinion through a statewide poll and factor the results in to the performance index.
So to all the statewide officials, I say make your case and ask the salary level you think you are worth. But just like in the private sector, be prepared to defend the bottom line. The proof of course is in the pudding. Be accountable for the results that take place. And if you succeed, reap the benefits.
In ancient Rome, there was a tradition when major projects were built. Whenever a Roman engineer constructed an arch, as the capstone was hoisted into place, the engineer assumed accountability for his work in the most profound way possible.
He stood under the arch.
So pay these pied pipers of change and economic growth the big bucks they say they are worth. But keep them directly under the arch of performance, and let voters know there will be a day of reckoning if this promise of change and results plummet to the ground.
Peace and Justice
Jim Brown
Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all of his columns at www.jimbrownusa.com.
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