News

Briefs 08/08/12

by Walter Pierce

Busted: Multi-Chem flack stymies opposition

Residents in north Vermilion and south Lafayette parishes who banded together to fight construction of a Multi-Chem chemical plant in the area are getting a taste of corporate guerilla warfare.

Busted: Multi-Chem flack stymies opposition

Residents in north Vermilion and south Lafayette parishes who banded together to fight construction of a Multi-Chem chemical plant in the area are getting a taste of corporate guerilla warfare.

Marcella Manuel, founder of Citizens Against Multi-Chem, tried recently to start a website for the group, but when she attempted to register the name CitizensAgainstMultiChem she found that virtually every variation of the web name had already been registered including on multiple domains such as .com, .org and .net. In effect, the straight-forward CitizensAgainstMultiChem (and CitizensAgainstMulti-Chem with a hyphen) web name is all booked up. No soup for you, Citizens Against Multi-Chem!

So Manuel did a little cyber-sleuthing and made a quick discovery at NetworkSolutions, a site that tracks domain name registrations: the telephone number listed with the registrations for the various CitizensAgainstMultiChem.com names is the direct line to Amy Griffin Reese's office. Reese is the Texas-based marketing director for Multi-Chem, a Halliburton subsidiary. We called the number and got Reese's voicemail. Further, the physical address listed with those CitizensAgainst registrations belongs, based on exhaustive documentation Manuel provided in an email to The Ind, to Reese's parents.

Although the Vermilion Parish Police Jury has granted Multi-Chem a permit to construct the plant, Citizens Against Multi-Chem continues its fight to prevent construction. The plant is a replacement operation for the Multi-Chem plant that exploded last year in New Iberia, just sayin'.

Citizens Against Multi-Chem doesn't have a website tied to its name, but it does have a Facebook page. - Walter Pierce

Boustany touts margin over Landry

U.S. Rep. Charles Boustany, R-Lafayette, is trumpeting an apparent wide lead in November's odd-man-out 3rd Congressional District race against freshman GOP Congressman Jeff Landry.

According to the results of an internal poll commissioned by Camp Boustany and conducted by pollster Glen Bolger of Public Opinion Strategies, the retired heart surgeon holds a 61-23 percent lead over Tea Party fave Landry in the 3rd. Tossing a generic Democrat into the Nov. 6 jungle primary - Louisiana scrapped its short-lived affair with party primaries and returns to the open primary system this year - Boustany's lead is only narrowly diminished: 56-20.

Boustany enjoys a 91 percent name recognition advantage over Landry, whom 68 percent of those polled recognized. In favorability, Boustany scored a 65-17 favorable/unfavorable rating; voters are cooler on Landry: 35-14.

The poll was conducted July 23-24 among 400 likely voters and has a margin of error of 4.9 points.

Boustany and Landry are expected to make their first appearance at the same venue on Aug. 17 when each is a scheduled speaker at Chamber Southwest's Legis-Gator luncheon at a Lake Charles casino. Aug. 17 is the final day to qualify for the November election.

Currently Boustany represents Louisiana's 7th Congressional District; Landry reps the 3rd. But the latter's district is being eliminated due to Louisiana's loss of one of its seven House districts, and his hometown in Iberia Parish is being absorbed into Boustany's 7th CD. The new district in southwest Louisiana, which largely mirrors Boustany's current district, will be called the 3rd CD effective Jan. 1, 2013.

Boustany is serving his fourth term in Congress. - WP