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Je vous écris pour vous announcer ma démission en tant que diréctrice de dévéloppement communitaire. Ma dernière journée de travail est 19 février. Merci à tous pour votre soutiens et assistance durant mon temps ici. Meilleurs v*ux.

I am writing to announce my resignation as Director of Community Development effective February 19th. Thank you for your support and assistance during my time here.

In his landslide victory speech Saturday night, Mitch Landrieu, 49, delivered a message about unity. It was a fitting call for New Orleans’ mayor elect, who earned extraordinary biracial support in defeating five major challengers in an 11-candidate field to win the primary. In May Landrieu will become the first white mayor of the majority-black city since his father Moon, who served from 1970 to 1978 and has been credited with integrating City Hall and working hard to appoint blacks to top positions, including his chief administrative officer.

“I think Mitch was the leading black candidate,” businessman Troy Henry, who ran second with 14 percent of the vote to Landrieu's 66 percent, told The Times-Picayune. In what has been described by the T-P as an “unusual and gracious move,” Henry showed up at the Roosevelt Hotel, where Landrieu delivered his victory speech, to congratulate his opponent. Landrieu welcomed Henry onto the stage, two men shook hands and embraced, and Landrieu raised Henry’s hand to loud applause from the audience.

Read Landrieu’s victory speech here.

The Saints have been good for the struggling newspaper business.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune’s Monday edition, plastered with a 5-inch-tall “AMEN” headline in honor of the Saints 31-17 victory over the Colts to clinch Super Bowl XLIV, is likely to be the 173-year-old paper’s best seller.

Ten hotels we checked in the warehouse district early this morning were sold out and awaiting more copies; the presses are continuing to roll. “We have been printing through the night and are continuing to print copies now to meet your demand. We appreciate your loyalty and patience on this great and exciting day for New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region,” The T-P wrote today. If you’re still in the Crescent City, here is a list of locations that should have papers available. Expect to wait in line.

Once again, Acadiana folks turned out in huge numbers at Academy Sports & Outdoors on Ambassador Caffery Parkway last night to buy Superbowl related merchandise, celebrate, and faithfully commune as the Who Dat Nation.

If you’re out on the west end of town this weekend, roll by Bourque’s Social Club in Scott.

On Feb. 5, singer-songwriter Shannon McNally, who recorded an album of Bobby Charles songs before Charles' death and recently opened up for Willie Nelson, will hit the stage at Bourque’s. On Feb 6, the club will host a benefit to help with funeral expenses for Mike Trahan (the horn player who recently passed away at Artmosphere). It’ll be from 1- 7 p.m. with Mike Dean, The Picardy Birds, True Man Posse, Julian Primeaux, and The Freetown Hounds. Later that night, The Roebucks will rock an entire night of Buddy Holly Tunes with “A Tribute to The Day the Music Died.” On Feb. 7, Joey Broussard and the Scott Hustlers will play after the the Scott Mardi Gras Parade from 1-3 p.m. And later than night, Trueman Posse and Horace Trahan hook up and play after the Super Bowl.

Fusing the energy of punk rock with the historical legacy of old time roots music ain’t nothing new, but it sure is entertaining in a most satisfying way. Who were the original punk rock hell raisers in the days of yore? Freaking hillbillies, that’s who. When they weren’t tending sheep, they were feuding with their neighbors, making moonshine, or chasing pigs. One band coming to town this weekend that is still carrying that hillbilly flame into the 21st century with hillbilly revival of great unknown is The Hickoids. Since the '80s, they’ve been banging out torch song hardcore and speedcore country. They kept it weird in Texas when Texas wasn't yet ready to get so weird. For that we salute The Hickoids. They play Artmosphere on Feb. 6 with Louisiana twang lords, Dash Rip Rock.

POSTHASTE WITH THE HICKOIDS
   
1. Life story of The Hickoids in 10 words...more or less. A decades-long hay explosion featuring down-home Tejas punks, expressing theyselves through “musics”
   









2. Ya´ll played a lot of killer shows over the years. Best/craziest gig ever? Impossible to really say. I remember a fantastic Valentine’s Day with the The U-Men in Seattle with the Butthole Surfers in front of a big crowd in LA. The shows with Loco Gringos back in the day...and many crazy times at the great Taco Land in San Antonio.
       


3. Worst gig ever?
Again, there are too many to enumerate! In El Paso after three songs and a major fight. And then being told you can take this $75 and leave now or continue and get nothing!
       
4. What are the top three things you’ve learned about the music industry in 20+ years? 
Thank god for Smitty (Hickoids singer who runs our business/label). Do it for love. Do it yourself.
       

5. What is one thing you never do in Texas while wearing a dress?
Insult a cop.
          

 

6. The coolest land mammal is the __________.
Kitty cat.

7. Jim Morrison claimed to have the spirit of an Indian Shaman living inside his “fragile, eggshell mind.” What lives inside of The Hickoids?
Unending supplies of fun, irony, and amazement.
 
8. Fill in the blank. Pat Robertson is _____________.
INSANE!  He’s really gone waaaay off the deep end now! Need I say more?    

 
9. Got any cool Big Boys (legendary Texas punk band) stories from back in the day?

Just remember the little children gathered around the feet of both Chris and Tim, who were more than happy to tell them specifically what music and behavior was “cool” and “right”. We had a great New Year’s gig this year with Chris and Gatesville over on the east side. It was wonderful at the Longbranch. I miss Biscuit, that’s for sure.

10. 2012. The next evolution of consciousness or blind date with disaster?
Every year be’s both, n’est ce pas? HEEEEEEEE-HAW!
   

It should have never been in doubt. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is dancing in the end zone, having put together a thrilling last-minute drive to score city-funded Super Bowl tickets. In case you haven't been following: Last week, it was fourth and long as Nagin, feeling a little insulted that he was only offered the option to buy tickets in the "nosebleed" section, was still looking for a decent seat at the game, and debating how to pay for them. He told WBOK's Gerod Stevens: "I just thought that as mayor of the city, I would go to the (Super Bowl) as a representative of the city and of the Saints, and it wouldn't be an issue."

It looked like a long field ahead, but Nagin stepped up his game. Reminding any doubters that he is a seasoned veteran, he told WBOK: "Some people seem to forget I come from the business environment. So I got contacts at ESPN, USAToday, you name it. So I'm going to work it out." That's when Nagin made a critical call to the Saints organization.

With the goal line in sight, the mayor fumbled, then recovered when a reporter asked who paid for the tickets. "I paid for them," he told WBOK's Stevens before correcting himself. "Well, the city paid for them because this is an official visit, a business trip." Touchdown, Nagin. And the extra point is good as NOLA taxpayers will also fund the mayor's securtiy detail for the trip.

President Barack Obama nominated Elizabeth Erny Foote, a Lafayette native, to be U.S. District Court Judge of Louisiana’s Western District, replacing retired federal judge Tucker Melancon. U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu recommended Foote for the position on July 31, 2009; the Senate Judiciary Committee must first confirm the nomination before it goes to a vote of the full Senate. No timetable has been set.

Foote is a partner at Smith Foote Law Firm in Alexandria, where she has practiced since 1979. She also served as law clerk for Judge William Culpepper, chief judge for the Third Circuit Court of Appeal. Foote is the immediate past president of the Louisiana State Bar Association. She earned her undergraduate and law degrees from LSU.

Though she was born in Lafayette and still has family here, Foote's family relocated to New Orleans when she was a pre-schooler. 

INDsiders might recall first reading about Foote’s likely recommendation by Landrieu in Peep Goat’s June 2009 column.

William Everett Nichols of Alexandria, president and owner of First Fidelity Mortgage Inc., was sentenced Thursday to six years in federal prison and ordered to pay $3.9 million in restitution for bank fraud. Nichols, 56, prepared fraudulent notes by forging signatures of borrowers, according to acting U.S. Attorney William Flanagan. 

Nichols pled guilty to bank fraud in November. The FBI investigation of Nichols and First Fidelity, dba Southern Funding, showed that Southern was involved in the mortgage lending business and provided mortgages to customers in central Louisiana. Sabine State Bank and Peoples State Bank, both of Many, provided credit to Southern for mortgages that were secured by customer notes pledged by Southern funding to the banks. Nichols also had private investors as a funding source.

Nichols forged signatures of borrowers and provided the fabricated notes as collateral. He is responsible for a total amount of loss to banks and private investors of $3.9 million. The case was investigated by the FBI and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexander C. Van Hook.

Thursday’s sentence was handed down by U. S. District Court Judge Donald E. Walter in Shreveport.

ESPN’s Scoop Jackson has the scoop on why you should be in New Orleans (where I’m heading) instead of Miami for the Super Bowl, with the exception of No. 4, as the Superdome isn’t open for the big game. And he left one reason out: New Orleanians may very well elect a new mayor in round one Saturday. That, too, is cause for celebration.

Read Scoop’s top 20 list here.

Here’s further evidence that the decision to give tax breaks to movie productions filming in Louisiana, and specifically Lafayette, has not been all for naught. Bullet Films’ House of Bones will play on the Syfy Channel on Saturday, Feb. 6. at 6 p.m. CST. Filmed entirely in Acadiana, with many instantly recognizable local sites, House of Bones is a fictional account of TV ghost hunters investigating a haunted house. Bullet films, a Lafayette-based (via Los Angeles) production company, cast two Acadiana residents, Lafayette Entertainment Initiative Director Marcus Brown and local musician Collin Galyean, to play major roles in the film. In addition, numerous other Acadiana residents were employed as production assistants, camera operators, grips, editors, and other technical postitions.

 Syfy channel schedule for Feb. 6

While elected officials and special interests from Louisiana are rallying behind the coastal initiatives included in President Barack Obama’s proposed budget, many of them are also opposing another section that increases the cost of doing business for oil and gas companies.

The administration’s fiscal year 2011 presidential budget contains $35 million for restoration projects sponsored by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, of which $19 million will go directly to construction. While coastal advocates stressed much more assistance would be needed in the future, the proposed line item was embraced practically down the line and on both sides of the fence in the Bayou State.

But Obama’s budget also calls for imposing roughly $40 billion in new and additional taxes on the U.S. energy sector over a 10-year timeframe. The bulk of the windfall would come from eliminating two accounting practices that have been in place since the first two decades of the 1900s: the percentage depletion of oil and gas wells and the expensing of intangible drilling costs.

Critics contend these changes would disproportionately impact independent oil and gas companies, which drill 90 percent of domestic wells and produce 82 percent of U.S. natural gas. “The elimination of these two accounting procedures would overwhelmingly impact smaller independent oil and gas explorers, not big oil,” says U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-New Orleans. “The result would be putting thousands more Americans out of work at a time when we should be creating, not eliminating, jobs. That is poor policy.”

Louisiana Department of Natural Resources Secretary Scott Angelle says the incentives have been critical to the financing of energy exploration for almost a century by helping companies manage the high financial risks involved in finding oil and natural gas. He adds that cutting back on drilling and domestic production would mean a decrease in supply and subsequent increase in cost for fuel, and estimates that every 50-cent increase in the price of gasoline means an extra cost to the nation’s drivers of $1.4 billion a week. “If we damage the economic structure that has allowed these new discoveries and sources of traditional energy we never knew we could reach before, then our potential for greater energy independence will remain buried underground,” Angelle says.

Barry Russell, president and CEO of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, says Obama failed to phase out the same tax incentives last year because small businesses were at the heart of the matter and because lawmakers recognized that the energy sector plays an important role in the U.S. economy. “One year later, that role is even more critical and apparent than it was back then,” Russell says. “Unfortunately, in his search for easy revenue, the president appears once again to be endorsing a series of tax changes that will result in fewer American jobs, less government revenue and a tightening of our already dangerous dependence on foreign, unstable energy.” He further says the changes would reduce investments in new U.S. production by 20 percent to 40 percent.

Some argue, however, that the proposed tax revisions would help the nation transition into a new economy. “With this budget, President Obama is starting to usher in a clean energy economy,” says Wesley Warren, director of programs for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group. “That means more jobs, less carbon pollution and a more secure nation.”

U.S. Rep. Charles Boustany, R-Lafayette (pictured left), a member of the tax-drafting House Ways and Means Committee, is opposed to the budget provisions. He says he asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to tell him how many jobs would be lost because of the proposed policy and Geithner responded in a letter stating that oil and gas tax preferences “encourage overproduction of oil.”

In response, Boustany offered up another question: “Does anyone really believe we have too much American energy production?” Boustany says he also inquired, in a floor speech, about how so-called “green jobs” would be created to take the place of those lost from less production and he received no answer.

In Louisiana, domestic energy exploration and production provides direct employment for more than 50,000 people. In Lafayette Parish, in the U.S. 90 corridor, more than 15,000 jobs are tied to the energy sector.

In addition to upholding the lower court decision that the Moss water intrusion case cannot go forward, the Third Circuit Court of Appeal dealt yet another blow to the Lafayette Parish School Board this week. The appeals court affirmed the July 2009 district court ruling that the sales tax division must return more than $443,000 in use taxes assessed to Scientific Drilling International Inc. for equipment stored in Lafayette Parish.

Houston-based Scientific, which paid the tax under protest, maintained that while the equipment was stored in the parish, it was used out of the parish and should not be subject to taxation. According to the Lafayette Parish School Board Sales and Use Tax Ordinance, argued Scientific, “only tangible property that is stored for use in the Parish is subject to the tax levy Ordinance.” The district court sided with Scientific last year, and the LPSB Sales Tax Division appealed.

In affirming the decision, released Wednesday, the Third Circuit panel agreed with Scientific's argument, noting that “the language of the Lafayette ordinance does not grant the authority to impose such a tax on property stored but not used in Lafayette Parish.”

Read the decision here. 

We find no merit to the position advocated by the School Board. Applying well-established jurisprudence to an analysis of this case, we find the School Board did not acquire the right to sue Corne-Lemaire until it discovered damage to N.P. Moss Middle School in 2007. ... As more than five years passed after Corne-Lemaire’s work was accepted by the School Board, the suit brought in 2008 was untimely.