INDReporter

The rift that keeps on giving

Pat Cooper

It’s been nearly a month since the Lafayette Parish School Board canned former Superintendent Pat Cooper, but, lo, the acrid scent of enmity continues to clog the Hub City’s collective nasal passage.

The local dailies are reporting that the board voted Wednesday — by that now-familiar 7-2 margin — to counter-sue Cooper in state district court seeking expenses he authorized beyond the contentious 2014-15 budget over which the two sides sparred during late summer/early fall; Cooper’s refusal to adopt that budget, which he later unsuccessfully challenged in court, was one of the charges on which the board voted to fire him. The advocate pegs those additional expenses at more than $1.5 million.

The board, according to The Advertiser, also voted to appeal a district judge’s ruling that it must make public the investigative report filed by board-hired attorney Dennis Blunt that formed the framework for Cooper’s dismissal.

In case you missed it: Cooper was IND Monthly’s “Newsmaker of the Year.” Click here to read why.