If you are just joining us, make sure to start with Part 1 of this story: Corruption with the Buy and Build Program.
On March 5, 2025, the Council voted 6-1 in favor of Summary 4245 to provide relief to 159 non-compliant buyers under the Buy and Build Program.
Who benefited from Summary 4245?
The list of non-compliant buyers has never published. Naturally, that leads us to ask, why wasn’t that list ever published? The Council members who voted on Summary 4245 all had the list of names. Why didn’t the Council want the public to see the names on this list? Because they didn’t want you to see some of the names on the list.
Now that we have obtained a copy of that list, courtesy of Councilman Everhardt, we now know the reason: Louis Pomes and Donald Bourgeois were two of the non-compliant buyers.
You may be familiar with those names.
Louis Pomes, Parish President
Donald Bourgeois, III, Chief Administrative Officer
Who was tasked with ultimately overseeing the Buy and Build Program? First and foremost, Donald Bourgeois, III as the Chief Administrative Officer. Second and most importantly, Louis Pomes as the Parish President.
It should now be immediately clear why the Parish was not enforcing the rules under the Buy and Build Program.
There are other names of interest on the list, some of more interest than others, but none of as much interest as Pomes and Bourgeois. You can take a look at the entire list by clicking on the link below.
Why were Pomes and Bourgeois deemed to be non-compliant?
The Buy and Build Program required each buyer to complete a single family dwelling within one year of the sale. Each buyer agreed to these requirements in the sale documents. Let’s take a look at those restrictions.
Pomes bought his property on April 21 , 2021 but never built on the lot
Bourgeois bought his property on March 29, 2021, but never built on the lot.
What was this going to cost Pomes and Bourgeois?
Pomes paid only $10,000 for an oversized lot in lower St. Bernard. So, Pomes’ failure to comply with the program rules should have resulted in Pomes forfeiting his $10,000 purchase price and the property reverting back to St. Bernard.
Bourgeois paid only $38,000 for his double lot in St. Claude Heights. Bourgeois’ failure to comply with the program rules should have resulted in Bourgeois forfeiting his $38,000 purchase price and the property reverting back to St. Bernard.
Six of the council members apparently could not let this happen!
As we previously reported in “Corruption with the Buy and Build Program,” the process to provide relief to non-compliant buyers was so secretive and so rushed, that something suspicious must be going on.
And now we can see why. The Council apparently didn’t want to pass an ordinance just to give Pomes and Bourgeois relief because that would be too obvious. So it seems like the Council had to provide relief for everyone else who failed to comply with the program. That way, the Council could claim that they weren’t doing this only for Pomes and Bourgeois. So the Council voted on March 5, 2025 to forfeit $3,257,400, presumably so that Pomes wouldn’t lose out on $10,000 and Bourgeois wouldn’t lose out on $38,000.
A brief aside is in order: The amount forfeited by the Parish may be even way higher. We had received information from multiple sources that the Buy and Build Program provided for a 35% discount to account for the building restrictions under the program. After we began reporting on the Buy and Build Program, the Parish Attorney, Justin Stephens, came forward to dispute that there was a 35% discount applied to the fair market value of these lots in light of those restrictions. We have made multiple requests to multiple officials in Parish government seeking to clarify this issue; however, we have not received any clarity on whether a discount was applied to any of the sales under this program. If such a discount was applied, that would raise the amount forfeited by the Parish to $5,037,230 so that Pomes wouldn’t lose out on $10,000 and Bourgeois wouldn’t lose out on $38,000.
In order to get away with that, the list of non-compliant buyers had to remain a secret until the votes were cast and no one could entertain any discussion of the ordinance when it came up on the agenda. And that’s just what happened.
Let’s take a look at how each council member cast their votes.
Admittedly, this was a bold move. What Pomes and Bourgeois did was bad enough. For the Council to try to cover this up for Pomes and Bourgeois brings this to a whole new level. This whole cover up makes it hard to deny that Cusimano, Moran, Meyer, McCloskey, Randall, and Mones are all corrupt. Corruption is the right description insofar as it appears that the Council used their power as elected officials to extend benefits to their political friends. The Council members who voted for this may think that there was safety in numbers, but it will be the public that ultimately makes that decision.
What is this going to cost the Parish?
The simple answer is no less than $3.3 million and perhaps as high as $5 million. A quick review of the list of non-compliant buyers shows that the list consists of 159 properties sold for $3,305,400, and that may have been after a 35% discount. And that was the value of the properties back then. The total value of all of these properties is probably way higher today given how much property has increased in the last few years.
Please stay with us while we continue to dig into all of these issues.
