Last week we broke the story “Council forfeits $3.3 million to protect Pomes and Bourgeois.” This week we are taking a deeper dive into exactly what was wrong with what the Council did in passing Summary 4245.
The Council’s passage of Summary 4245 didn’t just result in the Parish having to forfeit $3.3 million to protect Pomes and Bourgeois from losing the property they bought through the Buy and Build Program. Summary 4245 also gave direct financial benefits to several high-ranking government employees who were prohibited under the ethics laws from buying these properties to begin with.
Since at least June 30, 2014, the Parish has known that the employees of the Office of Community Development, the Office of Chief Administrative Officer, the Office of the Parish President, the Department of Public Works, the Recovery Department, and the Legal Department were prohibited by the ethics laws from participating in any auction and from purchasing any of the property owned by St. Bernard Parish that it had acquired from the Louisiana Land Trust (vis-à-vis the Road Home Program).
This is important because the sales through the Buy and Build Program making headlines now occurred in 2021. This advisory opinion was in 2014. So no one in the government can say they didn’t know. Take a look at the opinion for yourself.
Why is this important?
A review of the list of non-compliant buyers revealed the names of several other high-ranking Parish employees who appear to have been employed with the very departments who were prohibited by the ethics laws from purchasing any of these properties.
So it appears that these employees violated the ethics laws in purchasing these properties. We are refraining from identifying those employees by name until we get confirmation that these employees were employed in these departments when each of the sales occurred in 2021.
The Parish shouldn’t make us all wait for that confirmation. The Parish should come clean and specifically identify which employees violated the ethics laws by purchasing these properties. That would at least be one step forward in restoring the public’s trust and confidence in our Parish’s officials.
What did the Council do wrong?
Before voting on the ordinance to provide relief to the list of non-compliant buyers, Councilman Everhardt cautioned his fellow council members to take note of the names of the list. Take a listen for yourself.
Everhardt was apparently drawing attention to the fact that these Parish employees may have violated the ethics laws in purchasing these properties and to how the Council would be perceived if it passed this law giving additional financial benefits to several high-ranking employees who seem to have violated the ethics laws. Everhardt’s attempts to warn his fellow council members was, as expected, ignored.
How did the Council go so wrong?
First and foremost, the Council went wrong by not giving any consideration whatsoever to Everhardt’s words of caution. Everhardt was apparently trying to save his fellow council members from embarrassment, not to cause it.
Second, if the Parish thought that the prior ethics opinion did not apply for some reason, the Parish Attorney should have requested a new and updated ethics opinion before the Council introduced and voted on this ordinance.
Third, the Council could have insisted that Pomes, Bourgeois, and these other high-ranking Parish employees, acknowledge and agree to the claw back of their properties prior to the Council voting on this measure. That way, the fact that Pomes, Bourgeois, and other high-ranking employees were on the non-compliant buyers list would not have tainted the entire process to provide relief to these non-compliant buyers.
That the Council did not do any of these things should not come as a surprise. The Parish Attorney, Justin Stephens, failed both President Pomes and the Council by not obtaining a new and updated ethics opinion prior to voting on Summary 4245.
When you are about to do something that is going to get you into a heap of a legal mess and you look over at your attorney and see this… you should know you are in deep, deep trouble.
Stephens did not just appear disinterested in what was going on… the published ethics opinions database shows that Stephens did not obtain a more favorable ethics opinion prior to the vote.
In Stephens defense, it probably wasn’t possible to get a different ethics opinion. But that just means that Stephens should have chimed in, as he regularly does, and urged the Council to take additional time to consider the legal implications given the high-ranking employee names that were on the list. Stephens regularly offers his unsolicited legal opinion to provide some wacky legal basis to oppose many of Everhardt’s measures. However, on this particular issue, Stephens was strangely quiet.
Stephens was in a very uncomfortable position: Stephens should have stopped or at least slowed the process down, but he didn’t even try. That would have been especially difficult for Stephens to do under the circumstances.
Stephens is Pomes’ attorney. Pomes was a direct beneficiary of Summary 4245. Pomes also just gave Stephens a 55% raise amounting to an additional $45,000 per year. It would have been a sure sign of ingratitude for Stephens to hurt Pomes by putting a stop to Summary 4245, even if that would have ultimately saved Pomes from other legal trouble and embarrassment. Who needs enemies when you have an attorney like Stephens?
But Stephens is also Everhardt’s attorney. Stephens should have backed Everhardt up with the law when it came to certain names on the list, but he didn’t. It is difficult to understand how Stephens can adequately represent two clients who are in direct opposition to each other on many, if not most, issues.
What does the Parish need to do now?
The Parish has no excuse not to file ethics complaints against any and all of the high-ranking employees who may have violated the ethics laws in purchasing property through the Buy and Build Program.
We will wait and see if anyone in the Parish does the right thing. Be assured that we will report back to you on this soon!
