Tudor, who had repeat bouts with cancer over the last 17 years, is perhaps best remembered for having been an owner or primary developer of several downtown Alexandria properties such as The Hotel Bentley, Jackson Place, The Commercial Building and the Diamond Grill restaurant.

Tudor developed or constructed many buildings in Alexandria and Pineville, among them the Alexandria Mall, the Rapides Parish Coliseum, the Cleco Headquarters, the Rapides Regional Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Tudor Hall and Guinn Auditorium at Louisiana College and the One Centre Court and Two Centre Court office complex in Alexandria.

On a personal note, I won’t remember Mr. Tudor simply as a real estate guy: He was a soft-spoken and straight-shooting businessman who shared his passion for building the future of his own community. He believed in the potential of Centeal Louisiana.

He was a good man, and he remained strong-willed and dedicated until the very end. Two or three weeks ago, I saw him driving down Jackson Street, more than likely after he had put in a solid day’s work at his office, despite his health.

My condolences to the entire Tudor family.

Central Louisiana will always be a better place because of Buddy.

One thing we learned after Katrina (actually we learned it after Ivan but chose not to act prior to Katrina) is that not knowing whom is in charge can lead to the most ultimate of detrimental effects.  In the same way, having too many chiefs creates nothing but confusion and bureaucracy and creates huge hurdles to development and effective management of scarce local resources.

New Orleans — the Carnival King of nepotism and who d’ya know is slowly taking the steps to rectify the mess that is their local government system. Combining levee boards (somewhat), assessors, sheriffs, etc will eventually allow them to operate more effectively and efficiently with great cost savings, unified visions, and streamlined governance.  If it can happen in NOLA, it can happen elsewhere.  We need to follow that lead in CenLA.

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I have made the argument several times before knowing in advance that the futility of such a proposal is likely to get little attention, but I think the levee situation is another time when this deserves mention:

We should REALLY consider developing a Metropolitan Government.

I was living in Lafayette when they first created their City-Parish Government.  At the time it was considered an impossible feat.  Too many local officials would become redundant, the various elected officials would never give up their power and salaries.  It would fail, blah blah blah.  Well it did happen, and it didn’t fail, and Lafayette has experienced phenomenal growth in the 15 years since they consolidated their governmental operations.

Baton Rouge has done the same.  Shreveport has done the same.  Basically, every metro area that has experienced economic growth and prosperity in our region has done so with a single government in charge.

That said, we can’t have a City-Parish government here.  We’re just too big, and too much of Rapides Parish falls outside the metro area.  However at the same time, parts of our contiguous metro area fall outside of Rapides Parish.  Jackson, MS has a metro government that governs space in two counties.  New York City covers several.  It’s not an impossible idea.

Alexandria Metropolitan Government

What we would need locally is a common metropolitan government where practical, and a parish-wide government with clearly defined and non-overlapping responsibilities where appropriate.  Certain things make sense for belonging to the Parish — roads, utility management (including things like cable, internet, phone, water, electricity, gas, sewer,etc), the penal system, parks & recreation, animal control, health, schools, etc.  These are things that affect people in Glenmora as much as they effect people in Pineville.  The community can only succeed with the residents of the cities sharing resources with the non-urban residents.

Then there are things that belong at the metropolitan level because they are metropolitan issues.  Fire, Police, urban planning, economic development, lobbying, attracting businesses, etc.  These are all metropolitan issues.  They are not individual municipal issues.  Alexandria cannot exist without Pineville.  Pineville cannot exist without Tioga. The prisons in Pollock employ the residents of Colfax.  Woodworth would not have any residents without Alexandria.  No one municipality in our metro area exists in a vacuum or bubble that allows it do operate without the cooperation of the others.

When they do try to play the role of independent fiefdom we see the repercussions.  Consider last year’s debate over the city of Ball getting its share of tax money from the Parish-wide coffers.  What was the primary argument that was missing from that debate?  The fact that almost all of those people who live in Ball work and shop in Alexandria — that even though they live in one municipality, they utilize the resources of another.  Again, there would be no people in Ball if they didn’t have jobs in Alexandria.  We are one community.

One community needs to speak with one voice.

The idea of restructuring our City and Parish governments is a daunting one, but the question really is what is NOT doing this costing us?  Well there are two levels of cost to look at — immediate and overall costs.  Immediately, having 9 (Alexandria, Boyce, Pineville, Tioga, Pollock, Ball, Lecompte, Woodworth, Creola) contiguous but fully independent municipalities means we have 9 full bureaucracies to fund.  We have 9 mayors to pay, 9 supervisors or (whatever), 9 directors of (again whatever), 9 chiefs of police, 9 fire chiefs, 9 water departments, 9 utility supervisors, 9 motorpool chiefs, 9… I think you get the point.

Not all municipalities are equal and some have more than their fair share of employees and expenses while others have fewer.  But the problem goes deeper than that.  In our metro area we have a plethora of Waterworks Districts, Fire Districts, Recreation Districts, Economic Development bodies, etc.  Every single one of those governmental entities requires people to run them, people to work for them, taxpayers to PAY for them.  When a company wants to open a business they have to first figure out which of these various governments they have to deal with, what are the local regulations, what are the taxes, forms, deadlines, contact numbers, etc.

Why do we need all of these bodies that do the same thing?  Why does Alexandria need a police department that is separate from Pineville?  Do Pineville and Alexandria criminals have a silent agreement not to cross the river?  Are they vampires and unable to travel across water?  Do Deville Meth labs only sell their drugs to people north of the Red?  If someone is at the Rapides Station exit and stands in Alexandria but shoots someone standing in Boyce, who arrests him?

Yellow Spots on a Map

Having multiple duplicated services is a pretty clearly observable immediate cost to not having a common government.  But economic development — rather missed development is the true overall cost.

When you are planning your travels, you look at a map, and generally draw lines between the big yellow spots on that map — the cities that intersperse our country and state.  Alexandria is a pretty decent sized city.  Yet, have you noticed we don’t have a big yellow spot?  Why?

Because when Alexandria is listed on a map, only the City of Alexandria is listed.  Pineville is counted separately.  Ball is counted separately, etc.  Taken separately, not one of our municipalities (of which there is not one inch separating us) are considered worthy of a yellow spot, and guess what?  Companies like to put their businesses, stores, restaurants, etc in those big yellow spots.

Together, as a single contiguous municipality we are as much a big yellow spot as Monroe, or Lake Charles, or Lafayette.

When was the last time you woke up and said “Wow, I’d sure like to spend a few days in Kings County” or “Wouldn’t it be great to take a trip to Staten Island?”  You probably haven’t, but you’ve probably weighed a trip to New York City.  NYC is made up of 5 counties, 5 boroughs, and several additional municipalities in the metro area.  Yet when they market themselves, when they set overall policy, when they attract businesses and events, they do it as a unified front.  But not us.

Why not us.  If anything we should at least consider this.

Step 1:  A government in name only

People fear giving up any local control.  And let’s be honest, many white flight areas fear black folks.  You see this in the forums on the Town Talk in which some ignorant area residents would have you believe the Alexandria Garden District is nothing more than Compton with a few extra trees.  This is of course not the case, but change has to come slowly and in easily digestible pieces.

Step 1 could be simply forming an Alexandria Metropolitan Government in which the mayors of each municipality take turns heading a metropolitan government commission.  Even if all they accomplish is getting the metro area on the maps as a signle big yellow spot, that’s something.

This government could also act as a clearinghouse for everything Cenla regardless of political division.  AND, they could consider areas where overlapping services just don’t make economic sense.  Perhaps study combining police departments, or combining fire departments, or water districts, or even jointly managing ball fields.  Together they could look at how they could better and more cheaply serve the citizens.

Step 2 would likely be making things more official, having area-wide police and fire commissioners, single voices directing holistic programs of government service.

Step 3 could eventually be a hybrid governmental system that effective serves and meets the needs of both our urban and rural residents without anyone carrying an undue burden or getting the shaft on funding.

The first step though is admitting that our current systems of governance are not serving us effectively and will not serve us in the ways we need them to in the long run.

Of the prestigious Louisiana Municipal Review.

FINALLY!

LB Scott Fujita said goodbye to the Saints and New Orleans on Sunday when he signed a free agent deal with the Cleveland Browns.

But Fujita didn’t leave before leaving a generous gesture with the Gulf Coast region. He’s donated half of his $82,000 in playoff winnings to coastal restoration.

“The people of this city and region have been so good to me and my family that we just felt strongly about doing something to protect the city we have come to love so much, ” Fujita says. “And helping on the coastal issue has been on the back of my mind since I first got here.”

We encourage you to read the rest of The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune column to gain insight into Fujita’s family and its experiences in The Big Easy during his four-year tenure with the Saints … too bad they didn’t keep him.

Yes, too bad they didn’t keep him. But what an incredibly thoughtful and selfless gesture. Scott Fujita will always be a Saint.

LEGISLATOR WANTS MORE DIVERSITY ON THE ETHICS BOARD

“State Rep. Rosalind Jones wants to get more racial, gender and geographical diversity on the 11-member Louisiana Board of Ethics.”id. “The board currently has two female appointees, one of whom is the only black member.” id.

While I am sure that someone who is Black must be qualified for the position, ethics among Blacks is usually a lacking character trait. I think that the Louisiana Legislature should devote more of its time on fixing our deplorable ethics laws in this state.

Representative Jones, who, I believe, is one of the best young leaders in our State, simply suggests that the Ethics Board should more accurately reflect the diversity of the State in which it serves, and Greg essentially dismisses the idea because he believes blacks “usually” lack ethics.

Mark’s my brother. He took the photo. Here’s my version:

It needs to be resolved, and this will require cooperation and an earnest and honest attempt to put personal politics aside and work together. And, however much of a good story it is, this won’t be resolved in the pages of the newspaper or on any single blog. It will be resolved when our elected officials and their respective governmental agencies unite around a feasible plan of action.

You can call me a “lap dog” or a “paid propagandist” if it makes you feel better. Doesn’t bother me.

I know, first-hand, how Mayor Roy is handling the problem, and frankly, I don’t understand why Police Juror Coco seems to be more concerned with generating attention to his blog and attacking the Mayor for occurrences beyond his control than in working with the City, in his capacity as an elected official representing a government agency with a real and immediate need to resolve this issue. (And for what it’s worth, I have never been paid or received a single penny to operate this blog, and I have never been ordered or instructed on what to post or what editorial direction I should take).

I also know, first-hand, that Mayor Roy’s schedule is almost always booked. For better or worse, the City of Alexandria is one of the biggest businesses in our region; it employs nearly 900 people. It’s responsible for maintaining an electric utility service to nearly 25,000 households. It’s responsible for a police force and a fire force. It routinely has to embark on major, multi-million dollar capital infrastructure projects. It oversees a Zoo, a Business Incubator, and community centers across the City. It runs youth programming and senior citizen programming and is tasked with organizing and producing numerous community events.

And it has to balance a budget.

The City is not responsible for the levees. It doesn’t control the levees. RRABB does. This is why FEMA’s letter was addressed to RRABB, and not the City. I covered most of this in Part One.

But the City had the resources to assist RRABB in the certification process, and it entered into a PAL agreement in order to provide RRABB with the engineering services they required to file certification documentation.

I’ve read the documentation. I’ve read the original report.

It seems that some people are missing the forest for the trees. Even if RRABB had hired their own engineer, FEMA would have still identified the same deficiencies. These deficiencies were not the result of any negligence on behalf of the City or a part of any “cover-up.” The report ITSELF documented those deficiencies. (To Rhonda Reap-Curiel, I am increasingly confident that the first deficiency was not unique to our situation).

To respond quickly to Greg Aymond:

It is true that the attorney for the local levee board doesn’t have anything to do with engineering data, but Jacques Roy, as the former lawyer for the levee board, has plenty to do with concealing the truth about our levees certification failure.

You are now wholly inventing conspiracy theories. And they are absurd.

FEMA certified our levees as recently as November of 2005, and it was supposed to be a ten-year certification. Mayor Roy was sworn into office in December of 2006, and these issues weren’t known until the end of December 2009. What, exactly, are you suggesting, Greg?

Jacques knew about the City’s deficient certification documents at last as far back as December 30, 2009, when he received the F.E.M.A. letter, and perhaps back until earlier that Fall. Jacques also failed to mention the 4 deficiencies stated in that F.E.M.A. letter and keeps mentioning sand boils as the only problem. Jacques also did not come out publicly on this crisis until F.E.M.A. and the Corps of Engineers held its first public hearing on the Rapides Parish levees on February 4, 2010.

What could possibly lead you to believe that the Mayor knew about a report months before it was even issued? Again, absurd.

I would also submit to you that I know, without any doubt, that although you didn’t hear the Mayor speak about this issue until a meeting made the local news, he had been working on this from the moment he received the notification. Where did the FEMA and Army Corps public hearing occur?

Do you understand there are alleged deficiencies within our bayous and that those deficiencies are not necessarily the same as those affecting the Red River (i.e. sand boils)?

And finally with respect to the differences between accreditation and certification:

I take offense to Lamar’s own ignorance and lies on this point. I clearly understood the difference between the two terms as can be seen by my post entitled “LEVEE TERMS & LAWS“.

I wasn’t talking about you, Greg.

And in response to Greg’s most recent post:

Fourth, Jacques was wrong on the parking lot at the pentecostals being the culprit in our levee system, as I have it on good authority that the parking lot in question is actually located at Rapides Regional Medical Center. Since Jacques was the former attorney for the Levee Board and it was his own City employees that prepared the documents showing exactly where that parking lot was located.

Fifth, Jacques claim that the information put out by these blogs is “incorrect”. I challenge Jacques to point out something that I have published as being incorrect.

Sixth, Jacques claim that the City of Alexandria was only helping the Red River, Atchafalaya & Bayou Boeuf Levee District still doesn’t satisfy why the City admitted in its documentation that our levees were deficient. Now that Jacques has been caught lying to us and failing to disclose necessary facts, we can certainly move on from here.

Seventh, Jacques admits that the bankruptcy proceedings brought by Capital One could hold the downtown hotel deal up. I seriously doubt that one of the most prestigious law firms located in several states and New Orleans doesn’t think that its position is the correct one, just like the City of Alexandria thinks that its position is right. Jacques, being a so-called lawyer himself, surely must realize that even if Capital One loses in the trial court, which isn’t a done deal yet by any means, has an absolute right to appeal a lower court ruling.

So Jacques, stop lying to the people of Alexandria about the information, which calls you to task on what you say, that can be found on these blogs.

Uh-huh, okay.

And now, onto Juror Coco:

Mayor Roy’s credibility takes another woeful swoon as he “shoots off” his mouth and shoots himself in his political foot, again. Having no factual evidence or proof while defying reality, the Mayor suggested I published stories about the Bayou Rapides Levee and a FEMA deemed deficient 350 foot parking lot. He’d rather concoct a fantasy or spread falsehoods than have evidence to substantiate juvenile braggadocio.

Mr. Coco, in today’s Town Talk, the front-page, above-the-fold story quoted you as follows:

One of the deficiencies was a 350-foot “opening across a parking lot” along Bayou Rapides that didn’t have the “adequate elevation freeboard.” According to FEMA, freeboard is the height of the levee above based flood elevation, and it must be a minimum of 3 feet.

Messages left with Susie Webb with the FEMA Region 6 public information office were not returned before deadline on Tuesday.

Coco said he had spoken to officials at FEMA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the city of Alexandria, and nobody seemed to know to which parking lot the letter referred.

“Does anyone know where this parking lot is?” Coco asked.

Brouillette offered a couple of suggestions, with the parking lot across Bayou Rapides Avenue from the Pentecostals of Alexandria being the most likely culprit.

“They never did identify where the parking lot is,” he said.

Brouillette suggested Coco again attempt to get an answer from the Corps or FEMA.

“I think it’s kind of odd that nobody knows where this parking lot is,” Coco said. “How can it be fixed if nobody knows where it is?”

I don’t think anyone would disagree; it’s baffling.

More from Mr. Coco’s blog:

He (Mayor Roy) mentioned an elected official/blogger who is out to politicize a situation. Well, since when does asking for the truth mean the same as politicizing? Who’s afraid of the truth in this case? Apparently this “mystery” parking lot is in a shroud of secrecy. I personally asked Mayor Roy February 24th about “THE” Parking Lot on Bayou Rapides. I also asked City engineer Mike Wilkinson, Mayoral assistant Ken Juneau, the Levee Board and FEMA officials. The best answer from the Levee Board was it’s either the Pentecostal or the Rapides Hospital parking lot. Why can’t anyone say for SURE? The QUESTION is not political, but not getting an answer IS. The mayor had a grand opportunity to identify the parking lot, but weakly replied that it’s so sad that the Town Talk gets stories from Blogs. But again that story has never been on THIS blog, until now. It’s with monotonous regularity the mayor spouts bogus information with zero proof or attribution. Perhaps the Mayor could use his “fat cat” budget to hire additional assistants to slow down out of control kamikaze policies.

The mayor’s animated briefing mostly involved convoluted defense of the Cleco Deal. Some often repeated phrases included, “our experts”, “good problem”, “complicated stuff” and the most used term “UH”. As the mayor continues attacking me, surely he can muster up the gumption to FAKE just a little credibility. Where is that parking lot and why doesn’t anyone want to talk about it?

I have difficulty understanding Mr. Coco’s prerogatives. Accusing another elected official of lying about an issue as serious as this should be taken seriously and rigorously backed up by facts. Signing in for a meeting doesn’t mean anything if you leave immediately after the opening remarks.

My challenge to him: Name ONE, just ONE, piece of “bogus information with zero proof or attribution” the Mayor has ever offered.

FEMA’s description of this particular deficiency was, obviously, vague. And it may have been vague on purpose. The question should be leveled at FEMA, not at the City.

Frankly, it’s patently disingenuous for Mr. Coco to suggest he is the innocent victim of a continual attack by the Mayor. When he was on KSYL Radio, he routinely used his air time to criticize the Mayor and the City, sometimes referencing Greg Aymond’s blog as a legitimate, unimpeachable source, and when the Mayor called in to counter, Mr. Coco continued his criticism on his blog. That is all fine and good. He has that right, of course.

But the thing is: He’s not your ordinary blogger. He’s an elected official, and he also represents the citizens of Alexandria.

During a recent meeting on the levee certification issue, The Town Talk snapped a few photos of Mr. Coco speaking personally to the Mayor. Almost immediately after those photos were available online, Mr. Coco lifted it from The Town Talk (which led to one of their infamous copyright letters; I’ve received one as well), and he added the caption, “So what’s it like being a one-term mayor?” Classy.

Mr. Coco blames the Mayor for his “firing” from an unpaid morning talk show host position on KSYL. I know, first-hand, that is ridiculous. The news caught the Mayor off-guard, and I know he actually lobbied for Mr. Coco to keep his position. Sure, as a fellow elected official, he wanted to ensure he and others had equal time and access to the federal airwaves in order to discuss, rebut, or refute Mr. Coco’s political opinions, but there was absolutely no plot or intention to remove him from his radio show. Mr. Coco was not an employee of the Mayor; he was an employee of Cenla Broadcasting. He wasn’t hired or fired by the Mayor; he was hired and fired by Cenla Broadcasting.

Mr. Coco’s accusation is bogus information with zero proof or attribution.

As someone who lived in Houston throughout most of Mr. White’s tenure as Mayor, I strongly believe in his leadership and encourage our Texan neighbors to support his candidacy for Governor.

Without naming nameless names, I think it’s probably time to clarify some of the absurdity currently being perpetuated by less than a handful of local bloggers.

Let’s get a few things straight:

1. The attorney for our local levee board cannot control and does not dictate FEMA’s or the Army Corps of Engineers’s national standards for levee accreditation or certification.

2. I know it may sound nuanced and “esoteric,” but accreditation and certification mean different things. Attacking someone for understanding the distinction only exposes your own ignorance.

3. The City of Alexandria does not own or control our levees.

4. In order to assist the Red River, Atchafalya, and Bayou Bouef Levee Board, the City entered into agreement in which it would use its own engineering resources to provide for the required federal reporting on levee structures within the City limits. (Apparently, this was treated as a two-year-old breaking news item today.) Believe it or not, engineering services are different than legal services. Crazy, huh?

5. Typically, the owner of the levees is responsible for providing for these reports. In an earnest effort to share taxpayer resources and eliminate duplicative spending, the City Engineer provided an honest and thorough report.

6. Based on the City’s own reporting, alleged deficiencies were identified. If this is some grand conspiracy, then where’s the cover-up?

7. These alleged deficiencies are not the result of negligence on behalf of the City; the allegations are a product of an independent assessment of structures owned and maintained by another governmental agency.

8. Instead of blaming others and pointing fingers, the only way we can resolve this outstanding issue is by working together, in a spirit of shared cooperation and respect. (You say you love Alexandria; prove it.)

I had no idea Holly made tamales, but they look delicious.

Click here to watch her video interview.