Friday, December 16, 2011

Baton Rouge: The Crime Cameras Sequel?

A rather interesting and contentious board meeting took place in Red Stick last Tuesday when EBR  District 3 Metro Council member, Chandler Loupe, grilled Mayor Kip Holden's CAO, John Carpenter, over the 2011 MMR crime camera contract.  Luckily, I got the video so...just watch this:



Kind of like watching this, huh?



Man...watch Loupe again...he's so angry he's literally shaking.  Carpenter is reduced to a mumbling fool and then actually uses the excuse that they were paying MMR's contract with discretionary funds....yeah well....that may be illegal too, John.

This is a classic ploy....in the eleventh hour a council is presented with a "do or die" situation where if they  don't extend a contract, or re-sign a specific company (MMR in this case) all services will come to an immediate end.  I saw this happen with the Coventry Insurance contract with OPSB back in 2004.  In fact, I'm going to name it, "The Eleventh Hour Scam".

For new readers to AZ, MMR is the company who took over all of Netmethods' (St. Pierre) contracts after Mark St. Pierre was indicted.  In return the company hired S2 Consulting, Stacy St. Pierre's company, for what I think was 20k a month according to a memo in the Camsoft lawsuit.  Now that's not illegal...these are private companies doing business with each other, they can hire whoever they want.

But where there's smoke there's fire and with MMR, it looks like there is a quiet inferno burning within EBR city government.  We already know Don Evans was wined and dined by Netmethods when he was the BR CTO but I have a hunch U.S. Attorney for the middle district of the gret stet, Don Cazayoux, may be about to pull a Letten.  How deep does this rabbit hole go?  I'm betting Mayor Kip isn't getting a lot of sleep these days.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like your term "11th Hour Scam." Another example of this was Nagin's scheme to let out multi-year garbage contracts a few years ago. He kept the Council out of the loop (I believe that Stacy Head and/or Midura even went so far as to file public records for the bids) until the last minute and then it became a crisis because the Council had to approve the arrangement or the city would be without garbage collection. These 11th Hour Scams are a subcategory of crises capitalism by which the 1% are screwing over the 99%.

Anonymous said...

"How deep does this rabbit hole go?" is a great question.

It seems to be an infinite regression. Louisiana politics is like a black hole.

These people who take the money, or who get contracts as apology presents for the hookers and blow they ignore (Miss. Stacey,I'm looking at you.), pay school fees, donate to charities, donate to their churches, etc.

Should these groups refuse the money of suspected crooks? Based on rumors and unproven allegations, however true those rumors may eventually prove?

Even if these groups do no wrong themselves, they end up with a problem, as they are dependant on their donors for funds to run their often good programs.

Mexico is coping with the narco elite whose money has gotten them in everywhere. It has subtly or not so subtly corrupted every social organization they have touched.

The sad part about the corrupt misuse of tax money is that it was initially collected to provide public services. Ordinary people pool money through their taxes to fund the common good.

If we scrapped all these programs and services, we would still have to work together to deal with the problems they were established to address. Societal collapse is no joke. Everyone (including the lunchbreak libertarians) gets hurt.

We've seen corrupt government departments and corrupt private contractors. The public vs. private debate seems to be a red herring. We're back to good vs. evil, no matter what model is officially in use.

Anonymous said...

No offense to him, but the name Chandler Loupe made me laugh.

It sounds like the name of a street in a fancy subdivision.

Somehow his name makes this whole story more engaging; reading your blog is like reading a serialized novel, right down to the interestingly named characters.

Anonymous said...

I believe that MMR is owned and/or controlled by Pepper Rutland, who was convicted of bid-rigging in the late 1980's.

Anonymous said...

MMR stands for Matthews, McCrackin, & Rutland.

James B "Pepper" Rutland

http://ftp.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/907/907.F2d.489.89-3526.html

http://174.123.24.242/leagle/xmlResult.aspx?xmldoc=19901396907F2d489_11287.xml&docbase=CSLWAR2-1986-2006

http://www.justice.gov/osg/briefs/1990/sg900304.txt

MMR
http://louisiana.construction.com/people/toplists/01_TopSpecialtyContr.pdf

Anonymous said...

One has to believe only a FOOL would write this:
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2011/12/19/ciber-passes-this-key-test.aspx
Maybe AZ readers might like to add some comments for this FOOL!

Anonymous said...

Related Party Transaction Policy?WTF...Someone, PLEASE AUDIT these A-Holes at CIBER
http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/62/62543/governance/TransactionPolicy.pdf

Anonymous said...

Bout the Great State and then some. 11th Hour Scam? Rabbit What?http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/pssst-wanna-buy-a-law-12012011.html

Anonymous said...

http://www.madcowprod.com/01112007.html

Anonymous said...

Lil girl posted the last link re:madcow...2007. Whoa mule!

I am in total shock when I thought nothing was shocking! CIBER head-honcho gets $80+ million in a tax kick-back with Merrill Lynch? Then has the balls to attempt a dismissal in federal court? Couple that with the YACHT, the mother-fuggin yacht!! CIBER & St.P love them some, but no yacht has the capacity for this amount of bullshit. Hell of a party...

Anonymous said...

Councilman/Attorney Chandler Loupe is worried about crime and crime cameras? That's a bit odd considering Chandler Loupe is representing Robert Cuff, a Naval Officer, who has been charged with sexual exploitation of children and other related and violent crimes against children.

Check out http://www.navytimes.com/mobile/index.php?storyUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.navytimes.com%2Fnews%2F2011%2F08%2Fnavy-cuff-cmc-faces-child-porn-charges-080511w%2F

Jason Brad Berry said...

How is it conflicting? It's apples and oranges. His defense of that guy has nothing to do with his character or his role on the metro council. If you don like the guy that's cool but this argument makes no sense whatsoever. If he has any interests in competing companies, to MMR then it's a conflict of interest.

Jason Brad Berry said...

Typing from cell so forgive grammar

Anonymous said...

A VERY unfortunate and tragic development for the Loupes. Their son was shot last night. The Advocate has the story.