Sketchy Government Contracts All Over
by Stephanie Grace - Times-Picayune (excerpt)

Can we all finally agree that the public has the right to know who benefits from government contracts? And can we at last dispense with this ridiculous notion that public officials who earn cash or benefits from those who do business with government deserve privacy? Can we instead agree that the opposite is the case, that it's the citizens who deserve the right to follow the money, so they can decide for themselves whether their interests are being protected? It doesn't seem like much of anybody was looking out for the public when parish-owned West Jefferson Medical Center's board awarded an employee insurance contract to a vendor that secretly split the commission with a firm owned Tim Whitmer, the parish's $190,000-a-year chief administrative officer. This despite the fact that neither Whitmer's name nor that of his company, Lagniappe Industries, appeared in the documentation. Parish President Aaron Broussard said he had no inkling of the arrangement, then recused himself from the internal investigation because he has done legal work for Lagniappe, which Whitmer owns with his wife Dawn. Parish Attorney Tom Wilkinson also stepped aside due to his own business relationship with the Whitmers. Assistant Parish Attorney Louis Gruntz did conduct a probe and deliver it to council members, then declared that its results be kept confidential. Amazingly, that didn't seem to quiet the uproar. Maybe it would have if this were an isolated incident, not part of what's becoming a consistent and depressing pattern. The fact is, over the last few years, sketchy contracts have popped up in just about every jurisdiction in the area