Louisiana Voice

There were indeed fireworks at today’s quickly-called meeting of the University of Louisiana Board. When the dust had settled, board President/CEO Rick Gallot had been fired resigned after only three years on the job.

Rick Gallot

A special (and possibly illegal) board meeting was called on the heels of a Baton Rouge Advocate REPORT that Gallot owed $350,000 in federal income taxes. It’s not a good look for your agency head to be in hock to the IRS.

The Gallot tax liability was not the only personnel matter on the brief agenda however. At the same time as his status was taken up, the board also whittled the finalists for the Louisiana Tech University presidency down to four, though the legality of that action might also be in question.

The IRS filed a tax lien with the East Baton Rouge Parish Clerk of Court for $351,312.78. Gallot told the newspaper his former accountant failed to file his federal income tax return for the year 2019 because of the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic. It would seem someone pulling down Gallot’s salary would be a bit more attentive to his tax liabilities

The total the IRS claims it is owed includes $114,000 for 2020. Gallot said his new accountant has since filed the 2019 return and is disputing the amount of taxes owed. He said he has been attempting to resolve the dispute since 2024 when he said he first received notice of the missed payment.

Gallot is paid $600,000 per year in his position of President and CEO of the board, a position he has held since October 2023. His salary was 50 percent more than the salary of the President of the United States. He served almost nine years as president of Grambling State University prior to that after having served as a member of the Louisiana Legislature. His UL Board salary was nearly double the $334,544 salary he received as president of Grambling.

A native of Grambling and the son of longtime Grambling businessman Richard Gallot Sr., he was elevated to the UL Board after his predecessor, Jim Henderson was named president of Louisiana Tech University in nearby Ruston in a UL Board personnel shakeup. Henderson recently announced his retirement as Tech president, giving his health as the reason for his decision to step down.

Jim Henderson

The board’s Presidential Search Committee announced it had narrowed its field of candidates to succeed Henderson to four from the original stack of more than 50 applicants.

The four are Jason Armagost, currently deputy commander of Air Force Global Strike Command at nearby Barksdale Air Force Base; John Flake, a senior research administrator ant chemical engineering professor at LSU; Matthew Napoi, deputy administrator with the National Nuclear Security Administration, and Brett Welch, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas.

Today’s meeting, besides dealing with Gallot’s status and the Tech presidency, is likely to encounter a legal challenge from another source.

Piper Huchinson, a reporter for the Louisiana Illuminator, who refers to herself as a “FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) freak,” has pointed out on X that the board did not comply to state law in scheduling today’s meeting.

“Sorry (not really) to be beating my usual open meetings law drum but the law requires that agencies notify any member of the press or the public that requests meeting notifications at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting. That didn’t happen here, again. Not good!”

She also posted on Thursday that the board “seems to have scheduled a special board meeting for tomorrow that was not noticed to the press/public and is still not posted to their normal meetings page.”

It’s refreshing to see a reporter speak truth to power in pointing out these violations of state law. Under the administration of Jeff Landry, it appears officials are becoming emboldened to ignore, even flaunt, laws meant to protect the public’s right to know, as evidenced by the glut of non disclosure agreements (NDAs) signed by elected and appointed officials.

Likewise, LSU refused to release the names of finalists for its presidency back in 2013, prompting media to sue the LSU Board of Supervisors which ultimately was ordered by a state court to turn over the names. The also lost an appeal of that decision. That ruling probably encouraged the UL Board to release the names of the four finalists for Henderson’s replacement. Had LSU prevailed 13 years ago, the UL Board likely would have withheld the information it released today.

Karma really is a bitch.

There’s an interesting backstory to Mississippi’s electing Scott Colom to the U.S. Senate and it’s reminiscent of a similar occurrence in Louisiana a few years back.

On Wednesday, Colom was declared the winner, upsetting incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith by a razor-thin majority. The final results gave Colom 474,549 votes to Hyde-Smith’s 469,039, a difference of 5,510 out of ALMOST A MILLION CAST, or a difference of about half a percentage point.

The irony of the entire election is that IN 2022, President Joe Biden nominated Colom to be a federal judge in north Mississippi.

But here’s the hitch:

Federal judges need more than the president’s pick. Before a district court nominee can get a hearing, the Senate Judiciary Committee sends a light blue form, called a blue slip, to both senators from the nominee’s home state. If either senator refuses to send it back, the nomination usually stalls for good. The blue slip is not a law. It is a Senate tradition that gives a single senator the power to quietly kill a judge from their state.

Hyde-Smith said she WOULD NOT RETURN HER BLUE FORM. Colom sent her a letter asking her to reconsider but she refused and the nomination died right there.

On election night, before the results were evident that Colom had won, Hyde-Smith even boasted of her preventing his appointment when she told supporters, “I blocked Scott Colom from being a federal judge, and you blocked him from being a U.S. senator.” Except they didn’t, as it turned out.

That’s karma squared any way you look at it. Back in February, she gave a pretty good indication of just how tone-deaf she was about the plight of American families struggling to put food on the table. When asked about the high cost of beef, she responded not with any plan to bring prices down, but with the ADMONISHMENT that Americans “have so many proteins to choose from.”

That prompted Colom to respond, “Mississippi families aren’t choosing between beef and other proteins as a lifestyle preference. They’re stretching every dollar to put food on the table. …and her answer to Mississippians struggling at the grocery store is to just eat something else?”

Of course, Hyde-Smith had a habit of making odd statements

It also brings to mind a similar occurrence in the Louisiana legislature.

At the close of the 2020 legislative session, the Senate took up gubernatorial appointments. Among those was Gov. John Bel Edwards’s nomination to reappoint Ronnie Jones as Chairman of the Louisiana Gambling Board.

Like the nominating process with U.S. senators, Louisiana gives local state senators the opportunity to object to a nomination and if they do object, that nomination, too, is dead in the water.

That’s precisely what happened with Jones when his local State Senator, Karen Carter Peterson, OBJECTED, claiming Jones, a veteran of 40 years with State Police, was too close to the gaming interests, thus ending his career.

Karma also reared its pretty head in that case, too. Carter who had already gutted the State Democratic Party as its state chairman, decided seek the U.S. congressional from Louisiana’s 2^nd District.

It turned out that it was Peterson, not Jones, who had a problem with gaming. She had placed herself on a list of persons prohibited from entering casinos because of her own gambling addiction, had violated her self-imposed ban, lost her election to Troy Carter.

Karma.

“We should invade Muslim countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.”

–Ann Coulter, in National Review Online, Oct. 2, 2001

Wouldn’t that be equivalent to “The beatings will continue until morale improves”? And weren’t eight Crusades (over the period from 1096 to 1270) sufficient to prove that insanity really is the definition of doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results?

Much of the national media has their drawers in a wad over the revelation that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shelled out $495.6 million for a vacant private prison in Appleton, Minnesota, that had been offered to—and rejected by—the state for $75 million.

A Minnesota prison was for sale at $75M. ICE paid nearly $500M for it | The Independent

ICE paid private prison firm $495M for Appleton site that had been offered to state for $75M

The New York Times reported that CoreCivic (formerly Corrections Corporation of America) first approached the Minnesota Department of Corrections last year to offer the 1,600-bed facility for $75 million. The state rejected the offer because it did not have the funds to purchase Prairie Correctional Facility, located in the western part of the state. Furthermore, the state had no need for a prison of its size, nor was sufficient staff with which to staff it.

Yet, the Trump administration, as part of its multibillion-dollar spending spree, snatched up the facility, paying almost half-a-billion for it, according to the Government Accountability Office, which labeled the purchase as a hastily and poorly-planned “waste” of millions of dollars of taxpayer funds.

The purchase for that inflated price would seem to fly in the face of Elon Musk’s search for waste via his DOGE agency.

Adding insult to injury, DHS also received criticism for purchasing 10 used jets for $464 million in a no-bid contract for use as deportation flights even though most of the planes have never taken to the airways.

The purchase of the prison came even as the White House was painting the state of Minnesota as the poster child for government waste and fraud. Of course, CoreCivic was sufficiently civic-minded as to contribute $500,000 to Trump’s inauguration committee in 2024. No quid pro quo there, nosirree.

Private prison firm CoreCivic gave $500K to Trump’s inauguration, highlighting industry’s support – ABC News

In fact, private prisons across the board were pouring money into the coffers of Trump and the Republican Party in hopes of winning the midterms as the companies anticipated record growth with the caging of anyone with brown skin under Trump’s revised deportation crusade.

Private Prison Companies Are Pouring Money Into GOP Coffers Ahead of Midterms | Truthout

ICE’s Favorite Companies Pumped More Than $12 Million In Political Dollars to Tip the Scale of the Midterms – The Emancipator

Members of Congress Received Millions from Corporations Detaining Immigrants for ICE – The Appeal

Meanwhile in Louisiana and Mississippi, complaints—and riots—were the order of the day as inspections and protests rocked CoreCivic facilities in Winnfield, Richwood and Natchez.

Richwood Correctional Center has faced numerous issues, including unsanitary conditions, inadequate medical care, and violations of detainee rights. Reports indicate a history of disease-related problems and unsafe practices that compromise the health and safety of detainees.

Overview of Problems at Richwood Correctional Center

The Richwood Correctional Center has been scrutinized for various serious issues.

• Unsanitary Conditions — The facility has been reported to have areas that are not consistently clean or sanitary, compromising detainee health.
• Inadequate Medical Care — Detainees have faced barriers in accessing medical grievances, leading to unmet health needs.
• History of Disease Issues — Since 2020, the facility has had ongoing problems related to disease outbreaks, including COVID-19.
• Lack of Grievance Systems — There is no reliable system for detainees to file grievances, which affects their rights.
• Whistleblower Reports — Whistleblowers have raised alarms about unsafe conditions and practices that endanger detainees.

The Office of Inspector General found a laundry list of violations when it conducted an UNANNOUNCED INSPECTION Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield earlier this year.

• Among Winn’s shortcomings were:
• Multiple maintenance and sanitary issues
• Perishable foods not stored at required temperatures
• Failure to comply with use-of-force standards
• Medical staff did not update required documents
• Staff did not adhere to voluntary work program standards
• Staff fid not provide detainees adequate acc1ess to legal material
• Communications between staff and detainees did not comply with standards
• Staff did not provide detainees outdoor recreation equipment

The CoreCivic facility in Natchez, Mississippi, meanwhile, has faced significant issues, including protests over poor living conditions, lack of hot water, and inadequate meals. Detainees have expressed frustration over these conditions, leading to unrest and intervention by staff.

Issues at CoreCivic’s Natchez Facility

The Natchez facility has a history of serious problems affecting detainees.

• Protests — Approximately 100 detainees protested due to the loss of hot water and hot meals.
• Living Conditions — Detainees reported spoiled and insufficient meals, contributing to dissatisfaction.
• Staff Response — During protests, staff used pepper spray to disperse detainees.
• Equipment Failures — CoreCivic cited equipment failures as reasons for service disruptions, impacting hot water and cooking.
• Historical Issues — The facility has a documented history of severe conditions, including past incidents of violence and complaints of torture.

CoreCivic’s problems have not been limited to the three facilities in Louisiana and Mississippi, however.

CoreCivic’s Long Record of Abuse and Neglect in Tennessee | Prison Legal News

CoreCivic Is Facing Hundreds of Lawsuits | City Limits | nashvillescene.com

The company paid out nearly $30 million in damages since 2022 for failing to meet Tennessee’s contractual requirements for staffing shortages in four facilities in that state.

The public outcry over conditions at the private prisons that Citizens Bank announced in July of this year that it would sever its financial relationship with both CoreCivic and GEO Group, the two largest private prison companies in the U.S.

Citizens Bank to end financial relationship with two private prison contractors | AP News

In addition to the conditions listed above, there were cases of measles reported in two of CoreCivic facilities in Texas and Arizona in February. The centers, Central Arizona Florence Correctional Center and the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas, are located about 1,000 miles apart.

CoreCivic has been accused of falsifying records to disguise unsafe conditions, failing to provide lifesaving medications and being slow in transporting critically ill detainees to the hospital, according to court records, government audits, sworn declarations and interviews with attorneys and detainees.

There is one other private prison operation which has not caught the media’s attention but which is key to detainees in Louisiana.

While CoreCivic has only two facilities in Louisiana, LaSalle Corrections has 18 such installments in Louisiana, Texas and Georgia. LaSalle expanded its operations to six migrant detention facilities in Louisiana with an overall inmate capacity of more than 13,000 beds.

The COMPANY, headquartered in Ruston, has experienced numerous allegations and legal challenges:

• Negligence Allegations — A lawsuit was filed against LaSalle following the death of Erik Carlson, claiming neglect at a private prison in Louisiana.
• Wrongful Death Lawsuits — LaSalle has faced over 20 wrongful-death lawsuits since 2013, highlighting ongoing concerns about inmate safety.
• Financial Penalties — A jury ordered LaSalle to pay $42.75 million for the death of a Louisiana man, indicating severe accountability issues.
• Corporate Structure Concerns — Investigations have uncovered a complex corporate structure that obscures accountability and transparency in LaSalle’s operations

So, as the national media express their outrage over the $495 million the Trump administration paid for a facility that could’ve been had for $75—or less—bear in mind that LouisianaVoice has been riding this horse for years now in an effort to bring widespread abuses of laws and human beings to the public’s attention. Now, the issue is beginning to get the attention it deserves.