Mailbag

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Evangeline Parish Police Jury,

My apologies as I cannot attend this meeting in person. I am currently at work offshore. Rest assured, I would be in attendance if it were possible.
As we are all aware, the Sheriff has proposed a plan to build the jail he promised the voters by absorbing 911 into his department. Let’s set aside the potential fallacy of turning the 911 service into a political issue for a moment and address the Sheriff’s plan.
The Sheriff begins by reminding the Police Jury of its lawful obligation to provide a jail. He neglects to include the language of the law as it doesn’t necessarily help his argument.
RS 33:4715 states that the police jury of each parish shall provide a good and sufficient jail. The law fails to dictate precisely what defines a “good and sufficient” jail. To some I suppose it could entail the facilities being adequate to provide humane living conditions of those inside the jail. To some it could mean resort quality lodging. Personally, I feel the definition would be a facility adequate to humanely house the accused offenders as they await trial for crimes committed within the parish. That is the responsibility of the police jury. Any other inmates housed are paid for by DOC funds. Is it the police jury’s responsibility to provide a jail large enough for the sheriff to supplement his budget utilizing DOC funds? I would argue it is not.
Item 1, as stated above, the Sheriff is offering to pay for a facility in which the DOC will be paying his department to house inmates. Naturally he is placing the burden of the land cost, down payments, etc on the taxpayers and the police jury. He won’t spend a dime of the tax he asked the voters to pass for it.
He will utilize the DOC funds generated?
Item 2, the Sheriff is placing an additional burden on the taxpayers by having the police jury pay 25% of the costs for housing DOC inmates when his department will be paid by DOC to house those same inmates. This is merely another way the Sheriff is attempting to extend his budget while denying pushing the burden on the taxpayer after the taxpayers passed the tax he requested. Yes, no additional tax would be levied, but money taken from the police jury budget to pay even 25% of DOC inmates costs is revenue that can be used elsewhere in the parish.
Item 3, by requesting a certain parcel of land, the Sheriff is attempting to dictate the location of the jail, which by law is to be determined by the Police Jury.
The sheriff wishes to accomplish all this by eliminating a board comprised of volunteers. These people serve no political objective. They are not concerned with re-election. They truly are dedicated to deciding what is best for the people they serve. The Sheriff then decrees that he will become the 911 director and OEP, even though he repeatedly called it EOP in his press release and dictates that he will have sole discretion over the hiring and firing of personnel. This takes a valuable resource out of the hands of officials elected to represent the individual districts. I would argue the voices of those represented would not be heard as the Sheriff answers to the voters of the entire parish and may not be concerned with a few votes lost in a district he didn’t necessarily win anyway. Would the sheriff sacrifice the needs of voters in districts he didn’t and won’t win? I would hope not, but can we be certain? The Police Jury would be giving away our elected representation with regards to an issue that should not have any political bias to it whatsoever. No longer would the Police Jury be able to quickly resolve an issue that arose at 911 but would instead encounter the bureaucracy of the EPSO to resolve an issue.
He claims the merger of 911 with the Sheriff’s dispatchers would save time and money. The time could be saved much more effectively by simply having 911 handle dispatching for the Sheriff’s office. This would accomplish the same thing outlined in item 2 without handing power to the sheriff that he will unlikely relinquish. More on that in a minute. As for an old white man implying, he can take the jobs of two women and do it better, good luck with that political football. That is what the Sheriff is referring to when he references “cuts in administration.” He wants to take our 911 director and OEP, Mrs. Liz Hill, and the Communication’s supervisor, Mrs. Chasessica Basco, and replace them with himself and whichever shift supervisor/EPSO communications director. No longer will there be a consistent supervisor of the 911 dispatchers, and they will instead be potentially tasked with complying with directives from different people at different times. This may cause potential response issues during a critical time period.
The sheriff claims the two budgets would remain separate. That would remain to be seen but his primary goal is to free up monies within his departmental budget. If he can transfer the payroll for his dispatchers, communications supervisor, and the costs associated with dispatch to the 911 budget, this frees up a significant amount within the department operations budget. There is no money being saved or used more efficiently, its simply changing the pocket from which it is paid. I have been told on more than one occasion that 911 has implored the sheriff to allow them to assume dispatch duties for the department. Doing this would have the same benefits regarding response of which the sheriff speaks, without relinquishing the jury’s oversight of the 911 system to the sheriff. Power relinquished is rarely returned. Numerous examples throughout history have proven this. From the Roman Senate abdicating its powers to Augustus ending the Roman Republic and effectively founding the Roman Empire in 27 BC to more recent examples of our legislatures forfeiting responsibility to the executive branch so we are governed more by executive fiat rather than constitutionally passed legislation and states relinquishing their 10th amendment rights to the federal government in return for funding. The sheriff claims he would retain the 911 director/OEP position until the jail is completed, while simultaneously requesting enough land for expansion of the jail. I would wager he would intend on timing these expansions in such a way as the jail won’t be completed for quite some time.
In my research, the 911 CAD system is up to date on it’s scheduled updates and security features. If there is a need to upgrade to a different system, the money is there in the current 911 surplus. The jury need only appropriate it. Permission from the sheriff is not required. I fully expect if the 911 director felt this was an issue, she would have already approached the jury with a request to upgrade. The bottom line is, the system on which the dispatcher was first trained is most familiar to them. In their mind, other systems would be inferior. The world is full of comparable examples. Mac vs PC, Allen Bradley vs Siemens, Blu-ray vs HD-DVD, PlayStation vs Xbox, etc. The claims that the 911 system is out of date is merely the biased opinion of someone that is unfamiliar with its use and features.
The sheriff attempts to paint a rosy picture regarding the fire ratings as well. Obviously, his home wouldn’t be in the 10% that would be “sacrificed”. You want to tell your constituents that their home is 10% less safe? You want to tell them that their homeowners’ rates will increase even more during a time when our rates are rising already? Let us be honest with ourselves as well. What portion of the population do you believe would feel the greatest burden from this “sacrifice”?
In closing, our sheriff has campaigned to pass a sales tax, in perpetuity, to build a jail. Toward the end of that campaign it changed to a tax to fund operations. He took advantage of the fact that most voters do not pay attention to details and only read headlines. In short, he lied. He used a political tactic to get what he wanted, a larger budget. Now, knowing he doesn’t have the political capital to go to the voters and admit what he did by requesting another tax, he wants to devise a way to keep his promise and acquire additional power within the parish. Sheriff Guillory may have a point when he says Evangeline Parish has been left behind, but this was done long ago. It was done with the same good ole boy politics as usual that he is trying to pull now. Why, just Saturday, an ally of the sheriff started a Facebook page in violation of their terms and conditions for the purpose of bullying Mrs. Basco. In doing so they posted photos of children whom are not theirs, comments from Mrs. Basco and others taken out of context, and implied Mrs. Basco was unfit for her position. The author also made derogatory comments about our 911 dispatchers. The page has since been removed, no doubt due to reports of bullying and that it violated Facebook’s terms and conditions/community standards.
Thanks for your time. I hope you consider your options carefully. Turning the 911 director into a political position, a position for which the people did not elect the sheriff to do, could have consequences we cannot fathom as of now. That position needs to remain a position free from political influence.

Bobby Godwin