Judging motivations in Jeff Parish can be difficult

Some very interesting developments reported by Da Paper today in the on-going "clean-up" of government in Jefferson Parish. In the wake of the resignations of Parish President "Mad Aaron" Broussard and CAO (and likely future federal felon) Tim Whitmer, interim president Steve Theriot is making a lot of moves with respect to lawyers employed by the parish. He's suspended a former parish councilwoman and is considering firing a former 24th JDC judge and retired justice of the peace, both of whom are on the parish's part-time payroll.

At face value, all three moves appear to be good-goverment motivated. These are arguably well-connected people who have been feeding at the public trough for some time. The former councilwoman, Anne Marie Vandenweghe, played a bit part in the Whitmer/Broussard kabuki, in that she was one of the lawyers schlepping boxes of paperwork and records over to USA Letten's office on a regular basis. The fact that she was suspended rather than fired is interesting. There are more shoes dropping from Letten's office on this than at the Muses parade.

The other two "evaluations" taking place are also good examples of political in-breeding. Former 24th JDC Judge "Skip" Hand and retired JOP Steve Mortillaro are both on the parish part-time payroll, making $14K and $12K, respectively. Ironically, Skip Hand was beaten out by Mad Aaron for Mayor of Kenner back in the 1980s. He went on to become a State Representative, then district judge.

The problem with these moves and changes is not that they're justified. Even if Vandenweghe isn't somehow involved in Whitmer's troubles directly, it's questionable that a former elected official should have been hired in such a capacity in the first place. Same goes for Hand and Mortillaro. The problem here is that Theriot is making the decisions. If an impartial evaluator of the situation came to these conclusions, nobody would blink an eye, but Theriot is a former elected official himself. He's also from the west bank, and he's looking at jettisoning three former east bank office-holders. Revenge, perhaps? Is there a behind-the-scenes agenda here?

Think I'm a conspiracy theorist? Consider this example. Back in the 1980s, a guy I knew from UNO ran against Skip Hand for state House of Representatives. This was going to be one of those grass-roots, knock-on-doors, no-money campaigns. Hand spent almost $40K to defeat this guy. Now, Skip wasn't all that many years removed from the financial shock of losing the Kenner mayor's race to Mad Aaron, then spending a not-inconsiderable sum to become a legislator. Still, he was motivated to not just win, but utterly crush a young political unknown. It didn't add up at the time.

Not even a year after that election, then-Mayor of New Orleans Sidney Barthelmy got caught awarding a four-year, full-ride scholarship to Tulane University to his son. That act (which was perfectly legal, by the way) exposed that not just the mayor had Tulane scholarships to give away, but state legislators as well. All of a sudden, it made sense why Hand spent so much money to keep his gig.

Such is the problem when wading through waters so muddy as local politics. Nothing is ever as it seems.

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