Metro Councilwoman Ronnie Edwards says she’s disappointed with the council’s appointment last night of Lea Anne Batson as parish attorney because she feels the council did not adequately vet the three finalists for the job. But Metro Councilman Chandler Loupe defends the search process and last night’s vote.
“My regret about the action taken last night was that we as a full council did not have an opportunity to interview [the finalists] directly in a public setting,” says Edwards, who was among five council members who did not vote for Batson to get the job. “I don’t feel like we as a public body fully vetted this. It felt like it was just a formality and something that was already decided, perhaps behind the scenes.”
Loupe dismisses any notion that Batson—who has been with the parish attorney’s office for 27 years and served as interim parish attorney ever since the council fired former Parish Attorney Mary Roper last fall—had the job secured before last night’s vote.
“That’s clearly not true,” he says. “Anybody that thought that Lea Anne Batson already had enough votes to be selected last night did not understand the process. My goal last night was to bring this to a conclusion, which we did, but I didn’t know what the conclusion was going to be until we all cast our votes.”
Last night’s vote was split along gender and party lines. While the council’s five Democratic females favored finalist Michael Adams, the seven Republican men ultimately appointed Batson to the post.
Along with Edwards, councilwomen Chauna Banks-Daniel, Donna Collins-Lewis, C. Denise Marcelle and Tara Wicker all voted for Adams. Batson needed seven votes to become parish attorney, and she got them from councilmen Buddy Amoroso, Joel Boé, John Delgado, Ryan Heck, Trae Welch, Scott Wilson and Loupe. The other finalist was City Court Judicial Administrator Lon Norris.
Loupe says the search process was lengthy and open enough for any council member to get all the information needed to properly vet the candidates.
“The committee we formed to vet the candidates included the chancellors at both the LSU and Southern law centers, the head of the Baton Rouge Bar Association and four council members,” he says. “The selection process for this, even though we only ended up with three finalists, lasted four and a half months. So if any council member didn’t feel like they had enough information, it’s their own fault.”
Edwards says she would have preferred to see the council conduct public interviews with the finalists, rather than have been provided with taped interviews that were conducted by the committee—which she says not all council members even watched. That said, Edwards says she does have confidence in Batson in the position.
“I think [the finalists] were perhaps all equally qualified, but from different perspectives,” she says.
—Steve Sanoski
