A Baton Rouge company hired by the City of New Orleans to remove several Confederate monuments is backing out of the job after its employees received death threats and other area businesses threatened to cancel existing contracts with the firm.
As first reported by Daily Report, Baton Rouge attorney Roy Maughan Jr. told the city in a letter that his client, H&O Investments, is “unable to perform the tasks originally assigned in association with the removal of the monuments for the City of New Orleans” because of numerous death threats and threatening calls to the couple’s residence.
At the State Capitol this week, freshman lawmakers learned first-hand that the state’s already dire finances could get even worse as the price of oil plummets. LSU economist Jim Richardson explained Wednesday how the state became so underfunded and what it will take in the short and long term to fix things.
Later in the day Thursday, three former Commissioners of Administration gave their takes on the state’s fiscal challenges from a historical perspective at a forum held by the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry.
Also this week, the Metro Council appointed two new members to replace state Reps. Ronnie Edwards and C. Denise Marcelle, both of whom took the oath of office for the State House of Representatives on Monday. The new members are Erika Green and LaMont Cole.
The council also appointed former councilman Mike Walker to the board that oversees BREC, and saw a presentation from John Fregonese on how to overhaul downtown parking to make it more efficient and profitable for the city.
Here’s a rundown of some of the other top stories making headlines in Daily Report this week:
- Monday’s vote by the Louisiana House of Representatives to elect Rep. Taylor Barras, R-New Iberia, as Speaker of the House instead of Democratic Rep. Walt Leger may suggest looming battles in the upcoming legislative sessions. But for now, state lawmakers are promising to work together to solve the state’s fiscal crisis.
- Work to relieve the chronic congestion along Interstate 10 in the heart of Baton Rouge could come in less than two years, but only if the community moves quickly and gets behind the project, says newly appointed Secretary of Transportation and Development Shawn Wilson.
- President Barack Obama visited Poor Boy Lloyd’s in downtown Baton Rouge on Thursday, picking up two oyster po-boys among other things, on his way out of town after speaking at McKinley High School during his first visit to Baton Rouge as president.
- A state district judge this afternoon suppressed all of the evidence against Corey delaHoussaye, a Livingston Parish businessman who blew the whistle on questionable practices in the cleanup that followed Hurricane Gustav, forcing prosecutors to dismiss the case.
- New Orleans-based Robért Fresh Market is taking over the leases of a pair of Matherne’s Supermarkets in Baton Rouge and will rebrand the Highland Road and Bluebonnet Boulevard grocery stores in the coming months, a company official says.
- Baton Rouge hotel occupancy for the first 11 months of 2015 increased just slightly over the same period in 2014. But the upper tier properties in the market showed a more significant growth, which is noteworthy considering inventory increased last year by some 300 rooms, or about 2%.
- New York-based Park 7 Group received the green light Monday to begin construction on Park 7 Apartments, a 560,442-square-foot, six-story student housing apartment complex at 222. E. Boyd Drive.
- The cost of playing tennis or golf at most BREC facilities has gone up with the dawn of the new year. So has the price of participating on a BREC athletic team and the admission fee at the Baton Rouge Zoo after BREC commissioners approved those and other usage fee increases in December.
—Ryan Broussard
