Jindal releases board members named after inital refusal

Gov. Bobby Jindal made his six appointments Thursday to the board for a new corporation to run all state housing assistance programs. The governor’s Division of Administration had earlier refused to release the names of more than two dozen people who applied for a spot on the board for the nonprofit Louisiana Housing Corporation, claiming a public records exemption. Within hours of The Associated Press writing about the rejection of its public records request, however, Jindal announced his choices. The governor picks six members of the 11-member board, which will have sweeping power over multimillion-dollar housing programs. The LHC was created by lawmakers in the last legislative session under a proposal sought by Jindal. The nonprofit will assume oversight of nearly 30 separate programs, currently spread across five agencies, and develop a unified housing policy for the state. It will take over and dismantle the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency, which generated complaints about bureaucracy and inefficient spending after the 2005 hurricanes. The governor’s appointees, subject to Senate confirmation, are: Hammond Mayor Mayson Foster; Ellen Lee of New Orleans, senior vice president of programs at the Greater New Orleans Foundation; Frank Thaxton III of Shreveport, an attorney and a retired district court judge; Matt Ritchie of Pineville, owner of Ritchie Real Estate; Malcolm Young of Baton Rouge, the CEO of the Louisiana Realtors organization; and Daryl Burckel of Lake Charles, an accounting professor at McNeese State University.