Honored: The Baton Rouge Area Chamber presented its annual awards to outstanding businesses and individuals Tuesday at its monthly luncheon. Brown & Root, which established its headquarters in Baton Rouge and relocated 25 jobs here, received BRAC’s Project of the Year Award. Coletta Barrett, Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center vice president of mission, received the Community Champion Award, which honors those who show above and beyond leadership. Tom Yura, senior vice president and general manager of BASF’s Geismar site and 2015 chairman of BRAC’s Education and Workforce Council, received the D. Jensen Holliday Award, given to the BRAC board member who shows extraordinary leadership and service to the organization.
Turned away: A proposal to stop the removal of Louisiana’s Confederate monuments in New Orleans failed to win support today in the state Senate. It was blocked by Democratic lawmakers, The Associated Press reports. Sen. Beth Mizell, a Republican who lives 70 miles north of New Orleans, sought to create a state commission to sign off on monument removals. She told senators: “History is bigger than a single community or the mood of a moment.” The argument failed to sway Democrats on the committee, all of whom are black. The panel voted 5-4 today against Mizell’s bill, splitting along party lines and stalling it in committee. New Orleans’ efforts to remove Confederate monuments have been stymied. Backlash against the plan has made it difficult for the city to find a contractor. Read the full story.
On probation: A former BP engineer was sentenced today to 10 months of probation for a misdemeanor pollution charge connected to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Donald Vidrine had served as a rig supervisor on the Deepwater Horizon offshore rig, The Associated Press reports. Prosecutors had argued that he and one-time co-defendant Robert Kaluza botched a pressure test before the rig’s explosion, which sent millions of gallons of oil spewing into the Gulf. Both had once faced manslaughter charges connected to the deaths of 11 rig workers. But prosecutors backed away from those charges last year and pursued the misdemeanor Clean Water Act charge instead. Read the full story.
