BC charter fixes should include ethics reforms

Blog: Between The Lines

Abstract

Critics derisively call him "King" – or "Queen,"
given his penchant for drama during Bossier City Council meetings – but disclosure
data demonstrate that among Bossier Parish officials Republican Councilor David
Montgomery truly is the monarch when it comes to grifting taxpayer dollars, something
about which the city's Charter Review Commission should take notice and repair,
along with a couple of other potential conflicts.

Financial disclosure forms for Louisiana elected
and appointed officials, except judges who don't have to file, were due May 15,
detailing 2023 activities. Of the 52 such Bossier officials from government
bodies or executive offices that have taxing authority and whose jurisdictions
are almost exclusively within the parish and are sufficiently large – the
Police Jury, School Board, Bossier City, the Levee Board, the Cypress Black
Bayou Commissioners, sheriff, assessor, clerk of court, and coroner – of the 50
required to file (because two appointees only assumed their posts earlier this
year), 40 did so by the end of last week.

In all but two cases, in their reporting about
compensation they or their spouses received from other governments they listed
items such as salary (including if a spouse worked for a government), money
received for serving on a board connected to their positions, or pension
payments, with two exceptions. One
was recently-elected Republican Coroner Mike Williams, who received in 2023 over
$37,000 as he serves, and has for 23 years, as medical director for city fire,
police, and emergency medical services.

The other was Montgomery. He reported from his
position with the family
insurance firm (a half-owner) or in one instance on his own raking in $202,313
for insurance sales to seven different local governments with a Bossier
presence. This means since 2008, the first year state law had changed to
require this disclosure, Montgomery has gotten $3,172,612 from Bossier-based
governments (although none from the city, as it is illegal for an entity's
elected officials to do business with it).

That figure is likely a few hundred thousand
dollars greater for Montgomery's time in office, since he was elected first in
2001. He reported about
$60,000 in the first year of required disclosure, so an estimate of his
total earnings from local taxpayers during his entire time in office could be
over $3.5 million. Possibly he has one of the highest totals of any elected
official in Louisiana since the institution of disclosure.

Some of his buyers he has authority over with his
position as councilor, along with other councilors. For example, the Council
selects a member of the Cypress
Black Bayou Recreation and Water Conservation District Commission, and it occasionally
doles out funds to Visit
Shreveport-Bossier, formerly called the Shreveport-Bossier Convention and
Tourist Bureau, most recently
this spring.

This raises serious ethical issues about whether Montgomery
ever has used his position to entice business from these taxpayer-funded entities,
although it is not illegal for him to have a business relationship with any
government entity except for Bossier City. Nor is there any evidence that he
has pressured, by whatever means through his position, any local government
into doing business with him.

But even the appearance of possible impropriety should
not be encouraged by him and these entities in their dealings. Unknown is how
these agencies go about awarding insurance contracts and whether they use an
open and competitive bidding process; some have been Montgomery clients for 15
years. Possibly Montgomery is an incredible insurance agent who underbids
everybody and provides great service, but public records requests of this
various agency clients likely would reveal he annually racks up a series of
no-bid contracts, with a likely unspoken and unwritten motive of the buyers
being a desire to keep on his good side lest he and his political allies make
trouble for them, something that doesn't require an explicit or even indirectly
acknowledged quid quo pro relationship or any communications between he
and they other than those strictly business in nature, nor does it require that
he have any motive to leverage his elected position into drumming up business
as the perception that he could is what matters.

This possibility of unethical behavior by a city
elected official in his business dealings, or the perception of other governments
over which one can exert some kind of authority that they have to shape their
business dealings to please such an official whether that official makes such
demands, should be addressed by the city's ongoing Charter Review Commission. A
revised charter could have inserted a passage dictating that any of its elected
officials cannot do business with any governmental entity with any jurisdiction
in Bossier Parish or with any other entity established by ordinance or state
law that receives appropriations from the city the year after that
appropriation, and that no such business can be conducted until four years have
passed after leaving city office.

While the example of Montgomery points to a major
deficiency in city ethics regulation, a couple of other lesser cases also
deserve attention in any charter revisions. Republican Santi Parks was elected city
judge in 2020, yet as in the case of all past city judges is not prohibited by statute
to run a law practice on the side. Judges don't have to file disclosure
statements, but because his wife GOP Police Juror Julianna
Parks must, information is present on his activities. In 2023,
besides his salary (over $110,000, paid in part by the city court and the rest
by the city) he earned over $55,000 from what she described as "Judicial Branch
of Louisiana," but, more relevantly, earned over $100,000 from his private law
practice in its entirety.

Problematically, potential lenient treatment of
individuals in court could be leveraged to drive business a judge's way, even
as there is no evidence Parks ever has engaged in this, solicited this, or been
motivated to act this way. The state's Civil Code of Procedure
provides for recusal by a judge, which in this instance likely lands the case
in a district court or requires appointment of an ad hoc judge, but it's
not automatic and it's best to avoid all the involved procedures in the first
place. Here again, a charter change could prohibit the city judge from earning
any outside income, who takes home a nice chunk of change from his salary in
any event, as a means of avoiding these situations.

Finally, the city recently appointed Jerry Wilhite
to serve on the Cypress Black Bayou Commission. Wilhite disclosed
his more than 10 percent ownership in Wilhite Electric, which occasionally lands
city contracts (the latest such being last
year). The charter revision could prohibit a firm of which any of its
appointees to other local governments that own at least a tenth stake in it
from competing for any city contracts.

As long as a charter review is underway, best
practices demand any end product include tightening existing ethics loopholes that
decrease citizen confidence that city elected officials and their appointees don't
use their positions or relationships to feather their own nests.