WHAT REALLY HAPPENED WITH ALEXANDRIA'S CLECO DEAL

Back in January, 2008, Alexandria Mayor Jacques Roy gave we citizens an e-mail address and asked us to send in any questions that we had on the proposed settlement of our lawsuit with Cleco. Jacques asked for the questions on his TV show on Channel 4.

So, on January 12, 2008, I sent a letter to Mayor Roy with some questions that I had on the Cleco deal.

JAN. 2008 LETTER TO MAYOR ROY

After a month had passed, I telephoned Councilmen Chuck Fowler and Harry Silver about my questions, all to no avail. So I sent this letter to then Council President Myron Lawson on February 13, 2008.

FEBRUARY 2008 LETTER TO MYRON LAWSON

Myron then called me and told me that he would have the mayor finally answer my questions.

Also on February 13, 2008, I received the following e-mail from the mayor's publicist, Freddy Lamar White, which was filled with lies and read as follows: 

" Mr. Aymond is not a member of the reporting media. His letter was not a public records request; rather, it was a request for a written discussion with him. The items requested have been related by the Mayor in great detail at numerous press briefings. The two discussion items, rebates and attorney fees, not fully related in those briefings will be treated as follows: as to rebates, the subject will be addressed by formal, written and oral report to the public in a press conference next week; and as to the latter, those issues are for the Council to address, not the mayor. Office staff were instructed to inform Mr. Aymond on these matters today and refer the balance of his comments/requests to Charles Johnson, City Attorney. On a related note, the Administration of the City of Alexandria tries to respond to any citizen request; however, requests in the nature of discussions with blog moderators must be considered on an individual basis. The Administration reserves the right to interview with credentialed members of the media and blog moderators who strive toward unbiased reporting. The Administrative Briefing was canceled because of media scheduling issues, not because of the Mayor's lack of interest."

See Freddy's e-mail to me HERE. 

As you can clearly see from my letter to Mayor Roy, it was not a public records request and it contained some questions on the proposed Cleco deal that had been requested by the mayor himself, It was also sent to the mayor as a private citizen and not as a blogger.

Then in early October, 2009, when Ken Juneau and David Crutchfield telephoned me to apologize for Freddy White's denial and told me that this blog had been blocked on City computers by mistake and had been unblocked, I also had the chance to bring up with them about my questions to the mayor about Cleco, which were over a year old, had not been answered yet.

Listen to this telephone conversation that I had with, then, Alexandria Finance Director David Crutchfield on October 5, 2009 about the Cleco deal and my outstanding questions to the mayor:

TELEPHONE CONVERSATION WITH DAVID CRUTCHFIELD

What amazed me is that David said that he came up with the $9 million figure for our rebates from Cleco, how easy it would be to issue the rebates, and he had pointed out in a letter to the mayor how there would be a "perception" problem with us getting only $9 million in rebates as opposed to $60 million. I have never received an answer as to my Cleco questions.

Then, on March 4, 2010, Mayor Roy lied to us all in order to get us to support his settlement with Cleco. See my post on "MAYOR ROY'S ADMINISTRATIVE BRIEFING OF 3-3-2010 ON THE CLECO DEAL" for what is, in my opinion, those lies.

We could not find out what the other electrical rates were that were given to the City because Jacques claimed they were trade secrets. ("UTILITY QUOTES A "TRADE SECRET" SAYS THE CITY").

As far as our rebates, the is a big difference between 4% and 15% of millions of dollars. No lawyer worth his salt would talk a client into accepting a settlement offer without informing the client exactly how much money the would be putting in their pockets. And there is a big difference between that 4% to 15% of $9 million compared to the $60 million that Cleco is alleged to have defrauded us out of. ("IS 4% TO 15% OF $9.5 MILLION AS GOOD AS 4% TO 15% OF OVER $50 MILLION?").

We still do not know how much, if anything, that we will have to pay on the contingency fee lawyer lawsuit for their fees, the Armested Franklin lawsuit for the alleged Cleco fraud, or the E.M.S. settlement.

Patrick Lacour, a former Cleco employee, wrote that the City of Alexandria didn't even seek RFPs on electrical rates from other providers but actually sought natural gas rates. ("PATRICK LACOUR SPEAKS OUT ONCE AGAIN ON OUR UTILITIES").

While the Cleco negotiations were ongoing, two Republican Cleco Board members gave Democrat Mayor Roy campaign contributions. ("TWO CLECO BOARD MEMBERS CONTRIBUTE TO JACQUES ROY'S CAMPAIGN").

It has also been rumored that Mayor Roy got his new Mercedes and he and certain members of his staff got Rolex watches during the time period of the Cleco negotiations. ("A MERCEDES AND SOME ROLEX WATCHES: THOSE ARE THE QUESTIONS").

We still have received no rebates from the Cleco settlement nor have we noticed any future savings in our electricity bills as was promised by Jacques.

Once again, this is all hardly evidence of the most transparent mayor in the history of Alexandria. The above are reasons that we thinks that we were sold a bill of goods on the Cleco settlement by Mayor Roy. These also are not issues that you will likely see on KALB TV or in the Town Talk which merely repeat the mayor's lines of bullshit.