COUNCILMAN JONES GRANDSTANDS AND PUTS ON A POLITICAL PERFORMANCE

Yesterday, Alexandria City Councilman Jerry Jones grandstanded on Channel 4, with the assistance of City Attorney Chuck Johnson, and Councilmen Harry Silver and Chuck Fowler, and made a speech about his ethics complaint and made a political speech for his upcoming run against Von Jennings for his Council seat.

Jones even faked tearing up the complaint for the TV audience.

But this was all a show and meant nothing anyway because the complaint is now with the Louisiana Ethics Board and the City Council has nothing to do with it.

"This is a waste of time," District 1 Councilman Ed Larvadain III said and "We are not the ethics board." (See: "Alexandria Councilman Jones on ethics complaint: 'I'm not backing down'"). "You need to have a meeting in Baton Rouge. I know you want to clear your name, but this is not the proper venue." id. Councilman Roosevelt Johnson said "We could go on all day", noting that any final decision will be made by the ethics board. id.


Now that Jones has made the complaint against him public, and even supplied the Town Talk with a copy of it, there was nothing about the complaint that was kept secret from the public. The Louisiana Ethics law provides that "It is a misdemeanor to reveal any information about an Ethics Board investigation". ("Louisiana Board of Ethics Procedures").

Despite the verbiage given to the complaint by Jones and Chuck Johnson, the ethics complaint had nothing to do with the legality of that resolution, rather it was based upon Jones' voting for the resolution that personally affected him. (Ethics Complaint").

"In addition, the complainants allege that Jones, who was appointed to the District 3 council seat on Dec. 13, had an unethical business relationship with City Council President Harry Silver, who owns the Weiss & Goldring clothing store in Alexandria." id.


Jones also appears to have violated the state's Open Meetings Law which provides that " if a public body plans to discuss the character, competence, or health of a person, that person must be given notice, that the public body plans to discuss him and the person may require a public discussion.

Conduct of Meetings". (See: "Open Meetings Laws"). Jules Green, Gayle Underwood and myself were given no such notice and an opportunity to be heard, and I wasn't even at that meeting.

Also, to the best of my memory, out of the many ethics complaints that I have filed, which well over 2/3rds of which have been substantiated, only two of them have been against Blacks. One of them was even against a personal friend of mine, Myron Lawson. Jones also left out the fact that one of the complainants, Mr. Jules Green, is himself a Black man. This complaint is not racially motivated, it is purely a matter of ethics.

Jules Green said "other council members and city employees accused of ethics violations weren't given the same opportunity that Jones received". id. "For now, he will wait to hear from the Ethics Administration on a ruling." id.


Mrs. Underwood said that Aymond wasn't the one who pushed for the ethics complaint. id. "Instead, she and Green came to Aymond for his assistance in filing the complaint." id.


See Also: TOWN TALK REPORTS ON THE COUNCILMAN JERRY JONES ETHICS COMPLAINT and the posts linked thereunder.