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we've noticed that since we've been posting some lawsuits and pleadings that we've been receiving some googlers from all over; we assume, judging from the keywords and search strings, looking for various types of pleadings to serve as a template for their own lawsuits.
most of these visits appear to be coming from private individuals but there are also some law firms.
back in 2009, louisiana supreme court chief justice, catherine d. "kitty" kimball, in her first address to the joint session of the louisiana legislature, told the lege, that "as the cost of litigation continues to be high and as the economy weakens more and more of our citizens who must utilize the court are trying to handle legal matters on their own."
this case should have something for just about everyone. there's motions to compel discovery, motions to extend time to respond, motions to recuse judges, tons of witness and deposition subpoenas and on and on.
there's even some la. code of civil procedure art. 971. special motion to strike, although an article 971 motion wasnt really applicable to this case; even if one were, compared to others that we've read, this one was horribly pled by mr. pugh's attorney, s. aaron siebeneicher (johnson & siebeneicher) and mr. sansings' timothy shumate (chris roy, sr.).
for the best chance for success an article 971 motion should be its own well briefed, stand alone motion. instead what happened here is the attorneys decided to include it, almost as an afterthought, in a motion for peremptory and dilatory exceptions and reconventional demand.
several of cleco's many attorneys richard a. rozanski, (wheelis & rozanski) and jennifer l. thornton, (stanley, fanagan & reuter), both of whom are freaking pit bulls, totally destroyed them in their opposition briefs and the trial court (judge george c. metoyer, jr.) eventually denied them.
we cant tell where the third circuit appeals court took it up on a supervisory writ -- although on page 623 the third circuit did grant a motion to strike for mr. sansing regarding "the references to the depositions of sonny craig and ned randolph and the affidavit of samuel sansing are hereby ordered stricken as they were not submitted to the trial court." but that doesnt appear to be related to the article 971 special motion to strike.
nevertheless, if you're looking for a template for an article 971 special motion to strike -- dont use this one. check this one out .pdf 16 pages [187 kb].
what this case boiled down to is that mr. sansing and mr. pugh both worked for cleco and when they left cleco's employ "cleco paid pugh a severance package of $76,668" and mr. sansing $175,000.00.
mr. sansing and mr. pugh were aware that cleco had been over billing or defrauding the city of alexandria and its electricity rate payers for many years amounting to millions of dollars.
so instead of going to the police and reporting it so that the police could investigate and the city and its rate payers could recover 100% of the over billings -- they go to the alexandria city council and its then mayor and in a complete abdication of their fiduciary duty to the city and its rate payers, they enter into an agreement with mr. sansing and mr. pugh to give them an incredible 50% of any money they recovered.
as you can imagine all this angered and likely frightened cleco and in one of the pleadings there is a vague reference to an unnamed alexandria city councilman who had a physical confrontation with an unnamed cleco employee at an unnamed local restaurant that happened right after cleco learned that the city had signed this contract with mr. sansing and mr. pugh and their energy management services, l.l.c.
cleco wanted their severance money back and didnt mind spending what must have amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to recover what amounted to around $252,000.00.
the louisiana supreme court is what saved mr. sansing and mr. pugh.
mr. sansing wanted cleco to produce "a certain document" which cleco declined and wanted a protective order which judge metoyer refused to grant and ordered cleco to produce the document.
cleco fought this all the way to the supreme court who remanded it back to judge metoyer and instructed him "to render a new ruling on cleco's motion for protective order, including specific findings on the applicability of the crime-fraud exception, after appropriate briefing from the parties and, if necessary, an additional in camera review of the privileged documents."
after the supremes ruling in mid may 2009, it appears that cleco abandoned the case as there has been no activity since.
click here or here to download 1,639 page .pdf [48.1 mb]
heres the latest in the city of alexandria v cleco lawsuits. there are so many and we have blogged about this before to try and recap and someone correct us if we are wrong, cleco has been accused of cheating alexandria "ratepayers" by over charging alexandria for utilities. or something like that. it all started when some guys that worked for cleco sam sansing and david pugh squealed to the city that cleco was frauding it.
as you can imagine, cleco is suing these two in state court and there is controversy there because the judge in that suit judge george metoyer well his wife works for one of the litigants - the city of alexandria. see new judge wastes no time joining the old boy network.
so then it turns out that there was some spies on the citys side because mayor randolph fired his chief of staff and two other high level city "executives" for giving cleco a heads up about what they were discussing in "secret" city council meetings. they turn around and sue and randolph hires charlie weems to defend the suit. mr weems promptly moves the suit to his law partners court who just happens to be a federal judge. how convenient.
anyway, our interest lies as you can tell in all the lawyers involved. you see judge dee drell comes from the gold weems law firm and so does the other federal judge u s district judge f a "pappy" little, jr. "the gold firm" is located here at alexandria, la., charlie weems comes from the gold firm as well. in fact the secretary of state used to list the incorporators of the gold weems law firm as c.s. weems, III and f.a. little, jr.
of course the right thing to do under say oh canon 2 of the federal canons of judicial conduct would be for judge drell as well as judge little to recuse themselves from any suit that their former or current law partner(s) would bring on before em. didnt we just go over this in the alito hearings?
naturally the local press never reports any of this. a few years ago judge little ruled on a lawsuit concerning bayou robert. judge little also lives on bayou robert despite that he ruled anyway. the town talk never mentioned the judge lived on the very property he was ruling on despite publishing several articles about the dispute itself; when it was pointed out to them their reply was "he has to live somewhere"
another one of the lawyers the one representing one of the guys mayor randolph fired is jock scott who is the son of the late federal u s senior judge nauman s scott.
so what we have is a cabal of lawyers who happen to control the federal throne here, poised, to take over a major louisiana utility - cleco. uh huh they are republicans too...
City, Cleco agree to audit to help resolve dispute
By Billy Gunn bgunn@thetowntalk.com
(318) 487-6378
Alexandria and Cleco Corp. have agreed to an audit overseen by a U.S. District Court judge to resolve the legal and public argument over whether the utility owes the city's electricity users money.
City Council members Friday unanimously voted to adopt guidelines that will be submitted to Judge Dee Drell, who is presiding over the city's lawsuit against Cleco filed this past summer.
"The audit process provides an opportunity for a neutral and experienced auditor to identify the specific claims that the city has against Cleco," City Attorney Kelvin Sanders said at a special council meeting Friday.
"The audit and resulting mediation has a good chance of expediting a resolution of the city's claims with minimal cost and should improve the city's ability to assess the value of its claims," Sanders said.
In the city's lawsuit, Alexandria makes numerous allegations against the utility, including alleging fraud over years of electricity transactions.
An audit "is the right thing to do," Mayor Ned Randolph said.
Council President Charles F. Smith Jr. said, "We want the people of this town to know we're not hiding anything."
The city suit against Cleco is one of three now in the courts involving the utility, Alexandria and a bevy of other players. The longest-running lawsuit, filed by Cleco against two former employees, is ongoing.
Attorneys for the former employees, Sam Sansing and David Pugh, who brought alleged Cleco wrongdoings to city officials' attention in the spring of 2004, said they will proceed fighting for their own audit in state court.
The most recent case, filed in September, was brought against the city after Randolph got rid of three longtime city executives, Harold Chambers, Sonny Craig and Darrell Williamson.
Originally published January 14, 2006
drell resume added 8:19pm cdt sunday 02 april 2006the alexandria, la. mayor and city council, who settled their fraud suit against cleco and especially the alexandria, ratepayers probably dont want to read this.This case involves the consolidation of four writs into a single writ opinion.
Two of the writs, numbers 11-348 and 11-349, were filed by Cleco Corporation and Cleco Power, LLC (“Cleco”).
The other two writs, numbers 11-391 and 11-392, were filed by the Louisiana Public Service Commissioner (“the LPSC”), as intervenor in two separate class action suits which have been filed against Cleco by a putative class of utility ratepayers (“Ratepayers”) in the City of Opelousas.
Ratepayers seek reimbursement for alleged overcharges for electricity for a period of nearly twenty years.
In response to both lawsuits, Cleco filed exceptions of lack of subject matter jurisdiction, prematurity, and improper venue.
Following a hearing, the trial court denied Cleco’s exceptions.
We find no error by the trial court and, thus, deny these writs.
click here to download sixteen page .pdf and here [191 kb]according to this mornings ganett/town talk, cleco and the city of alexandria released the following joint statement:"The city of Alexandria and Cleco Corporation hereby jointly issue the following statement in connection with their agreement in principle to resolve the litigation pending between them before U.S. District Judge Dee Drell.
it looks like that if the city of alexandria, la. and cleco have agreed 'in principal' (which the insertion of the words 'in principal' seems to give either and/or both party's some wiggle room to back out) to settle their differences, so then why isnt all the court records including the audit being released to the citizenry in order for them to review the documents and audit in order to give an informed opinion to their respective council members as to how they would like for them to proceed?
"The parties have agreed in principle to resolve all disputes relating to Cleco's past supply of power to Alexandria. Accounting for past transactions between the two entities is complex and based on numerous variables and assumptions. In light of this complexity, the mediation process was chosen over a trial to preserve a basis for a future business arrangement between the city and Cleco.
Because of that choice, no findings were contemplated or made by the mediation process with regard to fraud, and the KPMG report made no findings of fraud. The city of Alexandria and Cleco have arrived at a business judgment resolution that is forward looking. In that new agreement, Alexandria would continue to receive electricity and power services from Cleco under a new long-term contract that promises substantial savings to the city's electric customers and Cleco would continue to contribute to the city's growth and prosperity."
according to the accompanying gannett/town talk article (see link) alexandria, la. mayor jacques roy "[S]aid late Monday that eventually the public would have access to information on which city officials have based decisions, including parts of the Beck report not covered by Judge Drell's gag order, issued in early 2006 as Cleco and Alexandria prepared for the audit. Drell's order that seals the audit and prohibits those in the know from talking still stands."
why wont judge drell dissolve his gag order and let the citizenry see the court papers before any final and binding agreement is signed? it seems that what is going to happen is that a deal will be signed and then 'eventually' meaning after the fact, the court records and audit will be released at some unknown time in the future.
judge drell should dissolve his gag order and release all the court records including the audit before any final agreement between the city and cleco is signed so that the citizenry can review and have their say. anything less than that gives the appearance that the judge is covering up for corporate and governmental interests to the detriment of the citizenry to whom he is supposed to serve.
back in june 9th judicial district court judge b dexter ryland passed away. five candidates ran for the spot and patricia koch won outright with 51% of the vote in fact, judge koch, received more votes than the other four challengers combined.
so anyway, cleco is suing some former employees because cleco alledges that they "broke confidentially agreements". we really need a scorecard to keep track of all these lawsuits because there are about 3 or 4 that we know of. see 3 former execs' lawsuit against city moved to federal court. in this article published on 18 october 2005 they talk about how alexandria mayor ned randolph has hired charlie weems of the so called "gold" firm to represent the city in federal court. then in this article filed by jim leggett we see how the gold firm is being sued for overbilling a former client and the rather brazenly scandalous attempt by 9th judicial judge harry randow to cover it all up.
town talk reporter billy gunn writes that us district judge dee drell offered to recuse himself from one of the lawsuits because he is a city of alexandria ratepayer. this is disingenuous of mr gunn at best because in reality we know that judge drell came from the gold law firm and that in fact charlie weems and the other us district judge f a "pappy" little jr are the incorporators of the gold firm. judge drell's son bradley is an attorney there. so in effect here in alexandria, we have one law firm, one clique of lawyers, controlling the federal bench.
so enter new judge patricia koch into all this mess who promptly rules that she cant see anything wrong with a fellow judge, 9th judicial judge george metoyer presiding over a case in which his wife works for one of the litigants. what a joke our legal system is.
yesterday, the gannett/alexandria daily town talk published a 'your mail' letter to the editor (see link) by cleco ceo mike madison 'creating the state we deserve.'
mr. madison wrote to tout the success of some mysterious entity called 'blueprint louisiana' of which mr. madison sits upon the steering committee thereof, in influencing the passage of some ethics reform. mr. madison writes, "from our perspective, all four of our ethics recommendations were achieved"
the thing is though, if mr. madison is so high on some ethics and some honesty and some transparency then why hasnt his company: cleco corporation, settled the long running city of alexandria v cleco lawsuit?
quoting from the original petition filed by the city of alexandria, the city alleges that "cleco has manipulated transactions involving purchases of electricity for the city in order to obtain for itself and/or its affiliates revenue and/or benefits having an economic value to which it was otherwise not entitled [here the city gives thirteen instances a.- m.] cleco is required to provide the city with documentation and data to evidence its actions and support its conduct in connection with the performance of its obligations to the city under the agreements. despite the obligation to provide such information and despite the reasonable requests of the city to obtain such information, cleco has either failed or refused to provide such information, or in the alternative, has provided information that is incomplete, inaccurate, misleading and or false..."
thats pretty strong words. the city of alexandria, la. is saying that cleco is a bunch of crooks who operate like an organized crime gang.
so what does cleco do? they promptly move the suit over to federal court before the rethuglican george w. bush appointee, dee drell, who's former? law partner charlie weems is a major financial contributor to and supporter of the current governor piyush "bobby" jindal the very same governor who mr. madison and his blueprint louisiana entity operate in support of.
on a side note, mr. weems and another blueprint louisiana steering committee member, jonathan martin also intersect when mr. martin and mr. weems recently came out in support of the satanic bohemian grover sean o'keefe when he was fired from his job as lsu chancellor. by the way, the late president richard milhous nixon once remarked that bohemian grove was "the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine" [video] but we digress, cos after all we are talking about a bunch of republicans here.
anyway, judge drell instead of setting a trial date so that all this could promptly come out in public, seals everything including the audit and apparently playing into cleco's 'strategery' allows cleco to string the proceedings along for years under the guise of "mediation." this "mediation process" further helps cleco because it demoralizes the citizenry and the city and threatens to bankrupt or severely cripple the city with the associated legal fees so that the city will eventually become exhausted in fighting this suit and settle for peanuts or for nothing at all. yet mr. madison has the audacity to sign his name to a letter in which he claims to stand for and speak for good ethics and good government. only in louisiana!
next mr. madison chooses to pat some local legislators ("reps. andy anders, billy chandler, chris hazel and chris roy, and state sens. eric lafleur and neil riser") on the head "for asking questions, working the issues and boldly casting votes for reform." thats a lie -- they didnt ask any questions, what they did was totally abdicate their duty, their oath of office, to act as a separate and coequal branch of government.
for example, this bunch was either too dumb or they knew better but were too timid which is worse, to see the danger when they all voted for hb41 [senate final passage vote | house final passage vote] a bill now act 23 which
consolidated the adjudication powers of the state ethics board to the governor because it removes those powers from the state ethics board which didnt even file charges in 60% of the cases before it and gives the control to the governor because the administrative law judges are appointed by someone who in turn is appointed by the governor.
now thanks to these legislators own stupidity when they have a little ethics problem, which they will, thanks to the other myriad of ethics laws they passed against themselves, they will have to go to the governor with their hat in their hand and work out some kind of deal with him in order to get him to make a phone call to see that the ethics charges are taken care of. administrative law judge courts are nothing but a kangaroo court and a sham as seen by the administrative law judge court the lafayette consolidated government runs for their redflex redlight scam. see the video of a lafayette/redflex administrative law judge hearing here and also new recording captures tony tramel; others mocking and laughing at lafayette citizens. not surprisingly the lafayette parish consolidated government is another louisiana governmental entity under the control of corrupt republicans.
mr. mike madison thinks this is all just fine and dandy and we guess he does when you consider who controls the governor. it's the corporatocracy made up of corporations like cleco and the plutocracy made up of people like mike madison. in fact, if you look at who is behind the blueprint louisiana group you see its nothing more than a front and a shill/propaganda arm of the corporatocracy/plutocracy.
mr. madison is absolutely correct when he writes they are "creating the state that we deserve" what he doesnt tell you, because he doesnt have to tell you either, seeing that 53.88% of the states voters have already shown themselves to have lousy minds and cant think properly enough to figure it out anyway, is that the "we" aint the common people at all - the "we" is big business and the wealthy.
2. To discuss the Mayor’s potential conflict on the Cleco Case and ability to sign a contract involving the litigation and to discuss potential violation of Article 7.2 of the Charter.but in all this time they still dont know dates, times, who was deposed (councilman johnson did inform us that he wasnt 'decomposed') definitions, or even the circumstances of the mysterious early 2007 trip mayor roy took to orlando, florida to meet with r.w. beck.
Lawson denied leading the charge against Roy, saying Goins and Larvadain got wind of court testimony from Roy's attorney saying the mayor might have committed ethics violations in the Cleco case.yet they dont bother to tell the reader the name of this attorney. or where is the written or audio transcript of this court testimony and what lawsuit and the date that it happened in. it would seem that a competent reporter would look all that up and either confirm it happened or report that it appears to be a rumor.
click here to download 38 page .pdf [1.74 mb]
interesting quote from page thirteenat this point we dont know and dont pretend to know whats going on with the mayor and the city council. all we do know for sure is that today around 2:30 pm cdt the alexandria daily town talk posted the following story to its website. then a few minutes later the town talk edited the story and that version can be seen here.
Alexandria City Council tells mayor to stay out of the Cleco case
Town Talk staff
The Alexandria City Council today issued a directive to Mayor Jacques M. Roy to cease and desist all involvement in the Cleco case.
The council also directed the city’s special counsel attorneys in the Cleco case, John Sharp and Craig Davidson, to file documents re-enrolling attorney Bridgett Brown as counsel in the Cleco case representing the city.
The city has been involved in a longtime legal dispute with Cleco over allegations that Cleco overcharged the city for electricity.
The council cited City Charter Section 3-07(8) as giving them the power to order the mayor to stay out of the Cleco case. Section 3 deals with the executive branch of the city and says the mayor shall have the following powers and duties: (8) Perform such other duties as are specified in this charter or may be required by the council.
The council also directed that upon her re-enrollment, Brown should dismiss her petition for intervention and sign all necessary documents, including but not limited to the standing protective order.
The council issued the directive immediately following a special executive session today.
--END--
click here to download two page .pdf
according to the town talk (see link) former alexandria mayoral chief of staff harold chambers is set to get a big "consulting" contract from the city of alexandria, la.
town talk excerpt:"Chambers, who was chief of staff was fired by then-Mayor Ned Randolph in September 2005. Chambers' dismissal came after he called Cleco officials following a city executive session in which two former Cleco employees accused the utility company of defrauding Alexandria..."
so lets see if we can get this right...heres a guy, mr. chambers, who was the then mayors chief of staff. the city had an executive session which is a private, non-public session in which they supposedly learned that cleco had been overbilling the city to the tune of millions of dollars...so mr. chambers called cleco to let them know what was discussed in the private, secret executive session.
now there is a lawsuit, in federal court no less and still on going, where the city is suing cleco for among a litany of other things including "intending to cause economic damage to the city while benefiting cleco." now, amazingly, the city wants to hire the guy who ratted them out to cleco to be a consultant and the person who is pushing this idea is non other than charles frederick "droopy-draws" smith. you think there isnt some (no pun intended) blackmail going on?
UPDATE: unethical alexandria, la. attorney greg aymond, in full damage control mode, attacked this post from his blog. however, the discerning reader should note, that he did not deny what we wrote either. - at least in the version that we saw.
click here to download 19 page .pdf [73kb]Sometime in 2005, at the dedication of the police memorial for fallen Police Officers, Chris Roy Sr. approached Kelvin Sanders and stated that the City did not need to hire their own lawyers to represent it in the CLECO controversy that "they" could represent the City and Sanders responded that would be inappropriate "that a first year law student could see through the conflict."what needs to be done here is a complete investigation of this case by some outside, non-local and non-louisiana state, agency.
The City then hired Intervenor [bridgett brown] along with Attorney John Sharp, Attorney Craig Davidson and Phillip Hunter in a contingency contract that stated that Intervenor would receive ten (10%) percent; John Sharp ten (10%) percent; Craig Davidson ten (10 %) percent; and Phillip Hunter five (5%) percent, of any over billings recovered.
In the spring and summer of 2006 on three different occasions [jacques] Roy and Chris Roy Sr. who represented [samuel] Sansing contacted Intervenor and tried to pressure her into withdrawing from the case so that EMS [EMS is owned by David Pugh and employed Samuel Sansing who are former employees of CLECO] could increase its percentage of fees and on at least one occasion during the same period Roy and Chris Roy Sr. personally visited Intervenor to pressure her to give up her contract so EMS could increase the amount of its fees in its new contract, and Intervenor refused.
Sometime in 2006 Attorney Michael Johnson who represented David Pugh came to see Intervenor and tried to pressure her into withdrawing from the case so that EMS could increase the amount of its fees in its new contract, and Intervenor refused.
wst... note: this paragraph resonates with us -- we made some posts critical of the city of alexandria renewing its channel 4 and city website management agreement with kja communications group, which is owned by david pugh.
mr. pugh contacted his attorney, michael johnson, who in turn contacted his good friend, unethical alexandria, la. attorney greg aymond, who in turn contacted us, attempting to pressure and intimidate us into retracting our post(s) and then to unequivocally support the kja contract renewal.
we told mr. aymond to go jump in the lake; that we are not interested in being a part of, or working with, the criminal network.
as a result, mr. aymond began to attack us from his blog and stepped up his attacks when it was revealed exclusively from this blog that alexandria, la. mayor jacques roy's brother, state representative chris roy, jr., awarded a tulane legislative scholarship to the daughter of samuel sansing.
it's unknown what, if any, consideration mr. aymond received then or has or is receiving in his attempts to subvert and propagandize the local blogosphere.
Intervenor believes that sometimes in the spring and summer of 2006 Roy, Chris Roy Sr., and Michael Johnson went to Phillip Hunter and pressured him to withdraw from the case in which he did,
As a result of Phillip Hunters withdrawal from the case, the City approved the new EMS contract at twenty (20%) rather than the original fifteen (15%) percent it was scheduled to receive.
Sometimes in October 2006, while Jacques Roy was in involved in a special election for Mayor of Alexandria, Roy, Pugh, Sansing, Attorney Aaron Siebeneicher, Intervenor, John Sharp, and City Attorney Kelvin Sanders, Craig Davidson and David Pugh met to discuss how much money EMS believed that CLECO owed the city and at that meeting Kelvin Sanders again expressed to Roy that if he won the mayor’s race, he would have a conflict and should not participate in the CLECO case.
Sometime in December of 2006 [mayor roy was sworn into office on 04 december 2006] Roy in a meeting in which Sanders was present, indicated that he was setting Notice of Deposition of Board members of CLECO in the CLECO vs. Sam Sansing, et al and Sanders again warned Roy that he should not be participating in either the City Of Alexandria vs. CLECO and CLECO vs. Sam Sansing, et al.
At all times after his election Roy continually acted as the City of Alexandria lead attorney in City of Alexandria vs. CLECO directing all discussions and legal tactics.
Sometime in early March of 2007 Intervenor received a phone call from Tommy Antoon who stated he was calling on behalf to the Mayor and told Intervenor that if she would not fight her removal from the case and “send her resume”, she would receive city legal work. Intervenor declined the offer.
wst... note: this might have been one of the phone calls ms. brown was referring to in her 13 march 2007, address to the city council, when she said "i've gotten calls from several people in the last two weeks, explaining to me that 'dont worry you'll get an hourly wage and you'll get a couple of hundred dollars for the work that you've done.'"
Sometime in March of 2007, Intervenor, City Attorney Charles Johnson, Attorney Kelvin Sanders, Malcolm Larvardain and Attorney Edward Larvadain, Jr., met for lunch and at that meeting, Johnson informed Intervenor that Roy was acting as the City Attorney in this case and that even he was not allowed to “touch it” and that no African-American lawyers would make any money out of this case and that Intervenor would not receive her contingency fee because it should have gone to EMS.
wst... note: this is perhaps the most fascinating paragraph in ms. brown's amended petition. a preceding paragraph --paragraph 36, (see also paragraph 39) of the petition states that ms. brown was terminated by the city attorney, mr. johnson, by letter she received on 28 february 2007.
now here it is less than a month later and she is having lunch with him? how many people have lunch with someone who just terminated their employment, especially under such contentious circumstances?
also is ms. brown suggesting that mr. johnson while lamenting that "no african-american lawyers would make any money" out of the case was leaking information to her and others? is ms. brown suggesting that city attorney johnson was violating the protective order that issued on 19 january 2006?
additionally, in that 13 march 2007, city council meeting, ms. brown addressed the council and made her argument that she was still in the cleco case. the city attorney, mr. johnson, in his response to ms. brown's statement said that "very little of it was true factually, very little of it was accurate legally." ms. brown also played "the race card" and was called on it by city attorney, johnson. looking back at the meeting now, we wonder if what we were really witnessing was a dog and pony show.
During the mediation Council members had to separate Roy and John Sharp who were arguing, Sharp rebuked Roy for participating in the mediation as he had a conflict, however, Roy ignored Sharp’s recommendation and according to the Alexandria Town Talk:
wst... note: this paragraph doesnt make any sense because the preceding paragraph, paragraph 42, says in part that, "no council member were allowed to participate in the mediation." the mediation was held on 26 and 27 march 2007 and around six months later, on 06 september 2007, the city council issued a cryptic statement at mayor roy directing him to cease and desist all involvement in the cleco case.
