judging by the amount of googlers we see arriving here at wst... the rapides parish sheriff race seems to be the most popular local topic of interest. so we've tried to put all of our links and posts on one page. if you know of a blog, website or other information that should be included here please let us know by comment or email. thanks.====external links to local sheriff race oriented blogs:====
below is our outclicks summary for the past month and as you can tell the rapides parish sheriff race remains the most popular topic of interest amongst cenla's netizens.
====the rapides parish sheriff election is this fall. earlier today we took this screen grab from the outclicks section of our feedburner site stats; it shows that the local sheriff race blogs are very popular. if you get a chance be sure and check them out.
===="Sheriff Race Blog" ---- http://www.tod-race.blogspot.com/
"Sheriff Race 2007" ----- http://www.concernedcitizensofrapidesparish.blogspot.com/
"Thoughts From Rapides" ---- http://www.thoughtsfromrapides.blogspot.com/
les golman and michele godardles golman says that mr. roach "presented himself as the advertising consultant for mike slocum. that meeting basically went similar to this - he did not want you (michele godard) as an individual to be involved in the upcoming debate. as a matter of fact [mr. roach] said his candidate [mike slocum] would not show up unless you declared the fact that that you were a supporter of his opponent. they were threats made by mr. roach in fact he would turn us over to the fcc commission. the decision to pull you off of the debate, tonight, was based on the fact that i felt like that our responsibility is to let the people know whats going on. they can make their decision. anytime anybody is put under the stress that would keep them from voting, you know, i think that point is bigger than the sheriff, the sheriff's department, mr. roach and certainly kalb television, so, therein is why, you were pulled off, not because of threats by mr. roach."the problem with this is that neither ms. godard or mr. golman ever say whether or not ms. godard is a supporter of maj. slocum's opponent. that would seem like a very important and obvious question to answer;
charlie789 over on his thoughts from rapides...blog calls rapides parish sheriff candidate bill robinson to account about "some discrepancies in his web page" regarding amongst other things the "pistol range and training center", "DOC halfway house", "The Internal Affairs Division" and female deputies. charlie also takes presumed but unannounced (at least to our knowledge) sheriff candidate chuck wagner to task.
click the link to read more.
other blogs discussing the rapides parish sheriff race include: tod-race blog and steel magnolia's sheriff race 2007.
william earl hilton made his candidacy official, gannett/the alexandria daily town talk repeated, 05 may 2011.
this 2007 chuck wagner for sheriff political sign cleaned up pretty well.
hilton for sheriff signs going up around the parish this week
and the baden jogger.2011 RSPO Race commented on - we saw that...
Hilton is smiling all the way to the bank!!! He is no idiot, he knows how to raise money for elections. Not everyone donates by a check, he likes CASH. CASH for deputy position with benefits is a worth plenty of CASH!!! He failed during his last term as Sheriff, letting his blackmailer, Mike Slocum, take over the department. It was obivious he was supporting Slocum under duress. Our RSPO was held hostage because of his greed and fear of Slocum. They supported each other in public, but cussed each other in private. Our Parish is on the right track now, and the is no reason to open the door the corruption that follows Hilton and Slocum. WHy did Hilton have to buy 60 new police cars a year?? Sheriff Wagner has averaged about 10 new vehicles a year saving over $1,000,000 annually just there!====Keep Wagner Sheriff commented on - we saw that...:
I heard Slocum and Hilton both pocketed over $50,000 cash each in 2007 when they tried the flim flam to let Slocum run instead of Hilton because Hilton had made his contribution as Sheriff and was ready to retire and take it easy. Now that they know Slocum could never become Sheriff, Hilton is the front man in this year's flim flam to make it look more sensible. Wagner has a strong record as our Sheriff.. So understand that all the whispering and rumors that will be spread by Hilton supporters are lies, and don't be fooled. Fear is the greatest motivator to get someone to do something. The parish is better off financially than when Hilton was Sheriff and much safer! Sheriff Wagner has stepped up all services by his office on about $2 Million less in tax revenues due to the economy.====WE'RE BACK commented on - we saw that...:
You say hilton was good for a few years? He was sheriff alittle longer than a few years he ran the department right and was good to his people, he took care of us and we will take care of him. All of you ignorant people can keep tellin lies after lies but the truth will all come out in the end and when ya'll are cryin and wagners at home eating his pain pills and hugged up to his girlfriend i'll be sittin back laughin, o and il be getting my job back, YALL JUST COUNT DOWN THE DAYS BOYS WE ARE COMIN BACK..... - rapides parish sheriff's race: hilton strikes back
UPDATE: did the central la media and sheriff chuck wagner just get punk'd?
in the 2007 rapides parish sheriff's race much ta-doo was made over a rumor that should he win, kalb news director michele godard was going to become chuck wagner's public information officer. these rumors began around the time that ms. godard and kalb aired what some called hit pieces against mr. wagner's opponent mike slocum.
the first one called "race for rapides sheriff political maneuvering" was posted to kalb.com on 02 november 2007 on 05 november 2008 sheriff hilton responded with "rapides parish sheriff hilton responds to threat allegation" and that was followed on 07 november 2007 by "rpso deputies speak out."
on 13 november 2007 kalb hosted "rapides parish sheriff candidate debate" later that night on the 10:00 p.m..news, ms. godard and kalb general manager les golman in "kalb responds to biased reporting allegations" made a big deal out of reporting among other things that "mr. slocum’s campaign made demands on news channel 5 for the removal of its news director michele godard from the scheduled debate"
there is probably a lot more sheriff race news videos on kalb.com and dont be surprised if they all suddenly disappear from kalb.
on thursday 15 november 2007 two days ahead of the run-off election ms. godard appeared on local talk radio station ksyl. according to the above clip from that appearance ms. godard was there to "represent the television station to clear up a couple of things." the very first question posed to her by dave graichen before even a good morning was "ok the big question i got michele are you going to go work as p.r. for the sheriff's department?" after a round of laughter by all, ms. godard responds "no of course not i'am not qualified for that job...i wouldnt even know how to be a p.i.o. i have some suggestions of course"
the end result was that chuck wagner prevailed over mike slocum by some 1,398 votes. on electronic voting machines we might add.linkon election night, saturday 17 november 2007, michele godard interviewed chuck wagner [video] among the first words out of sheriff-elect wagner's mouth were "i want to thank bill [robinson] and his family and his supporters for coming out and getting behind us and we're just truly blessed." that night the last question asked of mr. wagner by ms. godard was "alright let's clear the air here - are you going to hire me as your p.i.o.?" mr. wagner said "thats not true. i know the rumors going around but you know i've put everything in writing, what i was going to do. it's on my website, if you havent seen it i encourage you to go look at it and thats what i did i put it in writing, so i can be held accountable and thats what government needs to do - not only the sheriff's office, but any office needs to be held accountable and i look forward to that." in lightof recent revelations, one has to wonder if the viewers werent the butt of a huge inside joke that night.now flash forward to 16 february 2008 and the town talk story by abbey brown "new policy restricts media's access to employees of sheriff's office" (download two page .pdf here) we learn that the sheriff wagner's new p.i.o. is heath crawford. the town talk reports that mr. crawford "most recently worked at kalb-tv as a producer and in marketing." no thanks to the town talk and their trademark half-assed reporting (notice how they always leave out the most obvious and most important parts of stories) doesnt bother to find out or if they did find out the town talk suppressed the date that mr. crawford began work at kalb.
although the town talk reported that mr. crawford said that "his last day at kalb was friday." which would have been friday 15 february 2008 there is some confusion there too, because a press release from the rapides parish sheriff's office by mr. crawford dated thursday 14 february 2008 is posted to kalb.com:not much is known about mr. crawford. the internet movie database mini-biography entry for 'director heath crawford' ends in 2004. although, the filmography lists mr. crawford as working in 2006 and 2007 as a camera operator for several episodes of "my own" jennifer lopez.mr. crawford's myspace is set to private but a blurb that is publicly viewable, mr. crawford assures us that he is "a lover not a fighter...but i'll still kick your ass!!"
mr. crawford's website at www.outoflinefilms.com doesnt have contain any biographical information either. it does list two addresses in the contact information, one in north hollywood, california and one in alexandria. louisiana.
so the obvious question that everyone should be asking is when did mr. crawford go to work at kalb? was he working at kalb during the 2007 rapides parish sheriff race when he was also candidate bill robinson's campaign manager and then chuck wagner's campaign manager? did he produce any of the news stories or the candidate forum 'debates'? if so, why wasnt any of this disclosed by kalb?
these are important questions that need answering especially due to mr. crawfords profession as a "director" and "producer" and his hollywood connection. the kennedy-nixon presidential debates in 1960 showed the power of television as an instrument of political manipulation...
'paw paw' is a local blogger who just happens to be a rapides parish sheriff's deputy and a slocum supporter.
in a recent blog post (see link) 'paw paw' weighs in on the 'intimidation' factor some deputy's are complaining of in the upcoming (17 november 2007) rapides sheriff race run-off between maj. mike slocum and chuck wagner.
although we havent decided who we will vote for or even if we will bother to vote in this particular race, we agree with paw paw when he writes:Lawmen shouldn’t be easily intimidated.If you are easily intimidated, either by the people or by your bosses, then you will do things that aren’t in keeping with your oath. The oath of a lawman is a powerful thing and requires that you might spend your life in keeping it.
click link to read more...
I find that during this political campaign, there are a number of deputies who say they’ve been intimidated.
I say Bullshit.
we have idea which rapides parish sheriff candidate we are going to vote for in the 17 november 2007 run-off election or if we are even going to cast ballots in this particular race.
anyway, kalb broadcast a pretty good report (see link) at 6:00 this evening about some "allegations that some sheriff department employees are being forced to support one of the two candidates."
kalb's story centers around a list detective bobby sandoval and detective adrian lamkin is carrying around for everyone to sign. two sheriff department employees claim that their jobs are being threatened if they do not sign their name to the list and contribute $10.00 to mike slocum's campaign. this list of names is scheduled to be printed in local newspapers as a political ad show of sheriff department support for mike slocum. detectives sandoval and lamkin maintain that signing the list is voluntary.
detective sandoval you might remember was one of the guys who contrary to the law according to ninth judicial district court judge donald johnson and affirmed by the third circuit court of appeals, the rapides parish district attorney's office leaked secret grand jury testimony to in the amanda gutweiler hypes investigation. that case is scheduled to be heard by the louisiana supreme court on 27 november 2007.
meanwhile, yesterday the editorial ding-bats over at the town talk put in their two cents worth of bullshit regarding the rapides parish sheriff run-off. instead -- instead...of using their editorial pulpit to demand that the new sheriff focus on something worthwhile like oh say all the rampant political and governmental corruption not to mention all the white collar crime, the town talk predictably takes the low road and chooses to focus on the so called "drug war."
the reality is that every family in rapides parish has at least one person who uses drugs, whether its marijuana, meth, cocaine, crack, etc. the town talk is so backward thinking they would like to see about a third to a half or more of the parish locked up and the rest of us tasked with even more taxes to pay for it.
using drugs and being addicted to drugs is a disease its not a crime. thats not to say that an adult who gives a child drugs to hook them and to turn them into a customer just like an adult who buys alcohol for a minor isnt a criminal and shouldnt be prosecuted because they should. the so called war on some drugs is a fraud and a sham its been going on since at least the 1930's and theres more drugs available now than ever before. this kind of editorial tripe on the part of the town talk makes one wonder if they ever read their own paper and if so and this is still the best they can come up with -- just what kind of drugs they are on.
we dont know about you but no "dopehead" has ever done anything to harm us. while white collar criminals, governmental and political crooks who have always been given a pass a wink and free reign by our do-nothing district attorney, our sheriff department, the state police, attorney general and local police forces sure have.
state representative charlie dewitt is rumored to be running for sheriff of rapides parish next year (2007) due to being term limited out of the legislature. we have heard this rumor from several different non blog sources. so, representative dewitt files hb79 to up the supplemental pay of certain law enforcement officers and deputy sheriffs only problem is that his bill didnt even make it out of the state house appropriations committee. will the failure of this bill hurt or help rep. dewitt's chances of running for sheriff?
===="Tod-Race Sheriff Race Blog"
“Steel Magnolia's Sheriff Race 2007”
“Thoughts From Rapides...”
“Cenla Antics”
“Paw Paw's House”
“Lamar White, Jr.”
"Club Retro L.L.C. et al v Sheriff William Earl Hilton et al"
“cenla blogs”
"central la politics" (gregory r. aymond, esq.)
“Rapides Parish Sheriff Dept. Rocked By 2nd Civil Rights Complaint”
rapides parish sheriff william earl hilton
sheriff hilton sat down with kalb's news director michele godard today and gave a pretty amazing and impressive interview to rebut kalb's story from friday 02 november 2007. that story can be found on kalb here or youtube here.
when asked if he had seen kalb's 02 november report, sheriff hilton replied that he had and that "it wasnt as good as it should be simply because one of the anonymous guys on there called me this morning and he was coerced into doing that." when asked by whom the sheriff said "the wagner camp."
now it doesnt make any sense how someone could be coerced by the "wagner camp," and makes us wonder if sheriff department personnel are men, mice, puppets or what. especially, when one considers that mike slocum is with the sheriff's department, maj. slocum was endorsed by the sheriff and maj. slocum led the primary election with some 48% of the vote to mr. wagner's 33%. so it would seem that all the power, momentum or whatever you want to call it would be on maj. slocum's side. but hey, after all this is louisiana and lawd knows the people here have lousy minds and cant think properly.
speaking of not thinking properly: sheriff hilton said that he was "disappointed" with chief detective herman walters and what he said in his interview. sheriff hilton said that detective walters "is a nervous type person, he's scared, he's paranoid, i met with him one sunday morning at leavines grocery in gardner and he told me some things then that was just totally ridiculous about things that he was imagining that was happening -- that wasnt happening..."
this isnt very comforting and makes us wonder how many other sheriff department personnel have mental problems. ho hum...
one part of the interview we found disturbing is towards the end when ms. godard tells sheriff hilton that the candidate that he supports, mike slocum, attempted to intimidate her on friday as she was producing her story.
according to ms. godard she said that mike slocum told her that "if you run this story and i win -- which i will win -- this news department will only receive information through a lawyer."
hmm words to ponder.
follow the link to the interview which runs 18m47s.
the above clip aired tonight on kalb-tv on the 6:00 pm news. the complete thirteen minute nine second interview is found on kalb.com at this link.
first off this is nothing but a fluff piece designed to make the sheriff look good while totally ignoring or intentionally misdirecting the public's attention away from more important questions like on what date exactly was heath crawford employed by media general/kalb. was it before the run-off election of 17 november 2007? the only mention to that is briefly in mr. magnoli's write-up for the interview:Sheriff Wagner says Heath Crawford (who was briefly employed in KALB's Marketing Dept) was not authorized to contact the news media with any statements for RPSO.
notice kalb puts that part within parenthesis as if its hardly worth mentioning, despite, the fact that sheriff wagner admits that mr. crawford worked on his campaign.
kalb and mr. magnoli have no excuses... especially when they spent hours on this blog today:
and yesterday:
close-up
the town talk tooSomething else is also clear. KALB Television's credibility has sunk to new lows, if that is possible [...] (KALB) does its fluff piece interview with Wagner, without even checking with Crawford for his side of the story and documentary evidence, like Abby (sic) Brown of the Town Talk did.
www.billrobinsonforsheriff.comwst... offered a rapides parish sheriff race poll from monday morning 09 july 2007 through friday morning 13 july 2007. below are the results:
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link to audio download page
this morning [730-8] on the ksyl talk back preshow [podcast friday's show when/if available] a caller phoned in to recite the old line that rapides parish, la., sheriff chuck wagner stopped the rural patrol and closed substations.
while we're not totally sure about substation closings, we havent heard of any closing, the part about sheriff wagner decreasing or stopping the rural patrol is provably wrong.
under the previous sheriff, who was sheriff for sixteen years, william earl hilton, rural areas rarely saw a patrol car go by, which is not a bad thing -- no one is complaining about that. but, why would wagner detractors insist in repeating this line when anyone who lives in a rural area of rapides parish can tell you that sheriff wagner has not in any way that a regular citizen can tell, stopped or cut back rural patrol but in fact appears to have implemented one!
since sheriff wagner came into office three years ago, its become routine for rural rapides parish residents to see a sheriff deputy over the course of the day out on patrol 4 - 6 times. over night probably more.
the rural patrol deputies that we've personally encountered have been extremely helpful and kind. when we had jury duty the bailiffs and other court personnel under the sheriff were all very professional and courteous in moving things along.
for the record though, the rapides parish sheriff's office has had great people as far back as we can remember to sheriff marshall t. cappel.
as far as closing the substations, if any were indeed closed, perhaps, rpso is converting that money into manpower for rural patrols.
local blogger pawpaw's house recently recounted an rpso deputy's first visit to the main office in awhile, who was impressed by the recently added technological innovations.
one criticism we can offer on sheriff wagner is that so far he hasnt lifted one finger to have that illegal and immoral 2003 sheriff's office 1% in perpetuity sales tax rescinded and put on the ballot at regular intervals for a vote of the people like its supposed to be.
in case you didnt know it, the in perpetuity slave tax was promulgated by sheriff wagner's predecessor now turned opponent william earl hilton aided and abetted by the rapides parish police jury.
so on principal we wont be voting for william earl hilton.(or jamie floyd in the clerk of court race.)
its possible that a few surprise candidates enter the race.
according to the alexandria daily town talk story published 10 january 2007 (see link) bill robinson announced his candidacy for sheriff of rapides parish, tuesday 09 january 2007 before a crowd of about 100 people at the holiday inn convention center in downtown alexandria.
quite frankly mr. robinson isnt all that impressive. he comes off like the standard issue louisiana political panderer/huckster complete with all the prerequisite mantra's. mr. robinson is quoted as saying::
"We increased the number of 238 beds in the Rapides Parish jail to 1,000 beds -- we need more," Robinson said. "There's an increasing drug problem in the parish, and activities for youths will keep them away from drugs and crime."mr. robinson wants to increase the beds in the rapides parish jail and with that comes the usual hiring of more deputies which would increase his political base because every deputy and their families are sure to vote for any harebrained self serving tax.
