JT got a good laugh… but it took others a little time before they found the humor in it. We recently ran a story about the School Board’s Director of Finance, Lee Waskom, speaking to a local business group called “The Agitators” about plans for possibly a new school in the southern end of the parish.
Now, The Agitators have been around for over 50 years meeting regularly. They usually have speakers who talk about things of importance in our local community as well as state or nation. JT’s told the group originated by some of our earlier movers and shakers like the late Bill and Latief Ackel, the late attorney Arthur Watson, the late Joe Pierson and the late Robert Lucky…to name a few.
The original intent, he’s told, was to help elect Sylvan Friedman to the Louisiana Senate. After that, they stayed together and kept abreast of local needs and concerns and continued to be involved through networking. JT remembers close to 200 people showing up at the Ackel’s camp outside of Campti to hear former Gov. Buddy Roemer in his campaign to “Slay the Dragon” Edwin Edwards.
But he digresses…..back to the point of all this.
As people sometimes do…they misread or jumped to conclusions. Those opposed to the proposed new school not being built closer to…or in… Marthaville, thought Waskom was calling them “agitators.” So they flooded the school board office with demands for Waskom to be fired for calling them agitators….which he did not.
Poor Lee and school officials took an undeserved lashing from the anti-school districts consolidation group for several days.
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The Louisiana Legislature is set to end today, Thursday, but it may take several months for the smoke to clear the state capital. JT’s told we shouldn’t expect them to be home very long.
They still have some issues the legislative leadership wants to tackle and then we know there’s a session coming up on reapportionment. We already know that we will not lose a Congressman or Senator based on the population numbers, but what we don’t know is the shift in population and how the various district lines will be drawn.
You’ve heard the phrase…the devil is in the details. That could never be more true then when reapportionment comes into play. ——-