Black and White, political establishments gang up on Tim Riley

When the votes were tallied in Gonzales’ four-candidate contest for mayor on November 5 a clear favorite had emerged to bedevil two political factions bent on retention of power in one of Louisiana’s most fiscally sound municipalities.  Situated at the heart of Ascension Parish, arguably the state’s most well-to-do (depending upon the metric), money and power flow through our traffic-congested arteries like never before.  Tim Riley’s 20.64% lead over the second-place finisher shook the power structure to its foundations, his promise to end cronyism and ignore special interests threatening its raison d’etre.

Riley’s impressive vote total has Kemlyn Bailey Lomas desperate | Pelican Post – Online Newspaper

Desperate to stop Tim Riley, the black and white political establishments have landed on Kemlyn Bailey Lomas as their last best hope.  Hitting Gonzales mailboxes in recent days…

one letter with six black endorsers going to certain areas of the city, a second with seven white endorsers going to other areas (you can probably figure out where the respective letters were sent).  And this from a candidate who claims that “(T)his election is about choosing a leader who unites us.”

The irony is probably lost on Lomas.

She boasts of “serving under three Parish Presidents” while omitting the fact that one of them fired Kemlyn Bailey Lomas in early 2020.  When Lomas lost her appeal to an otherwise friendly parish council, she intimated that President Clint Cointment’s decision was based on racism and sexism.  Just another example of Lomas’ commitment to unity and “strong relationships with local, state, and federal partners” she claims to have forged.

Tim Riley is only mayoral candidate with vital relationship to Ascension, and Congressional rep | Pelican Post – Online Newspaper

“The most vital governmental partner we can have in Gonzales is, without question, the one we will have in President Clint Cointemnt and Ascension Parish next year,” Tim Riley declared.  “It is unfortunate that most of those endorsing my opponent, with numerous decades in office, failed to establish that cooperative working relationship toward better outcomes for our mutual constituents.  As for endorsements, the one I want will come from Gonzales’ voters on December 7.”

For the rest of us more engaged in the three-ring circus that is local politics, the endorsements are curious.  To dispense with the obvious, why would any voter in the City of Gonzales be persuaded by the word of Donaldsonville’s mayor and a former state legislator from the west bank?

THE BLACK GUYS

Having won a sixth term as Donaldsonville’s chief executive, Leroy Sullivan has presided over a municipality where the population started sinking like the Le Pelican two decades ago.  Coming up on 20 years in office, Sullivan’s city has suffered an outmigration around 9% since he took the reins in Donaldsonville.  47.7% of Sullivan’s constituents, according to recent Census data, live in poverty with an estimated per capita income of $17,871 over the last 12 months.

How about get your own house in order, Mr. Mayor?

From the where are they now file, longtime west bank politico Roy Quezaire’s irrelevancy is more than a decade old and counting.  Last we heard, Quezaire is doing something with the Port of South Louisiana after chairing the farce that was Ascension’s Home Rule Charter Revision Committee in 2018.  Quezaire, if memory serves, was a member of Louisiana’s House of Representatives for 16 years, ending in 2008.

At least Ed Price still serves in the State Legislature, although scouring the bill filings over his tenure failed to unearth a single piece of legislation benefiting his constituents in the City of Gonzales.  Keep your fingers crossed, Price still has three years before he is term-limited.

When Alvin Turner, Jr. resigned his seat on the 23rd Judicial District Court bench in early 2023 it was rumored that he was considering his own run for mayor.  In fact, then mayor Barney Arceneaux even mused that Turner was the least objectionable among a handful of black candidates expected to be on the ballot.  At the time, Arceneaux had made his mind up to call it a career at the end of 2023 (a couple of plot twists later and here we are).

It did not take the veteran judge long to determine that his electoral chances for the city’s chief executive were microscopically small.

The judge has two sons, each of whom is elected to a council seat.

Travis Turner won his District 3 seat on Ascension’s Parish Council in 2011 and has been unopposed ever since.  He does not reside in the City of Gonzales and, to the best of our knowledge, has never attended a Gonzales City Council meeting much less undertaken any meaningful effort to benefit the city.  Not one of the parish governing authority’s more energetic participants, Travis’ singular legislative accomplishment is securing funds to renovate the gym at Lamar Dixon Expo Center.

Tyler Turner, overheard declaring his intention to run for mayor in 2028 “no matter who wins this time,” has been the Division D City Councilman since January of 2017.  Once employed by Ascension’s Assessor, Turner (for lack of a better verb) enjoyed brief stints as the President of Ascension’s NAACP Chapter and EA’s basketball coach, each coming to ignominious ends shrouded in secrecy.

THEORY:  We suspect the Turners view Kemlyn Bailey Lomas as an easier incumbent to oust in 2028 than Tim Riley, the latter unbeholden to them and dismissive of their political patronage.

He also made the news in December 2021, when WAFB reported:

Gonzales City Councilman Tyler Turner operated a business for nearly three years without a required business license, according to city officials.

The elected official has since paid penalties and interest for the time period during which he operated the business without a license, City of Gonzales officials told WAFB.

The business in question is a pressure washing business that Turner told city officials makes him about $5,000 per year, emails show.

The revelation came to light as WAFB recently started asking questions about $41,666.00 in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans that records show the councilman applied for earlier this year.

In April 2021, federal records show Turner applied for a PPP loan in the amount of $20,833. The next month, he applied for another loan in the same amount of $20,833. For both loans, Turner indicated the business he was applying for had just one employee, the records show.

Why would any citizen listen to the Turners?

THE WHITE GUYS

(Leaving aside, for the moment, that his new position as Executive Director of Louisiana Municipal Association precludes, or should, his involvement in municipal elections) If Gonzales voters cared what former mayor Barney Arceneaux had to say, Harold Stewart would have polled higher than 18% earlier this month.

BONUS PICS

Arceneaux’s already questionable judgment is skewed by his angst at being run over by the campaign juggernaut that is Tim Riley.  He spent the better part of half-a-year begging Riley not to run, promising to resign two years into a fifth term when his “money was right,” and claiming that he intended to purchase a piece of property on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain.  The gig with Louisiana Municipal Association, a job he had spoken openly about before seeking a fourth term in 2020, provided the escape hatch Arceneaux needed to save face.

Why he thought any of it would move Tim Riley is anyone’s guess, evidencing a severe lack of judgment by an individual too long in the swamp.  Serious questions have been raised about the conduct of the City Clerk under Arceneaux’s watch, accusations that Scot Byrd routinely overstepped his statutory authority abound with lax mayoral oversight.  It is a mess left to the next mayor, and we have zero confidence that Kemlyn Bailey Lomas possesses the intestinal fortitude or the desire to clean it up.

James Moore’s dream ticket in Gonzales runoff election | Pelican Post – Online Newspaper

As for former Ascension President Tommy Martinez’s endorsement in any election conducted in the City of Gonzales…EVER…So what?

14 years in the parish presidency, we challenge anyone to identify a single thing Martinez did to benefit Gonzales.  There is real animosity for Martinez among those of a certain age who have called Gonzales home.

Saddest of all, Johnny Berthelot’s 24-year reign over the City of Gonzales is a distant memory besmirched by a pathetic petulance ill-befitting one once held in esteem.  Berthelot’s visceral rage at being denied Gonzales’ interim mayorship, necessitated by Arceneaux’s early departure at the end of April, is palpable.  Gonzales is a different city than the one Berthelot left after 2008 and his influence, dubious at best, is insufficient to overcome Tim Riley’s electoral support among a citizenry ready for change.

If you don’t understand electioneering the Gonzales way, undertaken over a political landscape littered with hacks reduced to enfeeblement by mindless sycophancy to one or another wannabe machine boss, you might be persuaded by it.

Enough said.

Unfortunately for the moribund Lomas campaign, the only voters likely to show up on December 7 are those who routinely follow local governmental goings on, i.e. the same faction that gave Tim Riley 44% of the vote in a four-candidate slate on November 5.

 

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