COUNCILWOMAN FULLER IGNORES GOOD GOVERNMENT PRINCIPLES AS COMMITTEE CHAIR

It’s one thing to promote government transparency. And another to actually provide the transparency. The council infrastructure committee meeting on Tuesday was anything but transparent.

The committee is chaired by Levette Fuller. Other members are councilmen Grayson Boucher, John Nickelson, and Willie Bradford. All were in attendance except Bradford who had a work conflict.

Others at the meeting included the city’s chief administrative officer, 4 department heads, an assistant city attorney and private citizens.

The agenda listed 2 city projects, old business, and new business.

After dealing with one city project, Fuller passed a motion to suspend the rules to allow a special presentation by a vendor (Verdunity) who hopes to be contracted by the city. Tim Wright currently works for this company.

Fuller is a member of Reform Shreveport, LLC. So is Tim Wright. This group has previously hosted a seminar by Verdunity. Fuller made no disclosures of her relationship with Wright, and tangentially, with Verdunity.

Under New Business Fuller allowed the city to make a detailed presentation on proposed budget amendments. Part of the presentation dealt with a listed city project. The committee made a recommendation that the amendments be presented to the full council.

No notice was given to the public that a presentation would be made by a potential city vendor. No notice was given to the public that the city would present significant budget amendment proposals to the city.

The meeting lasted 95 minutes. Almost an hour was consumed by these two nonagenda items.

Good government principals were ignored by Fuller, who has held herself out as an advocate for the same. The spirit, if not the letter, of the Open Meetings Law and the council rules of procedure were ignored at this meeting. So much for transparency to the public.