Monthly Archives: August 2017

DONALDSONVILLE The proposal by the group A Better Ascension to eliminate the elected Ascension Parish president position in favor of a more autonomous, appointed parish manager won't make it to the ballot this fall as the plan's backers had hoped.

Ascension Parish Council Chairman Bill Dawson announced Thursday night he is establishing a council committee to hold at least three public meetings on the plan before the full council decides whether to put the measure before the voters. One of those meetings will have to be in west Ascension.

Reading from a statement, Dawson said the committee will have the "specific task of publicly vetting the charter amendments proposed by A Better Ascension." Dawson said the new committee will be composed of the entire 11-member council.

Backers of the A Better Ascension proposal want to make major changes to the parish home rule charter, which is Ascension's plan of government, to create the new parish manager position in a bid to improve efficiency and insulate the parish executive from political back and forth.

The creation of the committee by Dawson means three groups will be holding public meetings on A Better Ascension's plan in the coming weeks and months, including another Parish Council committee and A Better Ascension itself.

GONZALES With an attempted bribery indictment hanging over the head of Ascension Parish Pr

Amendments to the home rule charter require a vote of the public. At least two-thirds of the council, or eight members, must vote to put proposed charter changes on the ballot.

The proposal would mean the parish executive would not be directly elected by voters, as the parish president is now, but would be selected by the Parish Council after nomination by a separate committee of primarily business leaders.

The proposal has already drawn opposition from sitting Parish President Kenny Matassa, his 2015 election runoff opponent surveyor Clint Cointment, and some council members. But other members expressed openness to the idea.

Dawson had said earlier there was likely a window to get the measure on the November ballot if the council had been able to vote on the proposal by the end of this month. But Dawson said Thursday the committee of the whole chairman won't make his first progress report to the Parish Council until mid-September.Dawson has named Councilman Travis Turner as chairman of the new committee and Councilman Aaron Lawler as the vice chairman.

Separate from Dawson's initiative, Councilman Daniel "Doc" Satterlee also called for discussion of A Better Ascension's proposal before the committee he chairs, the Council Strategic Planning Committee, which meets 6:30 p.m. Aug. 10 at the Parish Courthouse Annex in Gonzales.

A Better Ascension, the nonprofit group of business people pushing the measure, is also planning public meetings later this month.

JHudson, a spokesman for A Better Ascension, said before the council meeting Thursday that the group's members respect "the process and are looking forward to sharing our message of professionalism, accountability, and efficiency throughout Ascension."

"Ultimately, the charter belongs to the people of Ascension," Hudson said. "Their voices deserve to be heard regarding these changes."

A Better Ascension is composed of business leaders from Ascension, including Eatel Corp. President John Scanlan and LABI political action committee director and Republican pollster and strategist John Diez Jr., a Gonzales native.

Follow David J. Mitchell on Twitter, @NewsieDave.

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Proposal by A Better Ascension to change parish executive will go ... - The Advocate

TULSA He sat in his Sequoyah High School classroom, wondering what would become of his next 12 hours. Further in town, in a stuffy courtroom, Ryan Helsley was having his short-term future pleaded over.

Same went for some of his closest friends and teammates.

Turns out, Nov. 2, 2012 was an unusual day from beginning to end.

A small collection of Sequoyah football players was having temporary court injunctions filed on their behalves, after the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association ruled that Sequoyah players had violated its summer camp policy. The governing body over Oklahomas high school sports had all but neutered Sequoyahs 2012 football season.

The Indians were 8-1 and steamrolling to the Class 3A playoffs with the likes of Brayden Scott at quarterback and Kyle Helsley at running back. Mix in Ryan Helsley, all over the field, Karter Woodruff, Robert Smith, Cody Hooper, Nick Kingfisher, Greyden Elrod and others, and the Indians were well-equipped to wreck havoc on the 3A playoff field.

The Helsley brothers, and their Sequoyah teammates, were granted permission to play in the regular season finale by Cherokee County District Judge Douglas Kirkley. The Indians went out and ambushed Lincoln Christian on Thompson Field, 63-40, thanks to Kyle Helsleys 265 yards and three touchdowns on only 14 carries.

It would be the last time Sequoyah fielded a football team during the 2012 campaign. The OSSAA released a 3A playoff bracket the next day, leaving the Indians off while forcing Sequoyah to forfeit all of its victories it had amassed during the season.

Nearly a year later, the state supreme court ruled the OSSAA acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner, while interpreting and enforcing its rules. By that time though, it was a moot point related to the Indians run that season.

It still irks Ryan Helsley to this day.

At the time, it was heartbreaking, Helsley said. We knew how good we were, and we had a chance to do something special.

Thus, Helsleys football career was over. But as it turns out, baseball has worked out quite well for the Sequoyah graduate.

After a collegiate career at Northeastern State, Helsley was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals. On Tuesday night, he made his Double-A debut with the Springfield Cardinals, throwing 92 pitches over four innings while not factoring into the decision in what became a 5-4 Tulsa win.

Its been an awesome journey so far, said Helsley, who gave up one run on five hits with six strikeouts and four walks against the Drillers at ONEOK Field, where several hundred loyal Sequoyah followers flocked on Tuesday.

Monday was trade-deadline day for major league ball clubs, but it was a relatively quiet day for the Redbirds. With trade winds swirling, minor league promotions went under the radar, much like Helsleys promotion from Single-A Palm Beach in Florida.

I got the call-up, and I looked at the schedule and saw the team was here in Tulsa, Helsley said. I called my mom and was a little emotional, just because I hadnt seen them in so long since I was so far from home. But it was a great blessing to be able to debut here in front of my own family.

Helsley, a 6-foot-1 right-handed hurler, began his rapid ascension through the Cardinals minor league system in 2015 after being drafted in the fifth round by St. Louis. In 2015, he pitched at the rookie-league ranks in Johnson City, Tennessee, and that segued into a 2016 season at Class A Peoria last year.

In 17 starts last season, Helsley registered a 1.61 earned run average while logging 109 strikeouts to only 19 walks. That was enough to vault him onto the top 30 list of St. Louis prospects, where he currently resides at No. 25.

For now, Helsley will look to stick with Springfield through the end of this season and re-evaluate from there.

Im going to pitch while Im healthy and make every start I can, said Helsley, who toted a 2.69 ERA in 16 starts for Palm Beach earlier this season. I just want to pitch every five days and see where it goes from there.

And as for the injustice levied by the OSSAA, Helsley sees it as nothing more than a memory now.

For the ruling to come out a year (after we graduated), it was already in the past, he said. It sucked. You think back on it and think, what if? Weve all moved then, even though it sucked then. But it is what it is.

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Helsley's ascension to the pros infused with heartbreak, triumph and promise - Tahlequah Daily Press

Greg Fischer Editor-in-chief @AscensionEditor

Louisiana's Legislative Youth Advisory Council (LYAC) elected new officers at a Leadership and Orientation Seminar held July 24-25, 2017 at the Louisiana State Capitol, according to a recent LYAC press release.

St. James native and Ascension Catholic student Nydia Cooper was elected Historian. Cooper is an exceptional student judging from a June 23 LYAC press release, which reads:

"Cooper is a 15-year-old honor student at Ascension Catholic High School in Donaldsonville, Louisiana. She is currently in the National Honor Society; seven-year member at large with St. James Parish 4-H; Vice-Grand lady for St. James Catholic Church Junior Catholic Daughters; State 4-H Citizenship Board Member; Diocese of Baton Rouge Youth Board Member; St. James Parish 4-H Impact Club (Junior Leaders) Member; State 4-H Co-Op Camp Treasurer; St. James Parish 4-H Shooting Sport Team Member; Member of Ascension Catholic High School band, powerlifting team and tennis team. Nydia has a 3rd Degree Level II black belt in Taekwondo. Recently, Nydia placed runner-up in the category of photo illustration with the Rochester Institute of Technology."

Other newly elected LYAC officers are: President Marian Luzier, Walker High School, Walker; Vice President Reed Broussard, Teurlings Catholic High School, Youngsville; Secretary Ruby Roberg, West Feliciana High School, St. Francisville; Parliamentarian Jesse Landry, West Feliciana High School, St. Francisville; Communications Officer Katie Hall, Ouachita Christian School, Monroe.

Under this leadership, the council gets to select issues to discuss with Louisiana legislators for the upcoming 2018 Regular Session of the legislature.

"The goal is to get legislation sponsored, introduced and passed next year," according to the press release. "Now in its tenth year, LYAC facilitates the communication between youth and the legislature and gives students the unique opportunity to be involved in the workings of state government."

ACHS senior Micah Daggs also serves on the council.

Originally posted here:

Ascension Catholic youth named LYAC historian - Post South

The former Marine general is unlikely to succeed in his new job, even as his appointment contributes to the decay of American civil-military relations.

Donald Trump is not much of a man. He feels sorry for himself, he whines, he gropes women; he bullies the weak. He brags and he lies. As a young man, this self-proclaimed athlete collected five draft deferments rather than wear his countrys uniform. He doesnt even work out. The motto emblazoned on Trumps bogus coat of arms should probably be faithless, which makes it odd that he has picked as his chief of staff a general steeled in a service whose motto is ever faithful. (The Trump coat of arms wasreportedly liftedfrom another family, with the motto integrity replacedinevitablybyTrump.)

John Kelly, retired Marine four-star and new White House chief of staff, has been throughout his career everything Trump is not: He has endured more than Trump could imagine, and has displayed virtues that Trump may not understand and certainly has not exhibited, among them candor, courage, and discipline. Which is why some observers have welcomed Kellys hiring as evidence that perhaps the president is learning, that maybe now we will have a disciplined White House that will focus on the business of public policy. Maybe the early morning tweets will diminish or evenstop.

Trumps pick of Kelly is probably better understood in a broader and darker context. That includesa speechthat he gave the same day to New Yorks Suffolk County Police Department calling on cops to bang suspects heads into squad cars; the brusque, uncoordinateddismissalof transgender service personnel by presidential tweet; aspeecha week earlier at the commissioning of USSGerald R. Fordurging sailors to lobby their representatives; a harangue to 30,000 Boy Scouts that includeda rant about loyalty, and that earned him an astonishing rebuke from the head of the Boy Scouts of America; and a longer history of toying around the edge of inciting violence, to includethe assassination of his opponentin the lastelection.

As the coils of the Russia investigation grow tighter, as his failures in Congress mount, Trump reaches for what he knowsdemagoguery of the rawest sort. He reaches as well for what he thinks of as his base, which includes (he believes) the military, many of whose leaders are actually quietly appalled by what he represents. He has picked Kelly not because of his political or administrative skills but because he thinks of him as a killera term of praise in his lexicon, which is why he likes referring to his secretary of defense as Mad Dog Mattis, a nickname the former general rejects. Kelly will not organize Goon Squads for Trump, but the president would probably not mind if he did. More to the point, Kellys selection, and that of a foul-mouthed financier from New York as Trumps communications director, tells us not that Trump is planning on moderating his behavior, but rather on going to the mattresses. He just may have picked the wrong guy for that mission, thatsall.

Kellys decision to take the job lends itself to multiple explanations. It may be an irresistible call to duty by someone who thinks of the president mainly as commander-in-chief; it may be an act of deep, quiet patriotism by someone who intends to shield the country from Trumps lawless worst; it may reflect personal ambition, or mere hankering for as difficult a management challenge as one could imagine; or it may reflect a sneaking admiration for the boorish businessman who has successfully slapped around the politicians of left and right that many officers, and Marines in particular, despise as cowardly and corrupt. Kelly once handed a ceremonial saber to the President while unfunnily suggesting that he use it on the press. In April, hesaidthe following: If lawmakers do not like the laws theyve passed and we are charged to enforce, then they should have the courage and skill to change the laws. Otherwise they should shut up and support the men and women on the front lines. A less supine Congress might have noticed the discourtesy and reacted sharply to being told to shutup.

His occasionally contemptuous attitude towards the press and Congress, though, is only one reason why it is highly unlikely that Kelly will succeed. Trump will remain Trump, and the various denizens of the White House are unlikely to treat Kelly with much more deference than they treat one another. He will discover that he is no longer a general, or even a cabinet secretary, but a political functionaryneither more norless.

There was a reason why he spent 42 years on active duty rather than run for mayor of Boston. He probably already knows, but if not he will soon learn, that he will be as dispensable as his predecessor, that Trump hates any of his subordinates being too powerful or too visible. And worst of all, he will soon find himself wrestling with the moral corruption that being close to this man entails. You cannot work directly for Trump while adhering to a code of honesty, integrity, and lawfulness. Sooner or later Kelly will have to defend the White Houses jabber about fake news, alternative facts, and witch hunts. He will have to ascribe to Trump virtues that he does not possess, and deny the moral lapses and quite possibly the crimes that he hascommitted.

There is one further reason to find this appointment depressing. It contributes to the continuing decay of American civil-military relations. Those of us who were relieved to see James Mattis as secretary of defense, H. R. McMaster as national-security adviser, and Kelly himself as secretary of Homeland Security, felt that way partly out of appreciation for the virtues of all three men, but also, very largely, out of relief that their sanity might contain their bosss craziness. But it is inappropriate to have so many generals in policy-making positions; it is profoundly wrong to have a president regard the military as a constituency, and it is corrupting to have the Republican Party, such as it is, act as though generals have if not a monopoly then at least dominant market share in the qualities of executive ability and patriotism. It is unwise to have higher-level positions in the hands of officials who have openly expressed disdain for Congressnow a dangerously weak branch ofgovernment.

Trump, who has no idea how many articles there are in the Constitution, neither knows nor cares about any of the niceties of civil-military relations. To their credit, Kelly, Mattis, and McMaster have thought long and hard about these issues. But like any of us they have their individual limitations, and like any of us, their characters can be eroded by the whirlpool of moral and political corruption that is Donald Trump. The Marines live by a hard code, and John Kelly has endured tests of character more difficult than most of us can conceive. But his hardest tests lie ahead, and neither he nor anyone else can be sure that he will passthem.

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The Downsides of John Kelly's Ascension - Defense One - Defense One