Appeal Filed in Bond Suit

Kevin Blanchard at the Advocate reports, after talking to one of the lawyers, that an appeal has been filed by the Plaquimine lawyers in the local case that has generated a lot of frustrated heat among supporters of Lafayette:

Two Lafayette residents, Matthew Eastin and Elizabeth Naquin, are seeking to block LUS’ funding of a proposed phone, cable and high-speed Internet business.

As has been the case in each of the myriad lawsuits and appeals in these cases against the city the plaintiffs have waited till absolutely the last moment to file an appeal. (The current crop have four cases running at once.) The idea is to delay a decision for as long as possible. Considering that the city has won the large majority of the decisions in this rearguard battle being engaged by the incumbents (losing only twice and deciding to plow ahead rather than appeal both times) this tactic makes sense. They’re not going to win on the merits. But this delaying tactic is not something that can go on forever. Naquin and Eastin’s bit of obstructionism barely squeaked in under the legal deadline in its attempt to entangle the bond issue with a vague charge that LUS overcharged on electricity prices at some point in the past. No further attempts to delay the project by frustrating the sale of bonds legally will be possible.

LUS has two weeks to respond to Naquin and Eastin’s appeal. The 3rd Circuit has to hear the appeal no more than a week after LUS responds, then decide within a week.

If all the deadlines are met on the last day, a decision would be reached by Aug. 14.

This thing is coming to an end. And we will have the system the people voted for a year ago.

The sad thing is that Naquin and Eastin’s decision to let themselves be used by the incumbents for their purposes has cost the community millions of dollars in interest rates. That cost will be borne over many years — in small increments but in real ones. You know, there are currently little “fees” on your phone and cable bill designed to remind you that part of the cost of doing business for Cox and BellSouth is to pay taxes. Do you suppose that we could each month label a part of the bill the “BS/Cox/Naquin/Eastin fee” for the money these delays have cost us all? It’s not something we should forget.

20 thoughts on “Appeal Filed in Bond Suit”

  1. Would you put Naquin/Easton-Owner of LUS as citizens of Lafayette? It’s your own owners that doubt the practices of the Management. By the way, please chalk up the Fair Competition Act as a loss. That’s the reason you are in this situation.

  2. anono,

    These two people aren’t acting as citizen-owners in this. They are acting as agents of BellSouth and/or Cox. I wish that were otherwise but the evidence very strongly supports that conclusion.

    If they were really concerned about costs to the public–as their pretense at concern about “rates” implies–they’d not be forcing up the costs a project that the community approved.

    They don’t need to block the project to pursue any legitimate issue they might have about rates.

    Forcing up these costs benefits BellSouth and Cox … and, maybe, their own greed.

    My very strong judgment is that they are not willing to talk to their neighbors about this because they know it can’t be justified…and because about 3 minutes of honestly answering questions would reveal who recruited two obscure Lafayette citizens without an noticeable ties to the issue and put them together with a law firm on the other side of the state.

  3. Wow!! How oh so mysterious of you “Veto”. 🙂

    Anything in particular of substance to post? Perhaps some evidence to the contrary of what the situation looks to be? Things don’t just “happen” as they have with this situation for no reason. It’s clear as glass that this is being done as another delay tactic.

    Who is getting what? That’s the real question. 🙂

    Maybe they get totally free service from BellSouth or Cox?

    Maybe they get a nice fat payoff with stock options or cash in some way? Who really knows?

    It’s sad. You guys are all essentially just big cowards. You hide behind anonymity and inject as much false information as you can to cloud the real issue. The simple fact that competition scares you. It’s okay to be scared. Everyone gets scared. In this case, there is a lot to be scared of, because when LUS rolls out FIBER, you guys instantly become obsolete. Pretty scary indeed.

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