IS COMMISSIONER FONTENOT SEARCHING FOR SAVINGS?

There is nothing like a political drama where a politician tries to grandstand to make himself look like he is doing his work like the Commissioner Todd Fontenot has given himself raise after raise. He has borrowed and borrowed and spent and spent all in the taxpayers’ names and on the taxpayers’ bill. But as the election nears, Liberty Dispatch has been waiting for Commissioner Fontenot to find a place to take a “conservative” stand and get some attention for it. He found it in the latest Commissioners’ court meeting.

In the middle of a budget crisis, Fontenot wanted to build a new barn for his precinct and he hoped taxpayers would forget he was warned in public meeting several years ago that the redistricting he was pushing would spread his precinct out in a direction that would cause him to want a new barn. But Fontenot is a consistently big spend and borrow liberal Democrat and he only worries about seeming conservative in an election year. Well it is an election year ……. now Fontenot is concerned that the county could spend a maximum of $2,000 to have an outside attorney form a cost benefit analysis of what we should do with the county jail.

Fontenot was the lone vote in trying to take the politics out of the decision making about who should run the jails (CEC or a new company or the county sheriff). The decision involves the nearly $4 million dollars taxpayers pay annually to run the county jail, and Fontenot wants to appear to be concerned that an attorney could charge taxpayers as much as two grand. But is Fontenot really that concerned about saving money and unconcerned about politics?

The answer is an unqualified “NO”! If he were, Fontenot could save over twenty thousand dollars in salary and benefits by doing away with the position Connie Paintsil holds under the protective wing of Fontenot. If phone records were reviewed taxpayers would find that Fontenot is benefiting politically from Paintsil receiving a check from the county. Paintsil spends a great deal of time on the phone organizing the politics she and Fontenot have in common and another large hunk of time talking with people about her church functions. The amount of time she spends doing something makes the courthouse run more efficiently is absurd. Not only should Paintsil be removed, the position needs to be eliminated all together.

Todd Fontenot needs to run an honest campaign. He needs to go the voters and ask to be re-elected because of all of the things he has paid for with the county’s money. He needs to ask for people’s vote by telling them his biggest single accomplishment is that he raised the commissioners’ salaries up to what he considers it should be. And if he really wants to be honest he can tell them he will continue to raise it if elected another four years. If he has changed and he truly wants to join the majority of people in this community, he needs to eliminate jobs that are not needed.