Jefferson Parish watchdog rallies national support on eve of council vote that would limit IG powers to speak publicly

By Katie Moore

Source: WWL-TV

December 10, 2024

JEFFERSON PARISH, La. — The Jefferson Parish Inspector General, Kim Chatelain, made a public push Tuesday with letters of support from offices of inspector general across the country and local government watchdogs to keep the full authority of her office intact on the eve of a vote to limit her ability to speak out.

Jefferson Parish District 4 Councilmember Arita Bohannan, one of Chatelain’s most vocal critics, moved to put the ordinance on Wednesday’s agenda, but all five district council members authored the legislation.

The changes to the law that established the Office of Inspector General would dramatically limit Chatelain from making statements to the media or the general public about her investigations.

The ordinance reads that the IG would be forced to, “Not make any public statements that the inspector general knows or reasonably should know will be disseminated by any means of public communication which will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing the investigation or the potential investigation.”

Chatelain has been in a public battle with several of the parish council members after issuing a public letter about a proposed $10 million Gretna brew pub and parking garage that would be taxpayer-funded and Chatelain argues would bring little to no direct tax revenue back to Jefferson Parish in return.

The IG said her use of the public letter was intended to make the council aware of her concerns about potential waste, fraud, and abuse involved in the project. But several council members, including Bohannan and District 5 Councilmember Hans Liljeberg, blasted Chatelain for putting out the letter before conducting a full investigation into the deal. Supporters and stakeholders involved in the project were not questioned or consulted before Chatelain went public with her concerns.

Liljeberg and Bohannan are also questioning Chatelain’s ties to At-large Councilmember Jennifer Van Vrancken, who has been a vocal critic of the Gretna brew pub project as a bad deal for the taxpayers. But Chatelain also used a public letter to question another project that Van Vrancken opposed, so fellow council members began to question whether Chatelain was carrying out investigations on Van Vrancken’s behalf.

They have since called for an outside attorney to investigate Chatelain’s actions, successfully pushing the Jefferson Parish Ethics and Compliance Commission, which oversees the OIG, to appoint an outside counsel to review the actions of the office. Parish President Cynthia Lee-Sheng joined in on that effort.

But the proposed ordinance would take the council members’ opposition a step further, by limiting the IG’s ability to speak publicly about the investigations the office conducts.

The ordinance was developed using standards of conduct developed for attorneys, but the President and CEO of New Orleans-based watchdog group the Bureau of Governmental Research said in a letter written in opposition to the Jefferson Parish Council Tuesday that those standards would eliminate one of the IG’s most important jobs.

“The amendments could prevent the OIG from communicating concerns and findings from its activities to the public, stripping the office of one of its core functions as a government oversight body,” writes BGR President and CEO Rebecca Mowbray.

Chatelain has been making a public push by publishing three letters opposing the changes from various offices of inspector general around the country on the agency’s website and sounding the alarm with community groups across the parish.

Last week, the President of the National Association of Inspectors General, Will Fletcher, also sent a letter to the council in opposition, writing, “The proposed amendments risk depriving the Jefferson Parish OIG of its well-established ability to maintain its independence in carrying out effective government oversight through direct engagement with the citizens of Jefferson Parish about the work it does to promote efficiency and combat fraud, waste and abuse.”

The vote on the ordinance is scheduled for Wednesday’s Jefferson Parish Council Meeting Dec. 11 at 10 a.m.

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