Silly Fish: Kenner Council Must Redo Interim Vote

The other day, I told you about my "Fortune" and compared the Kenner City Council to "Silly Fish".

To review, my "Fortune" said, "It is the silly fish that is caught twice with the same bait."

And now there's news that the Kenner City Council has proven me right (again).

The Council has scheduled another "Special" meeting on Monday. The only agenda item is...wait for it...to name an interim replacement for District 5 Councilman Dominick Impastato.

As we noted in our last post, BEFORE a vacancy or anticipated vacancy can be filled on the Council, there must be an opening. In this case, as was the case in 2016 when the Council rushed the appointment of Brian Brennan to replace Keith Conley, Impastato's resignation letter had not arrived at the Secretary of State BEFORE the Council voted to replace him.

What is truly sad about this matter is, not that it happened again but, that the Council was warned AGAIN.

When I learned that the Council would be naming a replacement, I emailed and texted several council members. No, I didn't notify my councilman, District 2 Councilman Mike Sigur, since in almost 4 years in office, Sigur has NEVER returned a phone call or replied to an email from me.

Several other people also contacted the Council.

So, the Council knew they were screwing up but, in their arrogance, they ignored the warnings.

Silly fish...

For those of you that enjoyed my analogy/fortune, here's another one: the Kenner City Council is like a group of teenagers in a bad, scary movie where you know how it ends but you keep watching anyway.

You're sitting there watching the movie and talking to the movie screen and trying to warn the teenagers: "Don't go in there."

But the kids go anyway - and then they are killed.

Whether it's redoing yet another Council appointment or repealing the Uber/Lyft ordinance days after they approved it, or facing the maelstrom of criticism over their attempt to ban property owners from parking boats in their driveways, the Kenner City Council truly is "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight."

 I laugh every time I think of the character named "Baccala".

For those of you that don't know, Baccala is salt cod, and it was a staple of my Grandmother's Christmas Eve Dinner. We had fried Baccala; Baccala soup; Baccala salad; Baccala in tomato gravy; and more. You ate the Baccala and always complimented my Grandmother because at the end of the Baccala Trail was the prize: Pineapple Pie - a true delight.

I know...I'm writing about food again.

"The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight" was a funny book and movie.

Kind of like watching the Kenner City Council meetings.

Kenner Council Botches Interim Pick - Again

A few weeks back I was craving Chinese food, and one plate wouldn't satisfy my craving. So, I set off for my favorite Chinese buffet, Jumbo Buffet on Williams Blvd. in Kenner. Jumbo Buffet is really more than an average Chinese buffet - they truly have something for everyone. Whether you're craving sushi, hibachi, boiled seafood, or even roast beef, they have it along with a huge selection of Chinese food (My stomach favors the Black Pepper Shrimp and Honey Chicken - kind of a Yin/Yang thing).

Now, before you get the idea that we're now a food blog and not your favorite spot for opinions on Jefferson Parish and Kenner politics (we are, right?), let me get to the point.

At the end of the meal, the waitress brought the check along with the obligatory Fortune Cookies (which most of the time aren't really "Fortunes" at all).

At this gorging, my "fortune" said: "It is a silly fish that is caught twice with the same bait."

Which is a perfect segue to discuss the Kenner City Council.

At Thursday's Kenner City Council meeting, the Council voted unanimously to appoint Kelly Hand to fill out the remainder of District 5 Councilman Dominick Impastato's term.

This post isn't anti-Kelly Hand. On the contrary, I'm hopeful Mrs. Hand will do a fine job serving the residents of District 5.

But, the process surrounding her appointment is an abomination.

Let's take a step back in time to January 2016, when the Kenner City Council screwed up it's last Interim Council appointment.

After Jefferson Parish unwittingly voted for a Sexual Predator to become our Parish President, former Kenner City Attorney (and Mike Yenni Loyalist) and newly elected Kenner Councilman-At-Large Keith Conley jumped to JP Government to become Yenni's CAO.

In its haste, the Kenner City Council rubber-stamped Conley's choice and another Yenni Loyalist, Brian Brennan, as the Interim Councilman-At-Large representing the entire city. This despite the fact that when Brennan ran for the District 5 seat in 2010, he was trounced 59-41% by Kent Denapolis.

The people of Kenner had no clue who Brian Brennan was, what he stood for, or what qualified him to serve as a Councilman at all.

In addition, the Council approved Brennan before Conley had officially resigned. A citizen, Richard Brown, complained about the process and the Council had to take a second vote to approve Brennan.

But, again, the people of Kenner weren't given the opportunity to question Brennan, learn about him or have any say in his appointment.

Contrast the Kenner process with the this year's selection of Jack Rizzuto as Interim Jefferson Parish Councilman.

While I didn't like the drama surrounding the selection, in JP, three candidates were nominated by Councilmen. The public knew the names of the candidates and the candidates appeared at a council meeting to discuss their qualifications, answer questions and at least be partially vetted.

None of that happened with the Brennan selection and none of that happened this time with selection of Mrs. Hand either.

And, that lack of transparency is the problem.

Councilman Impastato added the resolution appointing Mrs. Hand to the council agenda with a blank space where the name should appear. Members of the public had no notice of Mrs. Hand's appointment. In fact, several members of the Council themselves weren't aware of the appointment until right before the meeting began.

Why the secrecy? 

Now I know that members of the Kenner City Council and Mayor Zahn think they are smarter than the public and they don't owe us any explanations for the actions that they take. Often, when members of the public attend a council meeting and speak at the end of the meeting about an issue or to ask questions or give their opinion, they are greeted with contempt by the same officials that were elected to allegedly represent them.

This council meeting was no different.

When District 5 resident Greg Tefft asked whether Mrs. Hand would be seeking election to the council after her appointment expired, Impastato lashed out at Mr. Tefft.

No citizen, let alone someone as mild-mannered as Mr. Tefft, deserves the smug contempt and condescension strewn upon him by Impastato.

And, why the rush? 

Councilman Impastato hasn't resigned from the Kenner City Council yet and that should have been the first step. It also makes zero sense that Impastato was allowed to vote on his replacement. It remains to be seen if any citizen will contest this appointment and if the council will be required to redo it as they did in 2016.

Again, this isn't an indictment of Mrs. Hand. When I ran for Jefferson Parish Council in 2011, I got to know Mrs. Hand since her husband, former Judge and State legislator Skip Hand, was one of my opponents. Mrs. Hand seemed like a very nice person and she has been involved in her civic association. Is that enough to be appointed to the City Council? Hey, we have folks on their now with even less qualifications.

But the people of Kenner should be given the opportunity to know much more about someone appointed to a council seat and the Kenner City Council should operate with much more transparency.

And, they certainly should learn from their past mistakes.

Hopefully, this Spring the people of Kenner WILL learn from our past mistakes.

Hopefully, the people of Kenner are not silly fish.

At a 2014 Kenner Mayoral candidate forum, Mike Yenni compared me to a crab in a pot of boiling water that kept climbing to the top of the pot and wouldn't die.

Well, it's better to be a crab than a silly fish.

Now, there's a fortune for you.

Impastato Representing Ex-Councilman Accused Of Stealing $500k From Couple

The hits just keep on coming for embattled Kenner City Councilman, and Jefferson Parish Council candidate, Dominick Impastato.

Despite his attempts to distance himself from his longtime friendship with Jefferson Parish Sexual Predator-In-Chief Mike Yenni, his use of Yenni's campaign manager, Jefferson Parish's Minister of Propaganda Greg Buisson, and having access to Yenni's campaign donors, Impastato can't seem to get out of his own way.

Rumors are running rampant on social media regarding multiple real estate transactions between Impastato and a convicted drug dealer and money launderer. While we can't confirm those rumors, we can discuss another case that "Mr. Fresh Ideas" would rather you didn't know about.

Impastato is representing former Interim Kenner Councilman-At-Large Brian Brennan in a case involving the theft of over $500,000 from a Mississippi company, Southland Express LLC, owned by a husband and wife.

Like Impastato, Brennan also has significant ties to Yenni who appointed him to Yenni's 2010 Kenner Mayoral transition team after Brennan was defeated in his bid for the Kenner City Council District 5 seat. Impastato was also a member of Yenn's transition team.

In 2016, at the urging of Yenni, Brennan was appointed Interim Councilman-At-Large after Keith Conley resigned to join the Yenni Administration in Jefferson Parish government. Brennan served until a Special Election was called and Tom Willmott was elected to serve the remainder of Conley's term.

An interesting side note to Brennan's appointment to the Kenner City Council was the fact that he actually got appointed twice to the same position. Brennan was appointed before Conley's resignation letter was sent to the Secretary of State. Because of this procedural error, Brennan's initial appointment was rescinded and the City Council needed to vote for his appointment at a later meeting. Impastato was on the City Council and voted to approve Brennan's appointment.

Brennan, who has been actively campaigning for Impastato, is rumored to be interested in seeking the Kenner City Council District 5 seat currently held by Impastato should Dominick be successful in his Jefferson Parish Council race against State Senator Danny Martiny.

According to court documents obtained by ClickJefferson, in 2008 Southland Express LLC signed an agreement with Metro Rediscount Company, Inc. (a Louisiana Corporation) whereby Metro Rediscount would provide factoring services to Southland Express.

Factoring is a commonly used practice of advancing funds based upon purchase orders or invoices. A company like Southland Express sells its invoices to the "Factor" at a discount, getting the cash now. The "Factor", in this case, Metro Rediscount, would then collect the payments due on the invoices as they became due.

The factoring agreement between Southland and Metro Rediscount went on for several years and Metro Rediscount billed Southland's clients and collected payments.

Then, things changed.

Between May 2011 and February 2012, Metro Rediscount wrote worthless checks to Southland Express for a total of $527,101.57 while continuing to collect payments from Southland Express clients in Jefferson Parish.

According to the Louisiana Secretary of State, at the time, Metro Rediscount listed two officers on their incorporation papers: Frank Adolf (President/Officer) and Brian Brennan (Vice President/Secretary/Officer).

After repeatedly getting bounced checks from Metro Rediscount, and repeatedly being told that Metro Rediscount would make things right (which never happened), Southland Express contacted their Jefferson Parish clients and told them to stop remitting payments to Metro Rediscount and pay Southland directly.

In the court documents, Southland Express's owners claim that they had several conversations with Adolf and Brennan regarding the $527k that Southland was owed. Adolf kept promising to pay Southland.

In fact, Adolf sent one payment of $15,000.

Guess what? That check bounced too.

The owners of Southland Express also had several conversations with Brennan, who just passed the buck claiming that Adolf would deal with the Southland Express owners directly.

With no actual payments forthcoming, Southland Express filed a lawsuit against Metro Rediscount, Adolf and Brennan seeking the $527,101.57 plus interest, court costs and attorney fees.

Subsequent to the Southland Express transactions, Brennan resigned as Vice President of Metro Rediscount and is now an insurance agent. Adolf later dissolved Metro Rediscount Company, Inc., added a new partner and is operating as Metro Rediscount of Kenner II, LLC.

What's even more interesting about this case is Impastato's involvement in representing Brennan.

Now, don't get me wrong - everyone is entitled to proper legal representation and, since Martiny is also an Attorney, I'm sure that over the years he may have represented an unsavory character or two himself.

However, according to his attorney page, Impastato's primary area of practice is "Product Liability Litigation", and not representing someone accused of stealing $500k and causing financial hardship to a married couple.

Further muddying the water is the fact that Impastato began representing Brennan in this case while both were serving on the Kenner City Council together. In addition, none of the details of Brennan's involvement in the Southland/Metro Rediscount court case were disclosed to the people of Kenner or members of the City Council prior to the vote on Brennan's appointment to the Council.

As an Attorney and personal friend, Impastato must have been aware of Brennan's involvement in the lawsuit. Did Impastato purposely work with Brennan to conceal that from the Kenner City Council and the public?

And why would Impastato allow someone like Brennan, accused of being Vice President of a company that stole over $500k from a company and then tried to conceal the theft by writing worthless checks and changing the company name, into Impastato's inner circle?

I don't know about you but that sounds like the same good ole boy politics as usual to me and not the "Fresh Ideas" slogan on signs that Impastato is littering Kenner with. .

But, since all we've heard from Impastato on the campaign trail is a series of negative attacks on Martiny (despite Impastato's pledge to focus on his achievements), why am I not surprised.

The Southland Express/Metro Rediscount lawsuit is scheduled for a January court date. Since qualifying for the March Kenner elections is in early January, chances are that Brennan and Impastato will try to keep concealing the lawsuit from the people of Kenner and get the court date moved back until after the election.

Best friends with a Sexual Predator and an accused thief.

"Fresh Ideas" or politics as usual in Kenner?

Zahn, Impastato Now Using Police To Thwart Martiny Support

The Yenni/Zahn/Buisson Machine must be very worried about the Jefferson Parish Council District 4 race between their boy, Kenner Councilman Dominick Impastato, and State Senator Danny Martiny.

We've posted about Impastato's 'Politrics' and about Impastato's lies about endorsements, but now the Yenni/Zahn/Buisson Machine has kicked it up a notch employing the Kenner Police Department and, possibly, the West Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office to help in their Dirty Tricks Campaign.

In the past few days, many Kenner and Metairie residents received a robocall from Kenner Mayor Ben Zahn promoting the Impastato campaign.

In the call, a response to a Martiny direct mail piece that slams Impastato's claim that he has done more in less than one term than many politicians do in their entire careers, Kenner's Pathological Lying Mayor says, "I learned long ago that figures lie and liars figure."

I have listened to the call about a dozen times and I still have no idea what Zahn is talking about, but, when it comes to lies and liars, Ben Zahn is THE EXPERT. 

Zahn further claims that Impastato is "the real deal" and has "the experience, the energy and the effective leadership style to bring 'fresh ideas' to life."

Zahn asserts that Impastato single-handidly engineered a "$10 Million dollar fix from the Corps to protect you from flooding."

This is patently false. No Kenner Councilman or even the Mayor of Kenner, was responsible for or could make the Army Corps authorize a $10 Million project on their own. The Army Corps is funded through Congress using our Federal tax dollars.

Did Impastato sit in on a meeting with the Army Corps? Perhaps, although if Impastato were present, he sat in a chair silently taking notes. The Army Corps couldn't care less what a part-time Kenner City Councilman who is an Attorney and not an Engineer thinks about levees.

But, I know what you're thinking: what does this have to do with the Police.

When a robocall is placed, the party making the call needs to enter a telephone number that appears on your Caller ID. This is to alert you to telemarketers and other folks you may not want to speak to.

The return number on the Zahn robocall (which was paid for by the Impastato campaign), originated from a 225 area code telephone number and the name listed was "West Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office".

Who wouldn't answer the phone if they got a call from a Sheriff?

The problem is, using a government agency's equipment (in this case, their phone number), for political purposes is a violation of Federal law.

Ooops.

Since the Impastato campaign paid for the robocall, why would Impastato use a West Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office telephone number on their auto-dialer? Was it an attempt to intentionally deceive voters?

In an email, the Sheriff of West Baton Rouge Parish said this:

"The phone #225-***-**** (number omitted by ClickJefferson) belongs to the WBRSO. No one was authorized to use that # for any reason & specifically no one had the authority to use that # in connection with any robocall. And, furthermore, at no time was anyone authorized to use that # in connection with the political campaign of Dominick Impastato.

Sheriff Michael B. Cazes
West Baton Rouge Parish"

So, it's either a crime or a lie - take your pick.

The second instance of Zahn and Impastato employing the police in an attempt to intimidate Martiny supporters occurred Saturday.

As I drove to the Registrar of Voters Office in Rivertown to early vote, I noticed several Kenner Police Department vehicles at The Castle where Martiny was having a social event for his supporters.

At first, I thought the KPD was there to provide security for the crowd as the KPD often provides police details (for a price) at events with a large group of people.

After I voted, I stopped by Martiny's social to inquire about the KPD, which were gone by then.

I was told that two Martiny supporters with "Elect Danny Martiny" signs in their vehicles were parked too close to the Registrar of Voters Office around the corner, in violation of the 600 feet rule regarding polling places.

Because of the event, JP Registrar of Voters Dennis DiMarco (a Yenni/Zahn supporter), posted signs designating the 600 feet proximity.

While the vehicles were not violating DiMarco's measurement, someone from the City of Kenner said that the Registrar's measurements were incorrect and used a different standard.

In any case, one of the offending vehicles was moved and the owner of the other vehicle (a pickup truck) placed their signs flat in the truck bed. All of this could have been done without KPD involvement.

Since the Martiny social was posted on social media and invitations were sent to many via email, I'm certain that Impastato and his campaign were aware of the event and the location. Whether Impastato himself or someone from his campaign complained about the vehicles is unknown. But, the KPD would not have responded unless there was a complaint and, given that it was political, I'm certain that KPD Chief Michael Glaser and Mayor Zahn were notified BEFORE a police unit was dispatched.

But, why send multiple KPD vehicles to ask a citizen to move their parked vehicle? Doesn't the KPD have better uses of it's time than to send several officers to the scene of a parked vehicle?

Clearly, it was a show of intimidation on the part of Zahn, Impastato and Glaser (who has also endorsed Impastato) - and that is sad and tells you everything you need to know about the sad state of affairs in Kenner Politics.

It's also curious that John Tobler, a Buisson operative that Zahn wants to be his "Special Mayoral Assistant in charge of Economic Development" (despite the fact that Tobler isn't even a Kenner resident and has no background in Economic Development), was across the street taking pictures of the Martiny social and those attending.

And Zahn wonders why the people of Kenner approved a Charter Change for an apolitical workforce.

Hopefully, someone offered Tobler a donut and some water. I would hate to see a City of Kenner employee with low blood sugar or suffering from dehydration while they were doing the dirty work of Ben Zahn and Greg Buisson.

Putting unwanted signs in people's yards, lying about endorsements, violating Federal law and using the police and political appointees to intimidate supporters - yeah, those sure sound like "Fresh Ideas" to me Dominick.