By JIM BUTLER
LAKE CHARLES — The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal heard arguments Tuesday in the appeal of Ninth District Judge Monique Rauls voiding an improperly advertised GAEDA meeting of February 2024.
That ruling nullified hiring of an executive director for the Greater Alexandria Economic Development Authority.
In February this year a reconstituted GAEDA board ratified the court-voided selection of Angela Varnado, a longtime agency employee, as well as agreeing on a new contract for her.
Attorneys representing parties in matters before the Circuit Court have a total of 40 minutes for oral argument, equally divided between them.
Varnado’s attorney, Allison Jones, asserts actions at the meeting, nullified on what she labeled a notification technicality, were subject to a 60-day prescription period, not met when board member John Callis filed suit claiming the meeting was outside the rules.
By that time Varnado had threatened legal action if the board did not honor her hiring, raising race andc gender as alleged factors.
Callis went to court and won. He was represented Tuesday by Jonathan Stokes. Barbara Melton is GAEDA counsel of record though she has since been fired and replaced by her predecessor Tiffany Sanders.
The executive director opening was not subject of an applicant search. Varnado served as acting director in the wake of last Spring’s events until last month, apparently paid at a $95,000 annual rate set in the disputed hiring. Records indicate that is also the rate in the contract which went into effect March 1. That pact includes a $1,000 signing bonus, payable 30 days after start of the contract, $1,500 incentive bonus for a clean fiscal year audit and $2,000 incentive bonus if the agency meets or exceeds a goal of increasing revenue by 5% over a baseline of $900,000 in the last audit report, virtually exclusively from a hotel-motel occupancy tax.
The state constitution prohibits payment of a bonus or any other gratuitous unearned payment to public employees.
However, a Ninth District ruling in a City of Alexandria case upheld an ordinance awarding one-time supplemental payment to employees for meeting certain established goals, aims and the like.