[StBernard] St. Bernard Parish council ends contract with official parish journal

[Westley Annis]

"...Norris Babin, publisher of the Voice and (Plaquemines Parish) Gazette,
argued that McInnis and others were harping too much on the five-year
requirement."

Gee, I think it's terrible that Councilman McInnis is "harping" too much on
that silly old five-year requirement, otherwise known as "the law!"  In
years past, we would be criticizing our parish council for making political
exceptions to the legal requirements of law, but I'm glad to see we at least
have a majority on the parish council that wants to abide by law - "state"
law.  Besides, the St. Bernard Voice is no longer a local paper.  The days
of the Roys are long gone.  The only reason those two guys from Belle Chasse
bought the paper from Mr. Roy is because they knew they had an "automatic
profit" with The Voice because of the contract they would inherit through
the acquisition in getting to publish the official journal records for the
parish government, courts and district attorney's office.  If I'm wrong,
then why didn't they express an interest in purchasing the St. Bernard News
(printed in Jefferson parish) when it was available for sale a few years
back?  It's because The News didn't print the parish journal information.

Typically, a small paper like the voice meets total overhead costs when it
has sold only 1.5 pages of classified ads.  Because of the space the
official journal info requires, that easily fills that and a lot more.  So
you can see how attractive it was for a newspaper "outside of St. Bernard"
to want to purchase The Voice.  Since acquiring the Voice, those two guys
from Belle Chasse make a ton of money off the people and taxpayers of St.
Bernard (since tax dollars fund the government and courts) and every dollar
they make goes out of our parish and into a bank account in Plaquemines
parish.  According to Mr. Babin, one of the owners, not one employee among
all the newspapers they own live in St. Bernard parish.  In short, they are
sucking our parish dry and giving "nothing" in return.

A good move by the parish council last night.  It's time for the St. Bernard
parish government to end its relationship with the "Plaquemines" Voice and
the business to a local paper where the owner and staff currently have more
roots in St. Bernard.