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

[Westley Annis]

Oh yeah, lol, nothing like getting your cronies in the lege and on the
council to do your bidding. Now will it have to have the "paid subscription
numbers", or has someone already cooked up those?




	-----------------------------------------------------
	"...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.