JEFFERSON PARISH, La. — A bitter dispute at the highest levels of Jefferson Parish Government led to heated back-and-forth at Wednesday’s Parish Council meeting.
It centered around a contract for advertisements on the sides of the parish’s buses. Last month, council members voted for Fuel Media over another company, Vector Media.
According to the Times-Picayune, Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng’s office then said it could not come to an agreement with Fuel Media and asked Councilmember-at-Large Jennifer Van Vrancken to introduce an agenda item to either reopen negotiations or award the contract to Vector Media.
Van Vrancken refused. Five other council members overrode the decision and put the item on Wednesday’s agenda.
In a video statement posted to Facebook Monday night, she held up a letter she sent to Attorney General Liz Murrill asking for higher powers to look into the decision to drop Fuel Media. “I need your help to expose this because good government is at stake,” she said.
Wednesday morning, before the Parish Council could even get to its first agenda item, Councilmember Arita Bohanan brought up the dispute. Then Van Vrancken herself spoke, defending her statement and saying “I think the one thing that we can all do better is communicate.”
Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng shot back that “this is not a communication issue, this is a fundamental disagreement in how we believe government runs.”
“I have two children, and since I’ve taken office I’ve told them ‘your mother might make mistakes, your mother might disagree with other people, but you will never see my name in the newspaper as a corrupt politician, and guess what?” she said, holding up that morning’s Times-Picayune, headlined “Frustrations boil over at Jefferson Parish Council as Jennifer Van Vrancken claims corruption.”
After that, Councilmember Van Vrancken called Cheryl Anderson, Vice President of Fuel Media, to the podium. She and councilmembers went back-and-forth at length about the stall in the contract negotiations.
“You're now telling us that you're not able to pay the 20-something-thousand a month. And by virtue of that, you would have to agree that we are at an impasse,” said Councilmember Bohanan. “I did not say we could not pay 20,000,” replied Anderson.
By the time they voted on the agenda item, many in the room were visibly frustrated. It passed, and the contract will now be awarded to Vector Media.
The next Parish Council meeting will take place on September 11th.
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