Sunday, April 17, 2022

Call the Wahmbulance for Jazzfest

 As usual, Louisiana every so often teaches Mississippi what corruption really is.  Check out the latest squabble at Jazzfest.  

Two past presidents of the famous festival enjoy some really nice perks, including 70 free tickets and the right to buy an additional 100 tickets at half price every year.  In a bout of fiscal responsibility, the Jazzfest board made some changes and decided giving away 140 tickets and charging 200 tickets at half-price each and every year was not necessarily a good idea.  However, the former grand poobahs didn't just go to court to get back their freebies but talked a judge into allowing them to do so in secret.    Can't have the rubes - or sponsors - see what really goes on behind the scenes, can we? 

After much gnashing of teeth, a hearing was held last week and surprise!, the little brats got back their precious Jazzfest freebies in a typical case of Maine justice. The New Orleans Times-Picayune reported Wednesday: 

Two past presidents of the nonprofit board that controls the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival testified in court Wednesday that they would suffer “irreparable harm” if forced to attend the 2022 festival without the extensive privileges and perks they enjoyed for years.

Judge Nicole Sheppard of Orleans Parish Civil District Court agreed. She granted the preliminary injunction that Michael Bagneris and Demetric Mercadel sought against the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and Foundation Inc. Sheppard ordered the foundation to restore to Mercadel and Bagneris the thousands of dollars’ worth of benefits that it eliminated after the 2019 Jazz Fest.

The real issue, Bagneris and Mercadel argued, was the foundation not honoring an “implied contract” to provide a lifetime of benefits for their volunteer work, and not properly acknowledging the scope of that work.

“For me, it was not simply a question of breach of contract,” Bagneris testified. “It was also a matter of disrespect. We felt disrespected.”...

Disrespect? Can't have that happen even if it means coughing up several hundred tickets every year.

Mercadel initially requested that her suit be allowed to proceed in private, in order to comply with what she said was a non-disclosure agreement the Jazz & Heritage Foundation asked her to sign in April 2021. “It was not because I was trying to hide that I wanted tickets,” she said. “I was trying to respectfully do what [the foundation] said.”

Attorneys for both sides agreed to waive confidentiality for Wednesday’s hearing, and to allow a reporter to witness it.

The foundation’s legal team, led by Ben Chapman, called no witnesses. But the nonprofit intends to appeal Sheppard’s ruling, which applies only to the 2022 Jazz Fest, to Louisiana's 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.

“I was always told if you’re fortunate enough to become president, then there were lifetime benefits that you would receive, perks that you would receive,” he said. Based on a conversation with an executive director of the foundation decades ago, Bagneris expected those benefits “until death or resignation.” Rest of article.

You can't make this up. 


 

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do members of the Mississippi Legislature still get free tickets to college ball games in this state? If it remains a tradition, should it? By what authority?

Anonymous said...

Yeah they hustle concert tickets while the governor and his friends hustle welfare money.

Anonymous said...

I'm sure these 2 fine volunteers gave all these tickets away and collected no money from them. Also, if they did make some money, they claimed them on their taxes.

Anonymous said...

Yeah they hustle concert tickets...

Mississippi has concerts?

Anonymous said...

@9:22
Yeah everyone in Jackson is an emerging underground hiphop artist. Did you see that video from the hood that Kingfish posted?

Anonymous said...

Legislators also show up to high school athletic events and flash their ids so they can get in free. Wouldn’t want to have to support schools any more than they already don’t.

Anonymous said...

How is it "whining" (or whatever) for a person to expect what they were promised or led to believe they would receive? On the face of it, this is a plain ol' contract dispute and turns on the facts. If these folks had been receiving tickets, etc. "for years" in fulfillment of an actual or implied promise as a (future) benefit of their (past) service it is a reasonable expectation to expect to continue receiving it. If they had been directly or implicitly told that the past tickets, etc. were merely generosity by Jazzfest's board subject to modification or withdrawal at any time for any reason it is not a reasonable expectation. One problem I can see for them is that if there isn't strong evidence of specifics - that X benefits would be provided for Y years - there isn't a contract (of any kind) but even then it doesn't make them unreasonable for expecting something. Frankly, this sounds like so many other lawsuits - all parties would have been and now would be better off simply finding a middle ground no one liked but everyone could live with.

I wonder what PERS recipients would do/say if any alleged "promises" were not kept.

PittPanther - ACC Champs said...

Who are you angry with, KF?

The past boards for agreeing to this benefit? Or the past presidents for actually wanting to receive the benefits they were promised?

If you make a bad deal, you don't get to just stop paying, because you now realize it was a bad deal.
Or maybe they struggled to find qualified persons to full that role, and needed the benefit to convince guys people to take the job.

You're just pissed because YOU don't get free tickets?

Anonymous said...

Legislature and state/local officials do get free tickets for designated college games and for others when requested. If they serve on colleges & universities committee or a member of state building commission they get tickets, parking, free meals & rooms for free.

Anonymous said...

@10:00, PERS is a contract. The benefit is in writing. This one is not. If you read the article, there are other past presidents that aren't trying to pull this stunt. There is no contract. It's a 2-1 year term volunteer position. These people are being plain ole baby back b!tches.

Anonymous said...

Organized Crime is still working in our state.

Anonymous said...

Read the article and try not to throw up at the sheer gall and arrogance of these cretins.

"Bagneris, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2017 after serving for 20 years as a Civil District Court judge, said he also gave tickets to “unemployed individuals” who worked on his political campaigns."

Hmmmmm. Gosh, what a generous guy. Helping the "unemployed" who were "helping" him in a Nawlins election. What a guy!

Love how he said he was very happy to have a private bathroom instead of standing in line (while not having them for the handicapped).

But the best is that is all based upon a supposed conversations decades ago, unrecorded, unwritten, leading to LIFETIME benefits. That's a good one.

"Don't they 'respect' us?" NOPE. They don't. And this judge is not going to be respected either.

"Way ull, that's just how we do things down heah~...." Puke.

Java World. You "won" Kramer!!!

Anonymous said...

Tax Question: Wouldn't these free tickets be a taxable fringe benefit to Bagneris and Mercadel?

With the Jazz Fest getting too crowded and too expensive, I quit attending it, many years ago.

Anonymous said...

As usual, Louisiana every so often teaches Mississippi what corruption really is.

Some elected official in Mississippi just said, "hold my beer"

Anonymous said...

Less you don't know the festival is over a seven day period, so its really not that many tickets. Also over 500,000 tickets will be sold this year comping even 20,000 shouldn't be a big deal. It certainly doesn't rise to the level of stealing Million's in Welfare money as the former governor friends' have been indicted for.

Anonymous said...

Politics will turn an honest person into a crooked one in a New York second!

Anonymous said...

I'm just remembering seeing local officials on front row seats at casino concerts in several county venues. Amazing how they jumped on the internet and scored those tickets as soon as they were announced.

Anonymous said...

Ask the head lobbyist for Entetgy about the Box at Dome and Hornet stadium, the joy of politicians demanding tickets? I excude the Cajun Bowl it was a outreach.

Anonymous said...

This seems to an outsider like a petty controversy, but knowing one of the past presidents, he explained to me that the job is exhaustive taking hundreds of hours from family and work. All who serve are established professionals who spend tens of thousands of their own money (without reimbursement) raising millions of dollars for Jazzfest. They get no payment and work for the enjoyment and status they are given by these post-term benefits. These perks are a part of the contract package--in writing, which explains why the judge ruled in their favor. They are chosen because they have the contact and means to bring in the big bucks and big talent to Jazzfest and would not serve without these benefits--which have been in place since the beginning.

Anonymous said...

Jazzfest, warm beer and headaches. Meh.


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