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Local News Update
10/25/08 - 03:17 PM
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Latest Louisiana news, sports, business and entertainment:

TERREBONNE SCHOOLS
    Terrebonne Parish schools chief to resign
   
    HOUMA, La. (AP) - Terrebonne Parish Public Schools Superintendent Ed Richard says he will resign Dec. 31, a decision that comes nearly two years after he narrowly kept his job.
    Richard announced his retirement in a letter Wednesday to board members. The letter cites a contentious relationship with members in his decision to leave six months before his contract expires.
    The board renewed Richard’s contract March 2007 in a 5-4 vote, a decision that resulted in fallout among members. Richard’s recommendations, submitted after the vote, began to fail in similar patterns - with the four members who supported his new contract on the losing side.
    Richard says the subsequent negative atmosphere is counterproductive to efficiently managing and operating the school system.

   
THREE KILLED
    Man facing charges in deaths of 3 pedestrians
   
    ALEXANDRIA, La. (AP) - A Lafayette man will face criminal charges stemming from an accident in which a car ran over and killed a mother and her two daughters in Alexandria.
    Police say 21-year-old Justin Brouillette will be booked with three counts of negligent homicide, failure to maintain control and driving with a suspended driver’s license.
    Brouillette is hospitalized with serious injuries he sustained when his vehicle - after striking the pedestrians - hit a culvert along Louisiana Highway 1.
    Investigators say it does not appear that the driver intentionally hit the pedestrians.
   

SURPLUS-RETIREMENT
    Lawmaker: Use part of surplus on retirement debt
   
    BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - The head of the Senate’s retirement committee says the state should put some of its multimillion dollar surplus into paying down retirement debt.
    The two largest statewide retirement systems, for state employees and public school teachers, are $9.7 billion short of what they will need to cover the cost of benefits. The state must pay off much of that debt by 2029.
    State Sen. Butch Gautreaux, chairman of the Senate Retirement Committee, says a slice of the $865 million state surplus should be used toward the retirement debt. By putting up money now, it saves large interest costs later.
    The state surplus is from the 2007-08 budget year that ended June 30. It can only be used for one-time items like road construction, coastal restoration projects and debt payments.
    Gov. Bobby Jindal and lawmakers will craft plans for spending it during a 2009 legislative session.
   

MARDI GRAS MUSEUM
    Mardi Gras museum in Bossier City shuttered
   
    BOSSIER CITY, La. (AP) - The Ark-La-Tex Mardi Gras Museum in Bossier City has closed after six years.
    The museum opened in August 2002 and was intended to be an educational experience about Mardi Gras with floats, costumes and other exhibits. Public grants paid for most costs during initial years, but that money has run out.
    Since then, the museum has run on admission fees and private donations. It closed Friday.
    The Bossier City Council was asked in September to provide $25,000 or about half of the museum’s projected expenses for next year. But the council never voted on the measure after supporters conceded they could not get enough backing.
   

DARTEZ-ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
    Husband of ex-lawmaker gets 30 days
   
    LAFAYETTE, La. (AP) - A federal judge in Lafayette has sentenced the husband of a former state representative to 30 days in jail for harboring illegal immigrants.
    Lenny Dartez pleaded guilty in July. U.S. District Judge Tucker Melancon ordered him to serve the sentence at a rate of no more than five days per month beginning in November.
    Dartez also was put on probation for five years and fined $12,000.
    Dartez is the husband of Carla Dartez, a former state representative from Morgan City. Lenny Dartez was arrested in September 2007 following an anonymous complaint that he was employing illegal immigrants from Trinidad at his contracting company.