Reader: Coastal steward award may be misguided

Dear Editor,

What a joke. I read that on May 10, the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana will honor Charlotte Randolph with a coastal stewardship award for her leadership during and after the BP oil spill.

I wonder if they would have bestowed this honor upon her if they knew that she was conducting personal business with the single largest polluter of the Gulf Coast in written history.

If someone is signing your check, it could be conceived that they are your boss and you are their employee. So, in my opinion, our chief negotiator Charlotte Randolph was a BP employee.

If you had a personal injury case, would you want your attorney to be an employee of the insurance company you are suing? It would be illegal. An attorney employed by the defendant could be disbarred for representing you. The parish president should be held to the same higher standards.

During the oil spill, there were several examples where BP benefitted and Lafourche citizens lost out:

• Not hiring a parish fleet of cleanup vessels as all other parishes did.

• Signing a document allowing BP to move from cleanup phase to restoration phase. This stated there was no longer any oil to be cleaned and BP could move on to the restoration.

• Tried to stop Feinberg from coming down when fishermen requested he answer questions about the claims process. (Randolph) said the parish had valuable computer equipment at the meeting place. Was she implying that fishermen and other people affected by the spill are not civilized and are all thieves?

In my opinion, it is very clear whom she represented during and after the spill. Perhaps after BP rental and BTNP/LUMCON scandals, they may change their mind about the award. If they don’t, she may not be accepting the award as parish president.

Dean Plaisance,

Cut Off, La.