Former LPTFA Greg Gachassin Under Investigation – Wingin’ It Wednesday

This week on "Wingin' It Wednesday", panelist Carol Ross, Mike Stagg, and Warren Caudle joined "Mornings with Ken and Bernie" to discuss an article by the IND implicating violations by former LPTFA Chairman Greg Gachassin as well as possible war in Syria.

Here's what the panel had to say:

1. Secretary of State John Kerry testifies that failing to strike Syria in response to a chemical weapons attack would open a 'Pandora's box' of 'dangerous consequences,' as he and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel try to persuade Congress to back the president's plan. What do you think?

Carol Ross started us off:

The pandora's box will be opened either way, whether we go in our we don't go in. They used to say President Bush put together a coalition of the willing, well this may be a coalition of the unwilling. With Tea Partiers and Progressives joining together to vote against going to Syria. Sort of a strange alliance.
It just makes you wonder because nothing could get the President's attention. Not when Assad killed at least 100,000 of his people the normal way, bombing them. They've used chemical weapons multiple times in the past, but nobody paid attention. What's different now? Could it be to draw attention away from domestic problems that are building and the momentum building to defund Obamacare?

Warren Caudle added:

What we have here is the drumbeat for war, the people who profit off of war, they're on one side; everybody else is on the other side. Big money is on the side of "let's go to war". When you look at how convoluted the middle east thing is, you've got this one group that's making money off this stuff pushing for every kind of military action they can. What they really want to see is World War 3 where we just destroy two or three of these countries and just rebuild them.

I think Obama is truly an innocent bystander in all of this, just like Bush was. He's getting pushed into this deal and now it's time to put up or shut up. Either way you look at it, going to war is the worst thing you can do.

Mike Stagg Concluded:

This has nothing to do with domestic politics this was discovered by international observers. 14,000 people were killed. The complete and persistent cynicism is the reason why our country can't get anything done domestically on any policy. It would be a terrible mistake to get involved in this, it's a civil war. There's no place for the USA in this fight. We don't have the moral standing to take a position on this. We supplied the chemical weapons Saddam Hussein used on his own people. The United States should not be involved in Syria, we've bled ourselves white with they money we've spent in Iraq and Afghanistan.

2. The LPTFA has been in the headlines recently amidst charges of ethics violations.  Yesterday, the IND published an article outlining the allegations surrounding former LPTFA Chairman Greg Gachassin. What do you think of these allegations.

Mike stated:

I don't know who's punchbowl Greg Gachassin peed in, but just because the IND writes it doesn't mean it's true. There has been a long series of investigations going on with the LPTFA and I will say this; this happened under Joey Durel's watch. Gachassin was appointed to the LPTFA by Joey Durel after he made a contribution to his campaign. The controversy surrounding the Lafayette Housing Authority is directly tied to this. This is a scandal that has been in the making for a long time. Whether this happened, whether these bricks were used or not, I don't know, but a lot of money has changed hands.
I think what the IND wrote, I can't tell you if it's true or not, but thisThis authority, and the funds they have access to have been used in a lot of peculiar ways.

Warren added:

This is a non-govermenatal organization taking tax dollars that the government borrows and putting it in circulation. I don't know all the ends and outs of this thing, but if you look at the timeline, it goes back seven or eight years.
Claire Taylor with the Advertiser started picking some of this stuff up and did some really good investigative reporting. The IND really did a good article on this thing that came out yesterday and we'll see what happens. I know the feds are involved in this. There's going to be a lot of stuff that comes out of it.

Carol stated:

Where's the ethics bored, where's the FBI, where's anybody? This has been going on since the Housing Authority.
By the way, the City Council is the appointing board for the LPTFA, not Joey Durel. Joey Durel appoints the Housing Authority, but this is LPTFA. This is a problem that the Tea Party members have had all along. These unelected boards get appointed and then everyone goes about their business. Where is the oversight? That's what's been missing. Who is looking out for the people? These are low income housing tax credits that enable these people to do this. There are no big contracts all along the line.
Now we have Greg Gachassin's partner on tape talking about how they diverted bricks from a low-income housing project to a private trust. Claire Taylor and Leslie Turk have done outstanding work on this for years.

Now it’s your turn to tell us what you think about today’s Wingin’ It Wednesday topics. Who got it right, who got it wrong, and who was way off? Let us know in the comment section.