Inside Report

Jurors Lea Williams and Otis Wilson  voted against the raise, and they easily won re-election against single opponents in the Oct. 22 balloting.

Maybe it is just a coincidence, but the only West Feliciana Parish police jurors left standing after the recent elections are the two who voted against a $30,000 raise in December 2009 for former Parish Manager Ambrose Sims.

The raise generated quite a bit of controversy at the time, and the controversy lingered.

Jurors Lea Williams and Otis Wilson voted against the raise, and they easily won re-election against single opponents in the Oct. 22 balloting.

On the other side, jury President Ken Dawson did not seek re-election, opting instead to try for the House District 62 seat.

Jurors John Cobb, John Roach, Randy Stevens and Billy Shoemake lost their re-election bids, although Cobb is challenging his defeat in court.

The jury hired Sims as its third parish manager in June 2007, before Dawson and Williams were elected later that year.

A 1973 LSU graduate with a degree in political science, Sims brought to the job years of experience with oil companies in Oklahoma and Texas and began changing the way the jury did its business.

Sims proved to be a divisive figure in local governmental circles, however, as the current jurors’ terms unfolded.

He openly criticized, at various times and in public settings, District Attorney Sam D’Aquilla, Clerk of Court Felicia Hendl and the late Lloyd Lindsey, the longtime parish schools superintendent, just to name a few.

The jury hired Sims on a 5-2 vote, but seemingly closed ranks to fully support him as a new jury term began. His support later began eroding, but it seemed that as long as he had four votes on the jury he didn’t try hard to court the other three.

Stevens voted against hiring Sims, but Stevens later supported him until Sims’ pushing for a controversial residential-commercial development put Stevens cross-wise with many of his constituents.

Sims openly criticized Williams long and loud for not keeping up with the jury’s business. Williams responded by digging into the jury’s spending and finding some curious items.

Sims hired Sarah Coco as the jury’s financial accounting manager, saying she was needed to get the jury’s financial house in order.

Williams discovered, however, that Coco had made numerous outlandish purchases of china, kitchen gadgets and holiday decorations. Sims finally fired Coco in March 2010 after finding she had used a jury credit card for $1,700 in vacation expenses.

Coco pleaded “no contest” in July to misdemeanor theft, a charge reduced from malfeasance in office. She also was arrested last month in an unrelated insurance fraud investigation, State Police said.

Cobb argued mightily for Sims’ raise, but he switched sides earlier this year, providing the fourth vote needed to terminate Sims and buy out his contract. At the end, Sims was left with only three votes.

James Minton is chief of the Baker-Zachary bureau. His email address is [e-mail].