EBR plugs road plan
Promotions cost $90,000 in 2 years
Mayor-President Kip Holden’s administration has spent more than $90,000 in the past two years to promote its Green Light Plan of road improvements, records show. Among expenses charged to taxpayers — $511.50 for two pairs of engraved, green-handled, silver-bladed scissors to use for ribbon-cutting ceremonies.
Public relations consultants are paid $165-per-hour to $250-per-hour to write news releases and help prepare articles for trade journals extolling the Green Light Plan road improvement program, according to invoices filed with the city-parish Finance Department.
Meanwhile, shade tents are rented and set up for ground-breaking and ribbon-cutting ceremonies, where invited guests enjoy refreshments such as butter cream cakes, cookies and sodas as a videographer records the events to air on Metro 21, a public affairs cable television channel.
The largest share of the Green Light Plan money used for promotional purposes has gone to SSA Consultants, a Baton Rouge public relations and management consulting firm whose part owner, Christel Slaughter, charges $250 per hour for her services, records show. The firm was paid $63,351 for its consulting work on the Green Light Plan between Jan. 1, 2010, and Sept. 30, 2011, records show.
John Snow, a consultant to SSA who writes most of its Green Light Plan news releases and who helps organize ground-breaking and ribbon-cutting ceremonies, said such events are important in drawing the news media’s attention to road projects in East Baton Rouge Parish and making the public aware of when work starts and when it is completed.
The $600 million Green Light Plan is paid for from a half-cent sales tax, expected to sunset in 2030. The city-parish got approval from voters in 2005 to bond the half-cent sales tax, which allowed it to borrow money up front and tackle more projects to ease traffic congestion. In the past, such work had been done on a slower, pay-as-you-go basis.
The money spent on Green Light Plan promotion efforts comes from the half-cent sales tax that is dedicated for road projects.
Slaughter noted that her firm does more than just issue news releases and help arrange ground-breaking and ribbon-cutting ceremonies. SSA also works to keep homeowner association groups and businesses informed about road work that affects them and gets answers to the public’s questions about projects, she said.
“We’re here to make sure traffic does not build up on roads under construction and to help businesses communicate with their customers,” Slaughter said.
Holden did not respond to a request for an interview about the costs that go into promoting the Green Light Plan.
Most of the promotional efforts prominently feature the mayor in photographs and include quotes from him about how the road improvement projects benefit the public.
Snow estimated there have been about 50 ground-breaking or ribbon-cutting ceremonies since the Green Light Plan was launched in 2006.
The affairs typically feature Holden and Metro Council members at the site of a road project, along with contractors, engineers and city-parish Department of Public Works officials. Depending on the circumstances, they pose for photographers holding shovels or with scissors in hand to cut ribbons.
The costs can add up.
For example, invoices for public relations-related work in August 2010 totaled $9,380. The invoices included $4,955 in consulting fees to SSA for the month, and $4,425 to other vendors to set up tents, generators and fans and to cater food and refreshments for ground- breaking or ribbon-cutting events.
Promotion-related expenses for August 2010 included the purchase of two pairs of ceremonial ribbon-cutting scissors by CSRS Inc., an engineering firm that serves as program manager for the Green Light Plan and coordinates work done by engineers and contractors. SSA Consultants is a subcontractor to CSRS.
The city-parish reimbursed CSRS for the $511.50 the company spent to obtain two pairs of scissors from a specialty store in New Hampshire. The costs included engraving the 25-inch scissors, an extra charge for producing them on an expedited basis and Federal Express shipping charges.
Michael Songy, a principal partner with CSRS, said in an email that the scissors are engraved with the words: “GREEN LIGHT PLAN ---Building Better Roads for East Baton Rouge Parish.”
“The scissors were purchased for the ribbon cutting events which are held at the completion of each Green Light Plan project,” Songy wrote. “Our CSRS staff keeps the scissors in their possession as they coordinate all ground breaking and ribbon cutting events.”
More than public relations
Each monthly invoice from SSA Consultants contains hourly billings for time spent “on community awareness activities, correspondence with media entities, and public relations effort,” with further details then listed on the tasks the company performed.
SSA’s invoice for August 2010, for example, lists such items as: “Coordination of Perkins at Stanford/Acadian Ribbon Cutting Ceremony, including logistical planning and coordination, correspondence with media entities, on-site coordination, attendee correspondence, correspondence with Metro Council members, development of speaking points, and invitation/press release content development and distribution in conjunction with Rannah Gray, Susan Boudreaux, Scott Dyer, and the Office of Mayor-President Kip Holden.”
Boudreaux is Holden’s executive assistant, while Dyer serves as the mayor’s press aide.
Gray said in an email that she does not “play any role in the administration” and that her firm is “not paid by anyone regarding the Green Light Plan.” She said she shared her firm’s “public outreach models and information with SSA” on the proposed Baton Rouge traffic loop and FutureBR planning efforts, “since Green Light Plan projects were considered in both and community outreach for all of these projects was going on simultaneously.”
Gray has close ties with Holden, and the media consulting firm she co-owns, Marmillion/Gray Media, guided Holden’s two successful mayoral campaigns. Records show the firm has received eight contracts and subcontracts that total $937,397 for a variety of city-parish related projects since Holden took office in 2005, including work on the Baton Rouge Loop and for FutureBR. The contract amounts include both professional fees and expenses.
Each of SSA’s monthly invoices throughout 2010 included an item at the end that said, “Green Light Plan community awareness strategic planning with Rannah Gray, Susan Boudreaux, Scott Dyer, and the Office of Mayor-President Kip Holden.” Slaughter said that sentence was boilerplate language included on the invoices. She said it has been several months since she has talked to Gray about matters relating to the Green Light Plan.
“Every so often, if he’s doing talking points for the mayor, John (Snow) will run something by Rannah or Susan,” Slaughter said.
The last mention of Gray in an SSA invoice was one for January 2011 that said, “Development of Green Light Plan talking points for ‘2011 State of the City’ public address presented by Mayor-President Melvin ‘Kip’ Holden to the Baton Rouge Rotary Club, in conjunction with Rannah Gray.”
In addition to the promotional efforts for the Green Light Plan, the program manager, CSRS, maintains an informational website for the public with facts and figures about road projects underway, planned or completed. Almost all include photos of the mayor on the cover, along with a message from the mayor.
Songy said CSRS developed and maintains the Green Light Plan website and produces the quarterly reports, receiving input and support from SSA “on an as needed basis.” He said the website and quarterly reports represent a minor part of CSRS’s management fee but said he could not provide a figure because those tasks are not broken out separately.
Articles cited
SSA and Holden’s office have issued news releases in the past boasting of articles published in national trade publications drawing attention to Baton Rouge’s Green light Plan, but failing to note the role SSA and its staff played in getting them published.
For example, a news release in February 2010, about an article in Public Works Magazine, quoted Holden as saying the feature article “serves as yet another testament to the vision and success of the Green Light Plan for Baton Rouge.” Holden added that the article illustrates the road program “as a best practices model that cities across the United States are now able to review and emulate.”
The article quoted Holden, former Chief Administrative Officer Walter Monsour, and other city-parish officials on how effective the Green Light Plan has been in moving road projects forward and relieving traffic congestion. Left unmentioned in the release was that the article, which SSA had framed and presented to city-parish officials at a Metro Council meeting, carried Snow’s byline as the author.
The mayor’s office recently issued another news release saying that the Green Light Plan once again had received national recognition in a national trade publication, in the fall issue of DDC Journal. The initials DDC stands for Design, Develop, Construct.
Holden was quoted in the news release as saying that the feature article in a “well respected international trade journal” is “yet another example of industry experts and other cities looking to the Green Light Plan as a best practice for transportation improvements programs.”
DDC Journal officials did not respond to several emails and telephone calls last week seeking comment on their editorial policies, but their website says the trade magazine encourages content from “subcontractors, project managers and financiers” on projects they are involved in.
Most of the articles in the publication’s fall issue include an advertisement from a contractor or others involved in the programs being featured. The article highlighting Baton Rouge’s case has an accompanying ad from James Construction Group, a participant in the Green Light Plan program.
Lois Boynton, an associate professor of journalism and mass communications at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, said she was not familiar with DDC Journal or its policies, but said that trade publications often want to swap content for ads. She also said it isn’t unusual for public relations professionals to write articles that are published in trade journals.
“It’s not unusual but if it involves government, more transparency would be helpful since this involves taxpayer money,” Boynton said. “Having those (news) clips is another way to self promote.”
Snow said DDC Journal approached SSA Consultants about doing an article on the Green Light Plan because they said they thought the program was innovative and an intriguing subject for an article.
“DDC Journal conducted in-depth interview with both Mayor Holden and Michael Songy, while Public Works Magazine relied upon existing information I provided to them and then they drove the remainder of the article’s development through their editorial staff,” Snow said in an email response to questions.