225BatonRouge.com

When Bert Neal, BREC’s director of recreation, applied last summer for the position of assistant superintendent, he had every reason to believe the competition for the park system’s No. 3 spot would be fair.

He was wrong.

Not long after Neal, a 27-year veteran of the parks agency, applied for the job, a BREC commissioner—one of the nine political appointees who control the East Baton Rouge Parish park system and its money—started hurling race bombs at Neal.

Darrell Glasper, a black commissioner who had only been on the BREC board for a few months, accused Neal, who is white, of engaging in racially offensive behavior at two recent national parks association meetings. Glasper claimed to have seen pictures that would prove his allegations. What Glasper tried to keep quiet was: At the time he leveled his accusations against Neal, one of Glasper’s longtime friends and former basketball teammates was competing for the same BREC job as Neal.

A 225 investigation reveals the false accusations against Neal are just one example of the lengths to which some local politicians have gone to get control of BREC and its more than $100 million in taxpayer-funded capital improvement money.

The plan to change the plan

For decades, 43-year veteran BREC boss Gene Young kept a tight lid on BREC and was adept at keeping anyone from gaining control of the system. From his creaky rocking chair, Young lorded over a parks system that grew far and wide thanks largely to decades of land gifts by developers, especially property suitable for golf courses.

Young retired in 2003. His replacement was parks veteran Mark Thornton. One of Thornton’s first contributions was to help convince voters to approve new taxes valued at more than $100 million to overhaul the parks, many of which had fallen into disrepair or outright neglect.

The tax package voters passed in late 2004 also gave new hope to black Metro Council members and black BREC commissioners, who had long complained about the disparity between idyllic BREC golf courses and disgracefully neglected parks in their communities.

Everything was in place for a new day at BREC: a new leader, a new plan and plenty of cash to get it done.

The road map was a strategic plan, hammered out at more than 125 public meetings. The plan called for 12 signature parks; new indoor recreation centers; redesigned neighborhood parks; improved golf courses; new sports and special-use parks; a state-of-the-art aquatic facility; and miles and miles of trails for walking, running and bicycling.

But with that much cash on the table, it wasn’t long before outside interests started zeroing in on BREC and its new-found wealth.

Zoo to-do

The first blow to BREC’s independence came before the tax package passed. In April 2004, real estate developer Ted Hicks pitched an idea to move the zoo to a piece of property near I-12 and O’Neal Lane where Hicks had an option to buy the land. For Hicks—a political dabbler who served as Darrell Glasper’s campaign finance manager when Glasper won a spot on the Metro Council—a relocated zoo would have been the key attraction to a larger ecological park he planned to build and certainly would have been a lucrative business deal for him as well.

But Thornton opposed the deal.

As head of BREC and chief steward of the taxpayer-approved strategic plan, Thornton took seriously his role as guardian of the public’s trust and of its money. In order for anyone to take control of BREC and its finances, Thornton would have to go.

But he had come to Baton Rouge with no personal baggage and no political debt. He had a national reputation. A guy like that was going to be hard to take down. It would take a group effort.

The reason Thornton opposed moving the zoo was because he already had plans for Greenwood Park where the zoo remains today. If the new tax passed, the park was slated to become one of Baton Rouge’s signature parks.

Thornton was not the only BREC official against moving the zoo to Hicks’s property off O’Neal Lane.

Carroll Breeden, chairman of the BREC commission, and fellow commissioner Danny Spencer spoke out against moving the zoo, and both very soon began to feel pressure to change their minds.

Metro Councilman Wayne “Spider” Carter, a political bulldog who represents Zachary and who is a close friend of Hicks, made it clear he favored moving the zoo.

Spencer, whom Carter nominated to the BREC commission, recalls running into Hicks and Carter at a golf tournament in Zachary. Carter was furious over Spencer’s opposition to the plan to move the zoo. Spencer says Carter threatened to remove him from the BREC commission. “I put your fat ass on that board, and I’ll take your fat ass off, if you don’t do what I say,” Carter told him.

The Metro Council appoints BREC commissioners, and this wasn’t the first time Carter tried to influence BREC decisions.

While Hicks tried to sell Thornton on the plan, Carter was pushing then-Mayor Bobby Simpson to support the idea, too. Carter also discussed the proposed move at least twice with Thornton.

Carter declined 225’s repeated requests for an interview for this story.

A couple of months later, Spencer announced he was going to challenge Carter for his Metro Council seat. Carter countered by trying to push the council to boot Spencer off of the BREC commission for an ethics violation. When that effort failed, Carter got help from his colleague, former Metro Councilman Darrell Glasper, who at that time was not yet a BREC commissioner.

Acting in his capacity as a “concerned citizen,” Glasper filed a lawsuit to stop Spencer’s company from selling office supplies to the city-parish’s Public Information Office, where Spencer’s daughter worked as a student intern and later as a receptionist. When pressed by 225 about the suit, Glasper dismissed it as “a friendly lawsuit.”

After the BREC tax passed in November 2004, a handful of local politicos turned up the heat on Superintendent Mark Thornton.

In early 2005, as Thornton was fighting to reshape and revitalize Baton Rouge’s park system, someone was plotting a coup d’etat.

Spider’s web

In the spring of 2005, Carter phoned plumbing contractor Jerry Terrell looking for LSU baseball tickets. Terrell offered Carter his seats. The two men met at a gas station on Plank Road. Because they had a mutual friend who worked for BREC, their conversation turned to the recently passed tax initiative and to Mark Thornton. Terrell recalls when he mentioned Thornton was doing a good job at BREC, Carter responded angrily, “We’ve got to get rid of him. He’s got to go.”

In early April, Carter called his longtime friend Bert Neal at BREC. Carter told Neal, “I’m on a one-man mission to run Mark Thornton out of town.”

Less than two weeks later, Carter helped get Glasper appointed to the BREC commission by the Metro Council.

That same month, the newly appointed commissioner backed a proposal for BREC to give up 60 acres of Greenwood Park for the construction of a new hospital. The deal reportedly involved a land swap in which BREC would donate part of Greenwood Park to the city of Baker in exchange for a 60-acre tract on O’Neal Lane—the same land Ted Hicks had suggested for the new zoo.

During the meeting, Commission Vice Chairman Breeden opposed the way the plan was being presented. At 10:15 that night, Breeden’s phone rang. It was Carter. The metro councilman accused Breeden of trying to stifle economic growth in Baker. Breeden says he tried to explain to Carter he supported the idea of a new hospital near Baker, just not one on BREC property.

At a BREC board meeting on May 24, Thornton told the commissioners the idea of a new charity hospital was certainly a noble one, but it was a project clearly outside of BREC’s mission.

The strategic plan Thornton and his staff had worked so hard on, and which the taxpayers had voted to support, did not call for relocating the zoo, or for giving away 60 acres in the middle of one of the parish’s new signature parks.

Shortly after that meeting, Carter called Breeden again. This time, he threatened Breeden’s position as a BREC commissioner. As Breeden recalls, Carter told him, “I put your ass on there; I’ll have your ass taken off.”

The comment sounded a lot like what Carter had told BREC Commissioner Danny Spencer a year before.

What’s more, Carter said almost the exact same thing to Judy Myles, a member of the Lane Memorial Hospital board.

At a hospital board meeting on Feb. 28, 2005, Carter lashed out at board members over an offer they had made to buy a nearby nursing home. Myles says she took offense to some of Carter’s comments. A heated exchange followed, during which Carter told her, “I put you on here, and I can take you off.”

Carter controls all nine appointments to the Lane board.

Board president Jerry Boudreaux also remembers the exchange. “Sometimes,” Boudreaux says, “Spider [Carter] says some things that he probably wished he hadn’t.”

Last month Carter made good on his threat and replaced Myles on the hospital board.

Super shopping

In June 2005, just a few weeks after Thornton killed the hospital deal, Glasper ran into retired BREC Assistant Superintendent Ray May at a local Wal-Mart. May had been one of the finalists for BREC’s top job when Mark Thornton was hired.

“Mike’s got to go,” Glasper told May. “We’ve got to get you back in there.”

“Darrell, what are you talking about?” May asked.

“Well, you know I’m on the BREC board,” Glasper said. “Mike’s got to go.”

May had been out-of-town for a month visiting his daughter and didn’t know Glasper had been appointed to the BREC commission. “Who’s Mike?” May asked.

“Thornton.”

“His name’s Mark,” May told him.

Wrong name or not, Glasper was undeterred. He asked for May’s telephone number.

“It’s in the book,” May told him.

Not long after their chance encounter at Wal-Mart, Glasper called May at home to ask if he were interested in the superintendent’s job.

Soon after, Ted Hicks asked May the same thing. May told Hicks what he’d told Glasper: No thanks.

“I knew what they wanted,” May says. “They were trying to get the zoo moved and all this other crap they were trying to do.”

At the same time Glasper and Hicks were feeling out May for a possible second run at BREC’s top post, Hicks put in a call to former LSU football coach Jerry Stovall. Published accounts of what Hicks and Stovall discussed vary, but Hicks told 225 he asked Stovall if he would be interested in the superintendent’s job if it became available. Stovall said no.

But it begs the question: What was a construction contractor with no official ties to BREC doing shopping the agency’s top job, a position that was already filled?

May contends it’s because “Glasper, Hicks and Carter are connected at the hip.”

Glasper cries wolf

After Thornton showed he was unwilling to twist BREC’s long-term plan to fit the interests of Glasper, Hicks and Carter, he and his supporters ran into more troubles.

On August 23, 2005, Glasper dropped his bombshell racial allegations against Bert Neal.

Glasper claimed Neal and Breeden had engaged in offensive and racist activities by wearing Afros and dreadlocks wigs while representing BREC at two national conferences. Glasper demanded Thornton investigate and take appropriate action.

Meanwhile, at a Metro Council meeting the next night, Carter launched an all-out assault to kick Spencer off the BREC commission. The debate ran long, and the council deferred the vote until the next meeting.

A month later, while Spencer was out of town, Carter cajoled his fellow council members into holding what amounted to a trial in absentia. Carter alleged a $500 fine Spencer received from the Louisiana Board of Ethics (for doing business with the city-parish department where his daughter worked) disqualified him to serve on the commission.

Despite Carter’s blustering, only five of the other 11 Metro Council members voted with him to oust Spencer. Yet, it was still a victory of sorts for Carter. Spencer stayed for three months until his term expired, but his power on the BREC commission dwindled; and by extension, so did his ability to support Mark Thornton and BREC’s strategic plan.

Thornton’s days soon grew busier than ever.

Although Hurricane Katrina dealt only a glancing blow to Baton Rouge, the killer storm left in its wake hundreds of downed trees and extensive damage to BREC facilities throughout East Baton Rouge Parish. Once the wind subsided, Thornton divided his time between recovering from the storm and investigating Glasper’s incendiary allegations of racism. Until now, Glasper’s allegations and Thornton’s subsequent investigation has been kept secret from the public. BREC attorney Murphy Foster III initially rejected 225’s request to view Thornton’s report on his investigation. When pressed, Foster eventually agreed to release the report.

Documents reviewed by 225 show Glasper, one of five black BREC commissioners, claimed the NAACP had contacted him about the racially-offensive behavior of Neal and Breeden, both of whom were trustees of the National Recreation and Parks Association and represented BREC at the association’s national meetings.

Glasper said he’d seen pictures of Neal and Breeden wearing Afros and dreadlocks wigs at two national conferences, one in Reno, Nev., in November 2004 and one in Ashburn, Va., in May 2005. Glasper claimed Neal and Breeden’s behavior at the two conferences had offended several black park association members.

Glasper alleged his longtime friend, Lee Dell Woods, also had seen the two BREC officials with the racially offensive wigs.

Woods, like Neal, had recently applied for the assistant superintendent’s job, submitting his application just six days after Glasper was appointed to the BREC commission.

On Sept. 27, Thornton presented his findings to the BREC commission after the public and media were ordered out of the room. The report fell like a sledgehammer on Glasper.

Woods had admitted to Thornton he had neither seen Breeden and Neal wearing wigs nor photographs of them wearing wigs.

Thornton noted although Glasper had claimed on four separate occasions to have personally seen photos of Neal and Breeden wearing the wigs, he could not produce them for Thornton’s inspection.

Glasper said he tried to obtain copies of the photographs from the National Parks Association, but he had been told by an association official the pictures were “too offensive” to be released.

But when Thornton contacted the same official, he was told Glasper had asked for the alleged photos of Neal and Breeden so he could play a practical joke on them.

The official also recalled Glasper asked her to send the alleged photos directly to Woods.

Thornton also interviewed several association members who had attended both conferences and spent time with Neal and Breeden. Not one of them said they had ever seen either man wearing a wig. Several were shocked at the allegation.

“I find this inquiry completely ridiculous, as I have served for over two years with Mr. Neal and Mr. Breeden...the citizens of Baton Rouge should be proud to have these two men as members of their community,” one fellow national commission trustee wrote to Thornton.

No one came forward to back up Glasper’s story, nor did anyone report having seen the photographs. In his report, Thornton wrote, “It is my opinion that they never existed.”

As far as the accusation itself, that Neal or Breeden had worn an Afro or dreadlocks wig, Thornton concluded, “This report has determined the event never took place.”

In a letter to Glasper, BREC attorney Murphy Foster asserted Glasper had changed his story about having seen the pictures. “To date, no one identified by you as having knowledge of such inappropriate actions have corroborated your statements. No one has admitted to having seen any of the suspect race-implicating photographs.”

“To date,” Foster wrote, “no evidence of any racially inappropriate actions has been produced. No racially charged photographs have surfaced, and no eyewitness has come forward.... It is also my recommendation and request that you, as a BREC commissioner, cease from making further comments or statements suggesting the validity of the allegations.”

At the end of the Sept. 27 closed BREC meeting, Breeden demanded Glasper apologize to Neal. “I’ll never apologize,” Glasper replied.

As soon as the commission moved back into open session, Thornton asked the BREC commission to buy out the remaining 15 months of his contract.

“The past few months have brought tension, uncertainty, insecurity and personal attacks on the integrity, honesty and ethics of me and my staff. Neither mine nor my staff’s performance has warranted such treatment,” Thornton told the commission.

Thornton said he could endure attacks directed at him, but not on his staff.

“That’s the reason why Mark Thornton left Baton Rouge,” Breeden says. “That was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Two days later, Bert Neal put in his retirement papers.

“It was the most concocted story that you’ve ever heard of in your entire life,” Neal says. “They ruined my professional reputation.”

Asked about the unfounded allegations, Glasper is unrepentant, telling 225 Thornton’s departure was completely voluntary. “Ain’t nobody got rid of Mark Thornton,” Glasper says. “Mark Thornton resigned.” Glasper claims it was Thornton who manufactured controversy so the commission would buy out his contract.

Those who worked closely with Thornton disagree.

Breeden, whose term as a BREC commissioner expires at the end of this year, says if the politicians, both on the commission and on the Metro Council, would just leave the BREC staff alone and let them carry out the strategic plan Thornton helped coordinate, Baton Rouge could have one of the premier park systems in the country.

“I know we can do the right thing,” Breeden says. “We’ve got the plan; we’ve got the financing; we owe the folks of the parish to follow through.”

Racial history

Race is not some new, sore subject for BREC.

Some black members of the BREC commission and the Metro Council insist BREC has long neglected parks in their communities, even as it has worked to polish golf courses and other facilities located in more prosperous parts of the parish.

In March, some of those black members met to talk about how some of the new tax revenue—expected to far exceed $100 million—might be spent in their communities.

But to all but a few members of the Metro Council and the BREC commission, the informal meeting was a secret.

At a community center in north Baton Rouge, four black Metro Council members—Lorri Burgess, Byron Sharper, Charles Kelly and Ulysses “Bones” Addison—met with four black BREC commissioners: Gerald Handy, Collis Temple Jr., Marlyn Goins-McCants and Darrell Glasper.

Allegedly, the fifth black BREC commissioner, Audrey Nabors-Jackson, was on her way to the meeting but got waved off when someone pointed out that five commissioners would have made a quorum, which would have turned their unannounced, unadvertised gathering illegal.

Addison says the meeting was simply his way of shoring up support for BREC Commission Chairman Handy, whose term expired at the end of 2005 and who needed a super majority—nine of 12 Metro Council votes—to stay on the BREC commission.

And the other three black BREC commissioners were invited to the meeting to answer questions from the Metro Council members, Addison says. “They [the other three council members] said, ‘Well, we also may need to talk to other members who are African-American who serve on the commission.’”

BREC Commission Vice Chairman Breeden says he wasn’t invited to the meeting.

Glasper tells 225 he was there to listen to the concerns the four Metro Council members had about BREC’s strategic plan. Asked why the council members couldn’t voice their concerns at a public meeting, before the full nine-member BREC governing body, Glasper responded, “They can’t sit at a BREC commission meeting and ask a bunch of questions.”

Both Addison and Glasper insist although there were no white council members or white BREC commissioners at the meeting, race was not an issue.

The north Baton Rouge meeting may have started as a meet-and-greet for Handy, as Addison maintains, but what came out of it was a draft memo from Handy to acting BREC Superintendent Bill Palmer listing six pet projects the Metro Council members at the meeting wanted done with BREC money.

One project was a recommendation to build a BREC recreation room at the juvenile detention center in Scotlandville. Another involved regular maintenance at a private cemetery.

According to Palmer, who had not seen the memo until 225 showed it to him, those two projects don’t involve BREC property and are not part of BREC’s mission.

Legit search or fool’s errand?

BREC has gone to great lengths and expense to pick a new boss, but even that process has drawn the ire of community leaders asked to help with it.

Last year, BREC picked nine community leaders to help screen candidates for superintendent. But the screeners weren’t even asked to meet until late April, says Baton Rouge Area Chamber president and committee member Stephen Moret.

Meantime, $30,000 of search work has been done by Waters-Oldani Executive Recruitment, a Dallas executive search firm.

The firm only came up with 14 people willing to apply after contacting 130. Last time the job came open, far more people applied. Most of those contacted this time attributed their disinterest to a “lack of political stability” surrounding BREC.

“Parks are extremely important to the quality of life and indirectly to economic development,” Moret says. “We feel like there was a tremendous amount of public confidence lost in BREC because of all the turmoil and controversy.”

Even after the screening committee finally met in April, its members said they were frustrated about not about not being more involved in the process. For example, they were not given candidates’ resumés, let alone invited to interview them. Yet BREC commissioners asked the committee to choose their favorites.

Moret characterized the request as a joke. The rest of the committee agreed, refusing to make any recommendation at all.

Two of the top four applicants the recruiting firm recommended haven’t worked in a park system for at least a year, and another manages a park system less than a third the size of BREC.

Some members of the screening committee want to re-open the selection process, Moret says. “I think there’s a reasonable chance that we need to go back out for additional candidates.”

Even if that happens, it may not matter. Some BREC commissioners seem to have already made up their minds. After the screening committee met, commissioners met to talk about it.

“I just don’t think there’s a candidate there, after what I’ve seen, that’s going to look as good as the guy we’ve got,” Commissioner Hal Butt says about acting Superintendent Bill Palmer, who is one of the four people the search firm recommended.

“I think the guy we’ve got is the best guy,” Butt says.

At least three other commissioners at the same meeting agreed. “It’s going to be hard for anybody to convince me to vote for somebody other than Bill Palmer for superintendent,” Commissioner Collis Temple Jr. says.

Some commissioners acknowledge the need to continue with the official search for outside candidates even if their minds are made up.

“We need the media to understand that this is not a sham,” Temple says.

At the center of things

While all the political maneuvering swirls around BREC and its money, interim director Palmer quietly goes about doing the job of running the parks system. He also is among the names mentioned as finalists for the permanent superintendent.

And no matter what happens on the Metro Council or on the BREC commission, Palmer says he has a job to do. “I run the parks; they run the politics,” Palmer says.

Palmer has been with BREC since 1979. Before that, he spent eight years working in the Texas park system. Recently, when his grandson came into town for a visit, Palmer took him fishing—at a BREC park.

Carrying out the strategic plan, Palmer says, is his responsibility, and he is determined to see that it gets done.

Could some of the council members’ pet projects, such as cleaning up a cemetery or building a recreation room at a juvenile detention center, be added to the plan?

Palmer responded emphatically, pounding his hand on the arm of his chair.

“Absolutely not,” he says. “I can’t spend tax dollars on property that BREC doesn’t own or that doesn’t achieve our mission.”

Since the capital improvement tax initiative passed a year and a half ago, Palmer says BREC has been mostly in the survey and design phase of its five-year plan. Soon, he says, the public will see an explosion of construction projects all across the parish.

A list of BREC construction projects is available at BREC.org.

Next April, BREC goes back to the voters for renewal of an existing four-mill property tax. Unlike the capital improvement tax that passed in 2004, this existing tax is dedicated to operations and maintenance. With BREC’s own survey showing public confidence in the parks agency waning, BREC officials could be in for tough times if voters don’t support the renewal, which accounts for half its operating budget.

Additionally, the cost of construction has jumped significantly since last year’s hurricanes, Palmer says. “We did factor in inflation, but we did not factor in Katrina and Rita.”

The strategic plan calls for the construction phase to be complete in five years. Does Palmer think it can be done, especially given what has happened—the political turmoil, the storms, the change in BREC leadership?

“We’re going to have a soft landing, but I’d say we’re on time,” Palmer says.