Support for Louisiana, the state we're in is provided by.

Every day I go to work for Entergy.

I know customers are counting on me.

So Entergy is investing millions of dollars to keep the lights on and installing new technology to prevent outages before they happen.

Together.

Together.

Together we power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred Bea and Ruth B Ziegler Foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum located in Jennings City Hall.

The museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is an historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana and the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

With support from viewers like you.

And people who are the organizers feel like they've got the right number.

The latest on the Mayor Cantrell recall effort in New Orleans.

I don't think they have generate the revenues to be able to afford this.

Should Mardi Gras crews be responsible for cleanup?

The history of teacher pay in Louisiana.

We have always underpaid our teachers.

What teachers hope to accomplish in the upcoming session?

Louisiana customers had the highest number and highest duration of power outages.

Louisiana power outages topped the national average, a benefit that helped put food on the table for many in our state and millions nationwide has ended.

The pandemic era.

Food assistance, benefits or SNAP, expired Wednesday.

Snapped up more than 4 million Americans from falling below the poverty line in Louisiana.

It means more than 400,000 of our neighbors and friends will no longer get that extra help needed.

The emergency allotments gave $132 for singles and about $197 for a household of three.

Louisiana joins 31 other states also losing the benefit.

Intensifying the worry of food insecurity.

And now some other news headlines from around the state.

The Louisiana pastor who famously defied COVID 19 regulations during the heart of the pandemic lost his appeal.

Pastor Toni Spell filed a lawsuit claiming Governor John Bel Edwards had no right to regulate churches.

Before the suit, he publicly argued that religious establishment shouldn't be more regulated than a grocery store.

But his attorneys instead argued that church meetings were not in the governor's jurisdiction.

The fifth U.S.

Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the suit Wednesday.

Pastor Spell says he'll likely bring the case to the Supreme Court.

A bill that would allow parents to object to school curriculum will be considered by Congress.

Louisiana Congresswoman Julia let Lowe's Parents Bill of Rights Act will give parents the right to review school academic standards and examine the school budget, among other things.

The bill will be heard next week and soon be voted on by the House in March or April.

Opponents of the bill say it's unnecessary because parents already have those rights through local school boards.

While Letlow argues her bill will guarantee federal protections throughout the nation, PBS's Antiques Roadshow is headed for Louisiana this year.

Three episodes of the series will feature the LSU Rule Life Museum in Baton Rouge starting May 2nd.

The last time an episode was filmed here was in 2013.

For those who want to go.

Tickets are free, but you'll get selected based on the lottery system.

Louisiana Public Broadcasting is offering a VIP experience on May 1st, which means fans can go behind the scenes and meet with show producers and appraisers.

You can find out more information on our website.

Two big political headlines this week.

Who's in, Who's out and who's next in the race for governor?

And the latest in the recall effort for New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell.

Political analyst and historian Jim Inkster, president of Louisiana Radio Network, is here to discuss.

And, Jim, this all centers around the recall petition and having enough to get the recall on the ballot.

This has been done in other municipalities.

In fact, there was a recall effort against patch screen many years ago.

Mayor Baton Rouge didn't work.

It's hard to get those signatures.

And the people who are the organizers feel like they've got the right number.

But the question is whether they're valid signatures.

But they did get the break when 25,000 voters were deemed inactive.

Right.

They're either deceased or are no longer living in New Orleans or they haven't voted in several years.

So as a result of that, apparently the threshold for getting the recall elections is now down to about 45,000 voters, and they went with more than 50,000 to the registrar's office.

So if if they have legitimate voters and we'll have a recall election.

Right.

It's pretty rare to get to that point, though, isn't it?

It's hard to do.

And people will sign something and sometimes they're not on the level or they don't have the right information and they get disqualified.

So the threshold as high as it should be because Latoya was just elected not so long ago.

Exactly.

And when would they do a special election?

If you're even assuming or thinking that that would happen.

It would be this year probably consistent with the October 14th primary.

That would be the guess, but that would be determined by state officials.

They would want it when it's at a time when a lot of people would vote.

And that would be consistent with the October 14th election, which is another Morrow once said, the big enchilada.

It's the governor's.

Election.

It is the governor's race.

And we had news this week in the governor's race that East Baton Rouge D.A.

Hiller Moore would not run, which interestingly enough, they say opens the way a little more so for Shawn Wilson as a lead Democratic candidate.

The Democratic vote in Louisiana right now is about 40%.

Now 40% is a lot of votes.

And that's exactly what John Bel Edwards received when he ran in 2015 as the lone Democrat.

But 40% is hard to get to 50 in a runoff.

And John Bel Edwards did it twice, but he had a tough race the last time and he was blessed with a wounded opponent the first time.

And David Vitter, Sean Wilson has only been running for a few days.

John Bel Edwards ran and.

Hasn't really.

Announced two and a half years.

Yeah, exactly.

But he's running and if he gets the field cleared, he will get one spot in the runoff, it would seem, almost by acclamation.

But the question is whether or not he can win.

And then we have this jockeying on the Republican side as to which Republican would be the survivor.

And to this point, the attorney general, Jeff Landry, has run brilliantly in basically dominating that side of the equation.

With anybody who would be a competitor opting out so far.

Right.

And then Garret Graves is a name may be saying that he felt pressured to run.

There are some Republicans running state Senator Sharon Hewitt, State Representative Richard Nelson.

They're both good candidates and I think they will get votes.

But Jeff Landry, if he is going to be the lone Republican in the runoff, then he's there alone.

And it would mean that one of those, in order to catch up with Shawn Wilson would have to get 20, 25, maybe 30% of the vote and bring Wilson down.

And it doesn't seem like they would be dipping from the same pool of voters.

So it would seem unlikely there would be two Republicans.

And the question is whether one of these others could catch fire and catch Jeff Landry.

And we only 32 weeks away.

It's getting.

Close.

It is getting close.

And Jeff Landry has a war chest that's impressive.

And he seems to be yeah, yeah.

Seem to be on a sort of coast so far, right?

Yeah.

He is.

And hasn't had to say anything yet.

He's not yet.

He's an extremely conservative candidate, but we're in an extremely conservative state and he embraces the fact that he has support of the former president Donald Trump.

And why not?

Donald Trump got two wins in Louisiana by more than 400,000 votes.

So does that change any today or in October as compared to last year or two years ago?

Well, generally, the playbook is to run if you're a Republican to the right, is in the primary and then move to the middle in the general election.

But if Sean Wilson is the candidate, he's never run in a statewide election.

He's relatively unknown and he doesn't have the resources, It would seem that Jeff Landry does.

So Landry will be the overwhelming favorite and he may decide to moderate or he may decide just to stay on the right flank and see what.

Happens in the middle of making a difference to get him in office.

Right.

But there could still be a surprise and somebody could change their mind that Cassidy could beat Senator Cassidy.

Senator Kennedy, is they qualifying tonight in.

July or.

August?

They through 10th.

So there could be a surprise.

But at this point, I think the odds on favorite to succeed John Bel Edwards as his archenemy, the attorney general, Jeffrey Martin Landrieu.

Interesting.

Jimmy Carter, thanks so much.

Always great to talk to you.

I appreciate it.

My honor.

Thank you.

Teacher pay raises are on the agenda again this upcoming session.

Of course, there are other issues educators are hoping to address.

Sophia Posey with the Louisiana Federation of Teachers is here to talk about what educators are looking for.

What are they hoping to get done this session.

So first up, we got to talk about teacher pay raises because that's been on the agenda for years at this point.

I mean, why do we still need to keep adding more money to a teacher salary?

Well, if you if you look at the history of teacher pay in Louisiana, we have always underpaid our teachers.

In fact, the last time Louisiana teacher salaries were at the Southern regional average was 2007.

So we have Texas actually putting billboards in Baton Rouge saying, hey, come teach in Texas.

We'll pay you more this year.

Arkansas is giving a $10,000 pay raise.

Florida has a bill to raise its minimum salary to six $65,000.

So if you look at what we're doing, other states are placing a priority on teachers and support staff salaries.

Louisiana isn't.

And that's that's a problem.

So how much is well, how much are Louisiana teachers making compared to a state like Texas?

So we kind of look at it with the Southern regional average, and that's an average of the southern states.

I think there's 16 of them.

And so in 2021, the last that was published, Louisiana teachers made $52,472 as opposed to $55,676 for the Southern regional average.

And the national average was even more than that.

It's 65,293.

So if you look at those figures from 21, that's 30 $200 under the Southern regional average and almost three times 13,000 under the national average.

You know, Dr. Brumley at the NAACP Task Force earlier this week put out numbers that haven't been published.

He said that the Southern regional average was for 22 $56,309 and Louisiana's average was 52,759.

So that gap is 3500.

So we've asked the gap has actually gotten larger between what Louisiana pays and what the Southern regional averages, even with the pay raises that that we have given in the last few years.

So we're still not close to where we need to be.

Absolutely not.

And, of course, I mean, this is just one of the issues that teachers are hoping to bring up.

I mean, what else are educators looking to change next year?

So we represent teachers and support staff.

So one of the issues we will be pursuing is to make sure that support staff, they have parity with their extended sick leave with teachers.

And so what that is, is that they will be granted up to 30 days of additional extended sick leave for every six year period.

And we want it to be family centric.

So that's also we want to make sure it includes pregnancy and illness of an infant and related medical visits for that.

And then we want to change the law that requires them to take the extended sick leave.

Right now, they have to take it in ten day increments.

So if they've had a high risk pregnancy, you know, and they're going back, you know, they've used up their sick leave and their extended sick leave for this additional what we're asking, they would have to take it in ten day increments.

So if you just went for an office visit, you'd have to take ten days under the current law.

And that, you know, doesn't make sense for the school districts who are struggling to fill all positions, not just teacher positions, but also fiscally for the districts as well.

So we're looking to fix that.

How long has that been in place?

I couldn't tell you.

It's been in statute for quite a while.

We fixed, I think, back in 14 for teachers, but there was pushback on support staff.

But it's time to fix that now.

All right.

So teacher pay raises and also making sure support staff is taken care of.

What else is on the agenda?

So I think like the teaching and learning environments right now, the way that our schools, our school performance scores are calculated, you have referrals count against school.

So if you have a child that has, you know, become a problem in a classroom, whether that's assault out that a teacher or another student or, you know, it's very disruptive so other students can't learn, you know, they're sent from the classroom, but they're sent right back.

So, number one, they come back and they're a risk in the classroom to teachers and students.

But also, we know that typically when children act out like that, there's a reason for it.

So we're not capturing what's going on with the student.

So it's really important to look at that because not only does it is it not fair to students and teachers in the classroom, but it gives it's not an accurate reflection of what's happening in the classroom.

All right.

So there's a lot that you guys are going to be hoping for.

Good luck.

And of course, thank you for coming in and speaking with us.

Thank you, Carol.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

And many Christians observe the season of Lent by choosing to give something up, whether a food or drink or a habit.

Groups urging for a greener Mardi Gras suggest carnival parades give up the plastic throws.

The beads tossed by revelers that can instantly become trash.

But rethinking the future of Mardi Gras isn't all about our ecosystem.

Once state lawmaker says it's a matter of economics.

Oh, the color and sound of Mardi Gras bands floats, beads, trash for years.

New Orleans measured carnival season success from the amount of trash collected.

The practice ended several years ago because it didn't encourage recycling.

But cleanup was enormous this year, and so were the crowds that poured in many cities across the state budget for these expenses and have the equipment and workforces necessary to take action quickly once a parade ends.

The New Orleans mayor's office says each year about a million and a half dollars is a lot for Mardi Gras cleanup.

Could a proposed law change all that?

State rep foy Brian Cadbury, he's a Republican from West Monroe, filed a bill that says parade organizers could be required to clean up all the litter within 24 hours of an event.

Cadbury says everyone would benefit if local governments had more muscle behind their cleanup efforts.

His plan isn't getting much love by some Mardi Gras crews.

They say the unintended consequences could be disastrous.

Joanne Harvey is the captain of the art of his crew in Baton Rouge.

There's no women's crew here in Baton Rouge.

And you join us in studio to talk about this.

What is your initial reaction?

I was kind of surprised just because of the impacts that the different crew carnival organizations have throughout our state, that they wanted to put a tax, so to speak, or a monetary amount to the crews for trash pickup.

Now, there's money involved to be in a crew to start off with.

Yes.

Could most crews afford to pay for this?

No.

I mean, I think that your big super cruise in New Orleans would be able to expend that fee.

But if you look at the rest across the state and even some of the smaller organizations in New Orleans, I don't think they have to generate the revenues to be able to afford this, which would be truly sad that you would basically do away with the traditions that Carnival has had throughout Mardi Gras and Louisiana.

I want to ask you about the reasons given by Representative Cadbury.

First of all, he says why should the city pay for it?

Well, I understand his question being from north Louisiana, but some of the reasons are and I know what you said about the revenue is not only to do the members pay a dues to be in the organization they purchase beads with which generate tax revenue.

They rent hotel rooms for the weekend of the parade.

They eat downtown.

They're buying random things from all kinds of stores, not just from the carnival organization that help give back tax dollars, as well as keep people employed.

As part of the tradition.

The people coming in expect to see certain things.

And if some of that was cut down.

It would it would really shock people.

It would change.

It would change what Carnival looks like.

I mean, if we had to pay a fee in order to pick up the trash to the city, then we would have to cut other things back out of the organization.

And I'm going to be honest, I don't think that the same product would be put on the street for people to come to.

You've talked to a lot of your comrades who are in Cruise.

What are you getting?

Yes, Everyone that I have spoken to in the Baton Rouge carnival organizations all agree that it would almost be to the detriment of the organizations to have to pay this fee.

And we really don't know where we would get the money because we don't want to raise our dues to our members and we don't want to take things away from the community, because that's the whole reason why we started, Artemus, was to be able to give back to our community.

How many years.

We are heading into our 20.

Third year, right?

That's our graduation.

And you're from New Orleans originally, so yes.

You grew up with big Time Carnival.

I grew up with New Orleans my entire life.

Loved it, loved everything about it.

And that's why actually my husband and I were into bringing it to Baton Rouge.

So you were part of that?

Yes.

Bring it here.

Yes.

My husband actually is the president of the all male organization here in town, Orion, with his friend.

That's the president, I mean, the captain.

And they brought the all male crew.

And then three years later, we in turn, started the all ladies organization.

So you've given us a great resounding answer to the question and appreciate your being here.

Oh, well, thank you.

We'll see how this comes along.

It's whether it'll gain any traction.

We don't know.

I'm hoping it doesn't.

And I'm hoping that we have sent him some information that we had and I'm hoping that he reads it and realizes the benefits that the crews have to the city and we're not just trying to have a detriment by some trash that we have on the street after.

Joanne Harvey, thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

Experiencing a power outage in Louisiana is almost like a rite of passage.

Depending on the severity of the storm, you could be out of power for a few hours, a few days, or even a few weeks, which was exactly the case after Hurricane Ida.

But it turns out the number of outages we experienced here is much higher than the national average.

Aaron Hanson, an analyst with Together Louisiana, is here to talk more about this issue.

Thank you so much.

All right.

So let's start with power outages.

So like I said earlier, I mean, that's nothing out of the ordinary.

We experienced experiences all the time, but apparently it can be pretty dangerous for the people that are living in those homes whenever there is no power.

That's exactly right.

In fact, today, the leading cause of death from disaster, not just in Louisiana, but across the Gulf Coast isn't hurricanes.

It's not flooding.

It's not wind.

It's actually long duration power outages.

And the research shows that the inflection point is really around day five.

So losing power for a day or two, you know, maybe you lose lose a fridge worth of food.

But it's really around day five when the health consequences start to kick in.

And why is that?

That's because many life saving interventions, medications and other things like that just have a shelf life.

Not to mention folks who by day five are ready to recharge their devices.

And so they might go out and and buy a gas generator to power their home.

And without proper instruction on how to use that, might suffer from from carbon monoxide poisoning.

During Hurricane Ida, 26 out of the 30 fatalities across the state were actually due to the loss of power, not to the storm itself.

So whenever you hear about power outages, you hear a lot about hurricanes.

But if you take hurricanes and natural disasters out of the equation, do we still have high volume of power outages?

We do.

In fact, data from the Federal Energy Information Administration shows that in 2021, Louisiana customers had the highest number and highest duration of power outages higher than anywhere else in the country.

So why is that?

Is it an issue with our infrastructure?

There's actually two main reasons that that I would cite for why we have more power outages and longer power outages here than other places.

The first reason is climate change.

The data shows that we're having more and more climate related natural disasters as time goes on, and the projections are that that will continue to get worse.

The other reason is that we really haven't been investing in our electric grid the way that we should be.

We've seen other states invest much more heavily in things like grid hardening, to replace poles, to strengthen wires, things like that, so that when the power when a natural disaster occurs, the grid is is more able to withstand that challenge.

The fact is Louisiana really isn't prepared for the kinds of climate disasters that we're seeing now.

Do you think that we could make power outages a thing of the past any time soon?

We really can't make power outages a thing of the past.

And the danger with thinking that we can just by hardening our grid, make power outages a thing of the past is that we won't be prepared for when the power does inevitably go out.

And so how we respond when the power does go out is called resiliency.

And that's something that you guys are working on really hard at together.

Louisiana.

Yes.

So together, Louisiana is proposing a project called the Community Lighthouse Project.

This is an initiative to work with community institutions all around the state to develop a network of 250 to 300 facilities, community institutions like churches, schools, union halls with solar panels and backup batteries that serve as resiliency hubs.

So when the power does go out, people in the community can have access to things like heating, cooling, food and water distribution, charging for devices.

We found during ITER that one of the most important things was people were not able to charge their devices and still so we're not able to stay connected with each other.

So giving folks a place where they can go charge their phone or check out a battery and take it home to charge devices at home, and then and then bring it back almost like a portable battery library or bank, not to mention, you know, a place where people can be connected with other folks in the community and talk about the needs that they're having.

Those facilities would save on their electric bills when the power is on and they would sort of come to life and spring to life.

On the power goes out.

They would do wellness checks in an area surrounding the facility.

So really making sure that there's a hub for people to go to a community hub.

That's exactly right.

All right.

Well, thank you so much.

We are out of time.

But of course, it was a pleasure having you here.

Thank you so much.

All right.

A heads up for everyone.

Next week, a focus of our programing is very Louisiana specific.

What's our future look like with the impact from sea level rise and climate change?

And Louisiana spotlight will examine the Louisiana coastal masterplan and see why there is some controversy about it.

Louisiana Spotlight airs Wednesday night, March 8th at 7:00 on LP and in New Orleans on WLS.

We're also excited to announce that Spotlight is releasing its first feature length documentary, The Precipice The Point of an Indian Tribe as a community on the brink, fighting to save their homes, their culture, their language and their way of life against two immense forces the government and climate change.

The Precipice explores the challenges the tribe faces and reveals the battles they've won.

Let's take a look at the trailer.

Want to Share is one of the oldest communities in the state of Louisiana are children.

We want to teach them that here, Lower Pontchartrain is not where we began.

We began paths that the terrible basin is the fastest eroding basin in the United States.

Basically punishing as an afterthought.

You'll be impressed and moved with this.

Definitely looking forward to it.

The Precipice premieres Thursday, March 9th at 7 p.m. on LP and Monday, March 27th at 9 p.m. on WUIS in New Orleans.

And everyone.

That is our show for this week.

Remember, you can watch anything you lvb anytime, wherever you are with our live PBS app.

You can catch LBP News and public affairs shows as well as other Louisiana programs you've come to enjoy over the years.

And please like us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

For everyone here at Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

I'm Andre Moreau.

And I'm Kara St. Cyr See her until next time.

That's the state We█re In Every day I go to work for Entergy.

I know customers are counting on me.

So Entergy is investing millions of dollars to keep the lights on and installing new technology to prevent outages before they happen.

Together, together, together.

We power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred Bea and Ruth B Zigler Foundation and the Zigler Art Museum, located in Jennings City Hall.

The museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is an historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana and the foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

With support from viewers like you.