At its next meeting, the Bossier City Council will begin to face the consequences of getting along and going along with the old Bossier way—but it will also have a chance to begin repudiating it, with a particular focus on recent events in newly re-elected Republican Vince Maggio’s district.

City elections occurred as news broke about a questionable deal the city made with two property owners in Maggio’s district. At the Council meeting days before the election, Republican Councilor Brian Hammons queried as to why the city was giving each of them a new parking lot.

As this space previously had noted, tthe answer given by City Attorney Charles Jacobs—that the property owners had threatened lawsuits over alleged damage from construction of the nearby Walter O. Bigby Carriageway—lacked credibility upon investigation. Instead, available evidence suggested that public dollars were being spent to aid the private business of a childhood friend of GOP Councilor David Montgomery. This conclusion was echoed in a post by the news and entertainment web site SOBO.live, which submitted a public records request to obtain documentation of the incident.

Hammons asked who had authorized the spending, since the Council had not. Each project appears likely to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Without prior Council approval, the only legal justification would be if each project fell below the $250,000 limit set by the state’s public bid law, which mandatorily applies local governments. The law also prevents splitting projects into parts to circumvent the requirement. As it seems unlikely that each project would cost less than that, Jacobs and the other member of the city’s Legal Department Assistant City Attorney Richard Ray may have broken the law by initiating them without Council consent.

That question is expected to come up during an executive session listed on the meeting agenda, along with a discussion of what Republican Mayor Tommy Chandler may have known about the situation. Additionally, as Hammons had warned when Jacobs announced no meaningful due diligence had been conducted regarding the alleged lawsuits (one property owner described his involvement more as an invitation), the city’s actions may have exposed it to legitimate litigation. One such case: John Settle, a local publisher whose property sits closest to the Carriageway, has presented expert data to the city and said he will sue unless his property is accommodated.

In short, the old Bossier way of allocating public resources with an eye towards who you know rather than any overall public interest may end up costing taxpayers extra into the millions of dollars, depending upon what happens next. Worse still, an arguably more egregious example of that approach may also surface at the meeting—on an entirely different matter.

Also on the agenda, the Council will vet a request for a liquor license to serve at the new Chasin’ Aces golf entertainment complex. Over a year ago, the city approved the sale of property to the outfit—some of which is outside of the city limits, but most of which is in Maggio’s district.

Whether securing that approval in the past – which would have been imperiled without Maggio’s assent – or with the upcoming licensure vote on tap, at least one of the two principals behind the limited liability corporation actively, if not aggressively, supported Maggio in his reelection campaign–despite neither principal living in Bossier City. Randy Rogers, identified in documents as the LLC’s manager, was spotted the weekend before the election by a campaign worker for Maggio’s opponent, Ruth Pope Johnston, actively canvassing for Maggio. The worker also reported, and provided phone video as evidence, that Rogers attempted to intimidate him to prevent canvassing for Johnston.

While Rogers, like any citizen, has a constitutional right to express candidate preferences, the incident raises serious questions about whether a transactional relationship exists between him and Maggio—and whether that influenced Maggio’s past approval vote and/or his upcoming vote potentially on whether to award a license to the corporation. If Maggio conveyed that he expected campaign support in exchange for favorable votes or advocacy on project-related matters, that could constitute a violation of ethics laws regarding abuse of office.

At a minimum, before Tuesday’s vote, Maggio should recuse himself to avoid the appearance of a “pay-to-play” arrangement. Even better, he should publicly state before the vote that, while Rogers participated in his campaign, there is no quid-pro-quo relationship between the two regarding matters involving Chasin’ Aces dealt with by the Council.

That would send the right message repudiating the Bossier way and demonstrating an appropriate level of transparency to city government dealings, especially welcome in light of the public dollars/private lots fiasco. With this, Maggio has a chance to set a great tone as well as, on an individual level, begin to reassure the over the 49 percent of the voters in his district who opposed his re-election.