Followup: Lafourche Parish drug-testing resolution fails

Houma Today reports:

Lafourche Council members supporting mandatory drug testing of parish employees failed to override a veto of the measure by Parish President Charlotte Randolph last Wednesday night.

Background here.

And, to my amusement,

“Lead by example,” said Councilman Louis Richard. “I’ll be the first person to go get drug tested and pay for my own. I’ll go tomorrow.”

Council members Lindel Toups and Phillip Gouaux said they would do the same within a month. Gouaux pledged to give a copy of his results to the Daily Comet.

The best part?

Some confusion arose during the meeting about the proposal’s implications, if it were to pass.

Randolph said it would affect no one within Lafourche Parish government except the nine council members, because nearly all parish employees, excluding some low-level staff, are already eligible for random drug testing.

Many of her administration’s department heads were tested while employed and all parish workers are tested upon their hiring, Randolph said.

Randolph added that the drug-test results are not released from the screening company, meaning even if council members passed the measure, the public would not know whether a representative was using an illegal substance.

Toups and other council members said this was the first they’d heard of such drug testing being conducted within parish government, and noted that they could have put the drug-test issue to rest last year had they been aware earlier.

Awesome. Posted by MBC at January 16, 2009 02:37 PM