BREC's new boss says sorry
Three weeks in, Brooks Williams is setting a different tone, with a promise to be more answerable to taxpayers.
BREC's new superintendent apologized for breaking Louisiana's public meeting law and promised the parks system would be more accountable, the latest sign he intends to run the agency more honestly to rebuild trust.
Why it matters: BREC has been poorly managed for years, drawing state audits and being called out for letting its facilities fall apart. Three weeks into the job, Williams is steering the agency's resources back toward the parks themselves. The goal, he says, is to perform for the taxpayer, not to collect awards to hang on a wall at headquarters on Florida Boulevard.
The details, per the parks system and reports:
- DA Hillar Moore found that BREC met the written-demand requirement for discussing a lawsuit at a July 23 meeting.
- But the public agenda did not name the parties or the subject matter before the commission went into executive session. Those parties, according to a report, were BREC itself and Friends of City Park, an aggressive backer leaving the City Park Golf Course untouched in the reinvention of City-Brooks Park.
- BREC accepted the DA's finding and says the commission will take the matter back up at its publicly noticed meeting this Thursday, Aug. 27.
What he's saying: "We should have gotten that right, and we apologize that we did not," Williams said.
The conflict: After the executive session, BREC sent a letter asking the group to make it clear in its messaging that it's independent of the parks system and to stop using the BREC logo. FOCP responded by asking the district attorney to review the meeting, arguing that it had not received proper notice about the basic purpose of the executive session.
The bottom line: Williams is remaking BREC the unglamorous way, one fundamental at a time. The harder question is whether taxpayers, many of them hardened skeptics, are willing to believe him.