The Best and the Worst of the Week
Ralph
Brennanwas named a "2003 Employer of Choice" by the National Restaurant Association. The honor, bestowed annually to employers in six categories, was presented last weekend at the organization's Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show in Chicago. The Ralph Brennan Restaurant Group won in the Fine Dining category. Brennan was selected based on employee essays praising RBRG's attention to quality of life, benefits and training for managers.
The
Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities
has won the 2003 Advancement of Literacy Award from the American Library Association.
The prestigious national honor recognizes LEH's family literacy program, "Prime
Time Reading Time," a six- to eight-week reading, discussion and storytelling
program designed to encourage parents and children to read together. It also
helps low-income, low-literacy parents to continue their education and to enter
the workforce.
Louisiana
legislators
have failed to enact policies or allot funds to support using clean, renewable
energy sources to generate electricity, says a recent report by the Union of
Concerned Scientists, which gave Louisiana's energy policies a "D" grade. The
study says only 4.2 percent of the state's energy needs are derived from renewable
sources, in the form of solar energy and bioenergy -- using agricultural or
timber waste to fuel power plants.
Wayne A. Fletcher,
a Slidell contractor, is headed to jail after a federal jury convicted
him of cheating the government out of nearly $1 million through contract scams.
Fletcher, owner of Johnny F. Smith Truck and Dragline Service, was hired to
clean up debris from Hurricane Fran in North Carolina in 1996. He was also found
guilty of taking $300,000 in kickbacks from subcontractors, and attempting to
bribe a whistleblower and tamper with a grand jury.
