METAIRIE, La. -- The Jefferson Parish Council wants the parish attorneys office to take a closer look at contracts with vendors that did business with former Chief Administrative Officer Tim Whitmer.
The council met briefly Wednesday to cancel Whitmer's scheduled disciplinary hearing. He resigned late Monday.
Deputy parish attorney Louis Gruntz told council members that close to a dozen parish vendors may of had dealings with an insurance company owned by Whitmer and his wife.
"Sizeler Architects admitted they had insurance with Mr. Whitmer's company," said Gruntz. "Kass Brothers indicated that they had insurance with Dawn Whitmer, his wife. Then in documents we received, Shadow Lake admitted having contracts with Whitmer for 2006, then switched in 2008 to Tim Coulon."
Coulon was listed as an agent for the Whitmer's insurance company Lagniappe Industries. Shadowlake Management is the parent company for the parish's River Birch landfill.
Gruntz said he came to the hearing prepared to recommend Whitmer be terminated for clear violations of parish policy and laws.
"In the code of ordinances in section 23-109, in the ethics code for the parish, that type of activity is prohibited," said Gruntz. "There was also a policy memorandum, issued in 1995, when Mr. Coulon was the chief administrative assistant that also said the same thing."
The parish council asked the parish attorney to keep open the part of the Whitmer investigation involving parish contractors he was involved with. They want to know if any of those contracts have been compromised because of the company's relationship with the former CAO.
"There's some contractors who say they didn't know Mr. Whitmer was involved," said Councilman John Young. "Obviously we have to look at that. But, that certainly causes me grave concern and we need to look at that very closely and seriously. We want to make sure, if they're compromised, we're going to have to take action and cancel those contracts."
Neither Whitmer, nor parish president Aaron Broussard attended Wednesday's parish council meeting.
