LA Seafood Board: Saints Deal Was Telling Ordeal

The potential that Louisiana’s Department of Wildlife and Fisheries could end up running the show upon whose stage the state will market its seafood is causing distress among some fishermen and fish dealers.

Asked why that potential is seen as a bad thing, some opponents of legislation submitted by Sen. Gerald Long (R-Winnfield) and Rep. Gordon Dove (R-Houma) point to elements of a deal struck last year with the New Orleans Saints as proof.

The contract with the Saints, as negotiated by the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board with the help of marketing firms it hired, closed out with seafood getting the short end of the stick, partisans say, specifically because of unprecedented LDWF interference. It was Barham who signed the contract with the Saints. Barham said in an interview last week that his attorneys said he was authorized. But present and former board members say he was not.

The language of the Long-Dove bill would give Barham – or whoever gets his job when Gov. Bobby Jindal’s term ends – the power to approve or disapprove the board’s executive director, who will “serve at the pleasure of the Secretary.”

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