I-20 Chairman Caught in Lie

Otis Chisley, the Chairman of the Interstate 20 Economic Development District Board of Directors wasn’t truthful at the 11/17/15 meeting of the board when he denied that an attorney had been engaged to defend against a just-filed suit against the board.

After an hour-long executive session reconvened to an open meeting, we had the following exchange with Chisley:

LPNO: “I assume you’ve discussed hiring an attorney?”
Chisley: “We’ve discussed hiring several different attorneys.”
LPNO: “No decision yet on that?”
Chisley: “No.”

Listen to the audio of the discussion.

However, just moments before in the executive session, a decision was made and a vote of the board was taken to hire Alexandria attorney Steven Oxenhandlder to defend the suit, according to the minutes of that meeting.

See here the document.

The suit claims that construction of a road adjacent to property owned by I-20 Corridor Properties (Eddie and Joseph Hakim) has aggravated flooding on the property.