Monday, May 1, 2017 won’t go down as a great day in history for the Louisiana State Board of Cosmetology. First, at its regular meeting of 9 a.m. that morning, Cosmetologist Chris Guidry, an open critic of the Board, who has posted in the recent past that the Board is a “straight money grab with no regard for the guest or the craft and is disgusting,” addressed the Board directly. The following video highlights his presentation to the Board:
Guidry, an outspoken critic of the Cosmetology Board and its regulatory shortcomings,
addresses the Board and offers his suggestions for improvement.
Only a few hours later, the Board, which has held steadfast that it should not budge regarding the 500-hour educational requirement for anyone to obtain a permit to braid hair, saw legendary Institute for Justice attorney Lee McGrath testify before the Louisiana House Commerce Committee and present compelling evidence as to why Louisiana should require, as Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana would say, “none, zero, zilch, nada” license or permit requirement to braid hair in Louisiana. Let’s take a look at highlights of that testimony:
Meanwhile, HB-326, which would raise the cosmetology license renewal fee from $25 to $35, has stalled on the House floor. Sound Off Louisiana has learned that Gov. Edwards’ office has been inundated with complaints about the Cosmetology Board in the last several weeks. Viewers may recall our extensive feature on the snow jobattempted by Cosmetology Board Chairman Edwin Neill, III, and Executive Director Steve Young to cram the increase down licensees’ throats. That attempt has met with hostile resistance, particularly in light of the covert manner in which the increase was attempted.
The viewership for the Legislature’s stream of the Commerce Committee’s hearing entailing HB-468 was high. One viewer is extremely angered by what he contends are misrepresentations by members of the Cosmetology Board and/or its attorneys which have run rampant over the years. When asked for an example, he supplied the following Facebook post by current Cosmetology Board Member Mike Grayson:
The reality is that the Cosmetology Board has licensed numerous nail salons, including the cosmetologist angered by Grayson’s post, to engage in waxing services. Thus, is Grayson indicating that the Cosmetology Board staff who issued those licenses do not know the law? Perhaps the following video in which attorney Celia Cangelosi is readily exposed as not knowing the law (despite her role as prosecuting attorney of alleged infractions) may have been of benefit to Grayson before he made his Facebook post (especially since the video emanated from a meeting conducted about a year before Grayson became a member of the Board):
Cosmetology Board attorney Celia Cangelosi is exposed to be ignorant of the law forbidding manicuring activities in esthetic salons.
Given the sordid past history of the Board, the massive litigation expenses, the chaos surrounding what is and isn’t legal to such an extent that even a prosecuting attorney doesn’t know what’s legal, perhaps Guidry has the best solution: simply “do away with it and proceed with full-blown deregulation.”
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In our latest Sound Off Louisiana feature, founder Robert Burns analyzes circumstances surrounding Central City Attorney Jennifer Sims’ legal representation of Central Councilman Jason Ellis against Brandon Woods entailing a dispute Ellis and his wife, Kim, have with Woods, a long-time friend and residential home improvement specialist:
Burns presents Woods’ claims entailing Ellis and Sims and Sims’ responses to those claims entailing her.
If you would like to be added to our Sound Off Louisiana email list to be notified of future Sound Off posts, simply scroll to the very bottom of this page (mobile devices) or to the end of the right-hand column (desktops) and supply your email address within the subscribe box. You’ll then receive an automated email from Word Press, and all you have to do is click on the blue “confirm follow” bar contained within that email, and you’ll begin receiving great posts such as the preceding one above.
On Tuesday, April 18, 2017, Cosmetology Board Executive Director Steve Young and Chairman Edwin Neill, III, cavalierly walked into the Louisiana House Commerce Committee and, without any authorization from the present members of the Cosmetology Board and using Rep. Sherman Mack as an apparent naïve patsy, took the first critical step toward cramming a 40% increase down the throats of the cosmetologists whom they serve. In the following brief video, Mack comes across as (being kind) uninformed and having little idea of what the bill even does, and he has to have his hand held throughout by Young and Neill to help explain its purpose:
Mack struggles to explain that the whole purpose of the bill is to enact a $10 annual increase in the licensing fee (from $25 to $35), and relies upon Young and Neill to answer his colleagues’ questions.
Now remember, all three (Young, Mack, and Neill) admit the whole purpose of the bill is to enact an increase in the licensing fee. Nevertheless, as simple as that measure is, the Chairman of the Commerce Committee has to indicate an amendment is necessary to correct the bill! We’re NOT kidding! A bill THAT simple has to be amended because, as Mack explains, “a clerical error” caused the bill to read the license renewal fee would continue to be $25 rather than $35! There was no “clerical error!!!” They simply intentionally concealed the fact they were seeking a license fee increase because they feared public opposition! Sound Off Louisiana has actively tracked every cosmetology bill since each was filed, and this one failed to even garner attention for the very reason that it contained no increase in licensing fees! We have attended (or had a reliable representative attend) virtually every Cosmetology Board meeting for the last two years, and there was never an item presented to the Board to seek an increase in the licensing fee and the Board vote on it during that time.
Consequently, we made a public records request for any entry in the minutes wherein the actions of Young and Neill had been presented to the Board and a vote taken for them to pursue this increase! The Board’s attorney, Sheri Morris, responded by directing us to February 2, 2015 minutes, wherein there was a parenthetical disclosure that Young had “requested” that Morris be permitted to seek an increase and that she attempt to enable the Board to be able to seek further increases by mere rule promulgation and not by having to have a statute enacted. While Young “requested” that Morris pursue the increase, the “suggestion” was that specific about who was to do so (Morris), yet Morris is nowhere to be seen on the video above! Did she have concerns about the legal grounds of pursuing an increase absent an action by the CURRENT Board?
So, Young and Neill are relying upon a February, 2015 (as in 26 months ago) discussion by the Board and, upon THAT, they just sashayed right on up to the Louisiana House of Representatives and sought the fee increase! Of course, there was a convenient “clerical error” so nobody would know what they were up to. The present Cosmetology Board has only two members on it from those who heard Young make his “suggestion” in February of 2015 entailing Morris pursuing the increase. They are Frances Hand, who was the previous long-time Chairman and whom Neill replaced as Chairman, and Jill Hebert. Apparently, the viewpoints of Rev. James Williams, Melinda Tilley, William Greyson, Deidre Delpit, nor Mella Brown were deemed relevant (not to mention confirming, on the record, that Hebert and Hand still approve of the “suggestion.”)
Most importantly, the licensees were provided with no opportunity to observe a proposed fee increase appear on an agenda and weigh in on the matter themselves. That opportunity may have been especially beneficial to Mr. Chris Guidry, who appeared at the April, 2017 meeting and was on the agenda to make a presentation to the Board on the topic of “deregulation.” Guidry got no such opportunity, however, because an insufficient number of members attended to convene a meeting, thus triggering a lack of a quorum causing everyone to simply have to disband and go back home. Having driven up from New Orleans, he was understandably frustrated. He asked if the Board would have to pay all the per diems and hotel costs for those members who did show up, and we responded, “Yes.” Furthermore, we informed him that the most recent meeting was certainly not the first time that had transpired.
We at Sound Off Louisiana very much wanted to hear what Mr. Guidry, a prominent hair stylist with Paris Parker in New Orleans and a graduate of Aveda Institute (for which the Louisiana franchises are owned by Neill), had to say (and videotape his commentary). Our curiosity was peaked by his February 5, 2017 post in which he vents that Louisiana students “are required to complete 1,500 hours at a cost of around $20,000.” He further complains that the Board “is a straight money grab.” He further states that “the Board has no regard for the guest or the craft.” He further describes the situation as “disgusting.” In buttressing his argument that the Board “has no regard for the guest or the craft,” he states that the Board’s inspectors are only concerned with ensuring workers are licensed and up-to-date. In all the meetings Sound Off Louisiana has attended, we have observed Guidry to be totally on point in that argument. Every hearing we have observed has entailed licensing and not health and safety violations. The only instance we observed that remotely qualified for a health and safety concern was in February when the Board conducted a hearing over a dog running around loose in a salon. Even that, however, was a part of a larger issue of the potential use of an unlicensed manicurist. Visit this link to see Guidry’s comments in full and those of some other contributors to the blog to which they were posted.
Now, in the preceding video, at the 1:44 mark, Rep. Kenny Cox asks why the fee increase is needed. Thereafter, he is given a superb snow job by Neill during the next 20 seconds that the money is needed for things like painting the building and technology upgrades. Well, Rep. Cox, you were lied to!!! Let’s itemize off some of the REAL reasons the Board seeks this fee increase, shall we? It cost money (and LOTS of it) for the following:
Having to pay MASSIVE legal fees and a settlement to resolve very obvious claims of discrimination of Vietnamese manicurists during which one inspector was alleged to have “falsely imprisoned” the owner of a salon as she, without a search warrant, plundered through all of the salon’s drawers and demanded that “nobody (not even the customers) move.” The week after this settlement was reached, the inspector in question retired. In the final hearing in Federal Judge Brian Jackson’s courtroom prior to the settlement, Judge Jackson said, “constitutional rights were clearly violated” through the actions of the inspector.
Having to “rally the forces” entailing defeating a bill to allow hair braiding with no license. Sound Off Louisiana has learned that the Board has asked the bill’s sponsor, State Rep. Julie Emerson, to withdraw the bill. We’ve also learned that she has politely informed them that she has no intention of pulling the bill.
Conducting multi-day hearings to ensure a shut-down of school owner Nelda Dural as well as striving to shut down all public schools (i.e. “zero cost competition”) teaching cosmetology such as Raynetta Frazier, who appears on video on the preceding link pleading with the Board not to shut her school down. The total cost for the Board to close down Dural’s school based on student complaints (all of whom owed her money) was $43,000!! That’s a figure that former Congressman Joseph Cao, who has never been bashful in characterizing the Cosmetology Board as “operating without regard for the law,” had to emphasize twice to Judge Jackson when he indicated it is “impossible” to fight this Board and referenced that Nelda Dural did try to, and the result was the $43,000 tab they held her liable for as a means to close her school down.
As evidenced by the following video, forcing a Vietnamese couple to have to beg and plead with the Board to permit her to work as a cosmetologist (by honoring through reciprocity her Texas license rather than grilling her about whether she has the equivalent of a 10th grade education):
Meanwhile, Executive Director Steve Young responds to Channel 2 (WBRZ)’s Lee Polowczuk asking if he is EVER going to hire a Vietnamese translator to interact with Vietnamese manicurists (who own 90% of the manicuring salons in Louisiana) by stating he is only concerned with having translators for hearings!
And the biggest reason of all for seeking the increase which, as Young testified, would generate an estimated $350,000 each year? That would be to chip away at the $3.1 million UNFUNDED pension liability for these bureaucrats to impede free enterprise via the mechanisms outlined above! There’s also a $1.4 million amount for employee unfunded benefits, for a total of $4.5 million. These, Rep. Cox, are the REAL reasons the increase was requested, and we see you fell for the slick little con job Neill pulled on you in those 20 seconds hook, line, and sinker.
The measure comes up for a vote by the full House on Tuesday, April 25, 2017. We’ll see if this little slick maneuver by Neill and Young results in yet another, as Guidry says, “straight money grab” by two state officials who would resort to this type con job rather than having the guts to place the item on an agenda of the CURRENT Board and see how the new members and licensees feel about the measure. Then again, it’s likely the anticipated reaction of licensees like Guidry that prompted them to resort to this despicable act in the first place!
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