Rev. Freddie Lee Phillips, Jr., sounds off after the meeting of the Louisiana State Board of Cosmetology (LSBC) of June 2, 2025, after which he sought the standing of his public records request of building repair cost estimates ($1,050,000) and technology upgrade estimates ($700,000), only to find out that the entire LSBC Membership told him to his face that they had, “no idea what you’re even talking about.”
After the late-Governor Edwin Washington Edwards completed his second term in office in 1979, he was required by law to sit out for a term.
Louisiana voters elected Republican Dave Treen, who narrowly defeated Democrat Louis Lambert.
During that four-year period, former Gov. Edwin Edwards ran a “shadow government” that often thwarted Treen’s initiatives. Edwards was clearly gearing up to challenge Treen in 1983, and Edwards annihilated Dave Treen in that election.
In today’s Sound Off Louisiana video, we demonstrate the fact that the current Members of the LSBC represent Dave Treen and the fact that the true power brokers in the industry, just as was the case with Edwards and his “shadow government,” remain Edwin Neill III, the Neill Corporation, Aveda and, most importantly, the entities’ lobbyist Ryan Haynie of Haynie and Associates.
So, the reality of today’s regulatory framework entailing the LSBC is that Edwin Neill III, who has a past history of severe financial problems entailing his companies, remains firmly in control of the LSBC, and he represents the equivalent of Edwin Washington Edwards.
It’s possible that one LSBC Member, Michael Anderson, may have come to this realization that he was nothing more than a placeholder with little or no real power. We say that because Anderson recently resigned from the LSBC.
So, with that in mind, it is obvious that the Executive Management at the LSBC has the Board Members on a “needs to know” basis, and clearly they have deemed the Members to need to know very little. The following video drives home that point authoritatively:
6/2/25: Phillips provides his take immediately after the LSBC meeting.
As stated near the end of the video, the big showdown at the Louisiana Senate Commerce Committee over hair braiding is presently scheduled for Wednesday, June 4, 2025. We’ll report on how that goes.
CLICK HERE for the June 2, 2025 LSBC meeting in its entirety.
Rev. Freddie Lee Phillips, Jr., (right) continues to vent his frustrations that the Louisiana State Board of Cosmetology (LSBC) has completely ignored his Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request which he submitted (by asking Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns to do so in order that he could continue his school bus route yet get the request in as soon as possible) on Wednesday, May 21, 2025. Rev. Phillips vented his continued frustrations at the June 1, 2025 meeting of the Louisiana Senate Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Committee.
The following video constitutes highlights of the Senate Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Committee meeting of Sunday, June 1, 2025 pertaining to HB-326 by Rep. Butler and her quest for a license fee increase of $400,000/year (down from its original $1 million a year increase):
June 1, 2025 Louisiana Senate and Fiscal Committee testimony on HB-326 by Rep. Butler.
Rev. Freddie Phillips (225-229-3341) has asked me to send this email to you to evidence the fact that (as demonstrated by email below), just as you guided him to do at the Senate Commerce Committee hearing of May 21, 2025, he made public records request of the Louisiana State Board of Cosmetology (LSBC) in order to be able to review the same documents which the panel of Senators was able to review at that hearing.
As Rev. Phillips pointed out, he has been requesting numbers regarding the amount and justification thereof of the fee increases being sought by the LSBC going all the way back to his testimony asking for it at the House Commerce Committee meeting, yet he remains frustrated that he has no such documentation to review the amounts disclosed during the Senate Commerce Committee testimony of HB-326 on Wednesday, May 21, 2025.
Rev. Phillips informed me that, at approximately 10:30 a.m. this morning, he contacted via phone Ms. Tisha Butler, the recipient of the email below, to inquire why he has not received any documentation in fulfillment of the request below.
Rev. Phillips indicated that Ms. Buter told him, “I had nothing to do with the preparation of any material sent to the Senators and am unaware of what documentation was provided to them.”
When Rev. Phillips asked to speak with Steve Young so that he could obtain more information on why he had not received the material, Ms. Butler, according to Rev. Phillips, indicated that Mr. Young, “is not in the office today.”
When Rev. Phillips asked how the below public records request was handled, he states that Ms. Buter said that, “I reached out to attorney Morris regarding your request, and she has not responded back to me.”
I have made my own sentiments known that I do not believe ANY license fee increase is appropriate under these circumstances and that the LSBC should simply proceed as is for the next two years and do EXACTLY what you instructed them to do and seek a performance audit. Contrary to Senate testimony presented by Mr. Young, there is no question whatsoever of the LSBC’s ability to continue to operate for those three years, and it most certainly will not, “go out of business without a license fee increase.”
Rev. Phillips asked me to relay in this email that, in his opinion, given all of the flaws made public in the LSBC’s quest for what was originally over $1 million a year in increased license fees, that a $400,000 a year increase is unjustified and he therefore respectfully requests that, at a minimum, and Amendment be offered on the Senate Floor to sunset the $10 increase after two years, which would still generate $800,000 and readily permit the LSBC do demonstrate good faith in seeking the performance audit you have recommended during that two-year period.
All of the people Rev. Phillips requested to be copied on this email have been so copied, and I’ve taken the liberty to copy my own Senator, Franklin Foil, along with Sen. Miguez as well.
Thank you for taking the time to consider this matter, and any assistance you may be able to provide in assisting Rev. Phillips (and me) in being able to view the documents reviewed by the Louisiana Senate Commerce Committee on May 21, 2025 would be greatly appreciated.
By way of this email, I respectfully request all of the documentation submitted to the Louisiana Senate Commerce Committee for its meeting of a few hours ago, May 21, 2025. Thank you, and I look forward to hearing back from you.
Obviously, no Senator wanted to touch the issue of how the Board could somehow waive a statutory requirement for having such a permit. Why? Because either they were charging for a permit without the statutory authority to do so, or (much more likely) they simply utilized a “Board Resolution” to no longer require the permit which cannot simply be done via a Board Resolution!
Ruel added:
Debbie Villio, the representative, who presented this bill, of the additional 250 hrs., contacted us the girls, via text and asked, are you telling me, Edwin Neill owns, Aveda and the Neill corporation and is the Chairman of the Board of Cosmetology. Well, yes, we replied. Debbie, had no idea of Edwin Neill’s position.
This is when she withdrew, the bill.
Edwin, contacted me via cell phone asking me to stop from fighting this and I said, I can not.
Once this bill was stopped. The Board punished me.
Edwin, announced at the next meeting, that microdermabrasion permits were no longer needed in the State of Louisiana. This permit was an additional $25.00 per person income for the board, to do microdermabrasion in the State of Louisiana. You needed to be certified from a manufacture for this certificate and that was me. Once students took my microderm class, they signed up for all my classes stating that they learned more from me in 6 hours, then they did in 6 months of school.
That was my punishment for standing up for what I believed in.
When Burns testified at the Senate Commerce Committee meetings of May 14, 2025 and May 21, 2025 that he gets an absolute plethora of complaints against this Board from the licensees it oversees, that is precisely what Burns meant!
We’ll see if the Full Senate goes along with this $400,000/year license fee increase (or, as per Rev. Phillips, “blank check without any documentation whatsoever,”), but one thing we can state with certainty: if they do, those voting in favor of it will anger some cosmetologists across the State of Louisiana! That much we know for certain!
Screen shot of Adrian Powe’s 2/18/25 Facebook post lamenting the alleged adverse impacts he endured from the Mississippi Cosmetology Board once it merged with the Mississippi Barbering Board, with our sources indicating that his frustrations arise from that Cosmetology Board and that the Louisiana State Board of Cosmetology (LSBC) engages in similar, and according to some complaints we’ve gotten in the last week, worse, practices in Louisiana.
As we pointed out in our most recent feature, the LSBC, during its last two appearances before the Louisiana Senate Commerce Committee, provided plenty of comedy for folk who have keen awareness of accounting principles as folk representing the LSBC demonstrated their complete and total lack of comprehension of even the most basic of such accounting principles.
We pretty much expected that commentary because it’s merely stating the obvious.
What we were not expecting is the fresh wave of complaints we’ve gotten from folk displeased with current operations of the LSBC with particular focus on the inspections taking place by LSBC inspectors.
We want to ensure all who have complained that we have made extensive notes of the complaints, and we commit to commencing with public records requests to begin the process of substantiating the substance of those complaints.
Obviously, those individuals complaining to us are adamantly opposed to any additional license fee increase when it comes to the LSBC hiring even more inspectors to engage in what those who have contacted us have complained of as constituting abrasive inspection tactics.
We will begin our quest for the public records to more fully investigate the claims of those individuals who contacted us but, in the meantime, we’ve been directed to a Facebook Post by Adrian Powe on February 18, 2025 wherein Powe expressed frustrations regarding Mississippi’s regulatory framework, particularly after the merging of the Mississippi Cosmetology Board and the Mississippi Barbering Board.
Our problem is that, as we’ve expressed in the past, Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns has been off Facebook since early February of 2021 (read into it what anyone may desire as to why he abandoned Facebook at that particular time period), so he can’t view it.
Nevertheless, a good friend was gracious enough to play it for Burns over this extended Memorial Day Weekend and, furthermore, Burns was able to create an audio file of Powe’s commentary and capture a screenshot of Powe’s Facebook post.
Accordingly, we are going to utilize an improvised method to present Powe’s frustrations on trying to become a barber in Mississippi.
Sources tell us that his quest has been made far more difficult because the Mississippi Cosmetology Board is causing much of the same type problems as the LSBC does as it relates to blocking young entrepreneurs from being able to practice a profession free from governmental agency harassment.
So, here is our improvised replication of Powe’s Facebook post:
2/18/25 Facebook post by Adrian Powe venting frustration at what he has endured by the Mississippi Board of Cosmetology in the aftermath of its merger with the Mississippi Barbering Board. Our sources indicate the problems originate with the Cosmetology Board in Mississippi and that the LSBC has even worse oppressive tendencies and has inspectors who have engaged in problematic actions for which we’ll be making public records request to attempt to substantiate.
So, what is ahead is a strong focus on the Louisiana Senate and whether or not it ends up granting a “blank check” for $400,000 a year in estimated license fee increases.
Those increases would, according to testimony last week before the Senate Commerce Committee, facilitate spending $1 million plus on a building worth barely half that. The fact that such an irresponsible outlay (which we contend should not be made with the existing building sold and the LSBC leasing new facilities) is a one-time expense apparently didn’t sway the Louisiana Senate Commerce Committee from recommending approval of the increasepermanently!
Further, according to sources who spoke with us in the aftermath of the Senate Commerce Committee presentations over the last two Wednesdays, any surplus funds would be utilized to hire more inspectors to “wreak even more havoc” upon cosmetologists in this state similar to that experienced by Powe in the video above.
We’ll let everyone know how it plays out on the Floor of the Louisiana Senate!
