Chaos in Louisiana town traced to mayor

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Anybody from Clarence, LA?

CLARENCE – Residents and elected officials in this village about an hour south of Shreveport say they desperately need help from state or parish authorities to stop an out-of-control mayor whose alleged abuses have led the village to a state of crisis.

Citizens, members of the board of aldermen and a former mayor said in interviews that difficulties in the village of about 500 can be traced to a single source – Mayor Tommy Evans, who took office 13 months ago.

Since then, they said, Evans has appointed friends to the board of aldermen and to village jobs, barred aldermen from seeing information about village finances, ignored aldermen votes on major decisions, stopped paying the police chief and continued paying a police employee who had been fired.

Some basic village functions have ceased, including police service. In mid-July, two community parks were overtaken by waist-high grass and a broken sewer system that had rendered the village’s water supply unsafe, with a weeks-long boil advisory in place for residents.

Also disturbing to some residents is Evans' treatment – described at best as callous and unprofessional, at worst as intimidating and threatening – of those he was elected to serve. An example: at the board of aldermen meeting in July, attended by a Times reporter, Evans called an elderly woman a “cow," prompting a scuffle involving the woman's son.

“I’m very disappointed. I regret the day I left office,” said Bobby Braxton, Evans' predecessor as mayor. “I wish I would have kept doing what I was doing. This town, it’s like a jungle now.”