EBR councilman asks for audit of mayor's office contract

BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) - An East Baton Rouge Parish metro councilman Monday called on the Louisiana Legislative Auditor and the State Inspector General to investigate contracts being issued by the office of Mayor-President Sharon Weston-Broome.

The questionable contracts first came to light last week as a result of public records requests by the 9NEWS Investigative Team.

One contract, issued to former rapper Arthur Reed, aka Silky Slim, was for Reed to teach teens to respect police. Reed said publicly last week that he believed the man who ambushed Baton Rouge law enforcement last year delivered "justice".

Mayor Weston-Broome canceled the city's contract with Reed after the 9NEWS Investigators asked for copies of the contract. Reed was to receive $9,800 but the contract was cancelled before he received any money.

Further searches of similar contracts show several other people were given similar contracts using funding from BRAVE.

Councilman Buddy Amoroso says he has reviewed a batch of contracts from the mayor's office and "it looked as if there were contracts given to what appeared to be political friends of the Mayor-President" using funds from the BRAVE Program.

The BRAVE Program was implemented to reduce crime in specific zip codes throughout Baton Rouge.

Amoroso asked both agencies to conduct "an audit and investigation of these contracts primarily for, but not necessarily limited to, the BRAVE program and confirm if the City of Baton Rouge is in compliance with the BRAVE program (sic) federally funded grant requirements."

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