BATON ROUGE — The WBRZ Investigative Unit has uncovered documents that shed light on one of the key issues behind the indictments of a Metro Council member and a blight program superintendent.

We sorted through stacks of monthly community outreach reports from Metro Council districts, each of which is supposed to detail all the blight a worker located and reported that month.

Mary Fontenot worked as one of those outreach workers for more than 15 years.

"The job was to drive around and see blight and report it, and blight was junk, trash and debris or overgrown yards and lots or swimming pools that didn't have fences around them," Fontenot said.

A close look at the documents shows a varying degree of detail depending on the person filling out the report. Some are very descriptive while others are not.

"Some did more than others, let's just put it that way," Fontenot said. "They met their requirement, but I always did more than the requirement."

One of the less detailed reports came from Terral Jackson, who worked as the outreach manager for District 7 until January of this year when he was indicted alongside Lamont Cole for corruption. The reports received from Jackson were little more than an invoice for payment.

Jackson and each of the seven other blight contractors are paid $2,000 per month for what is supposed to be 20 hours of work per month -- a total of $168,000 a year for the group.

Paycheck stubs show the workers were earning $1,875 per month until the January 2023 check, when it increased to $2,000 per month.  

Rachael Lambert heads the Department of Development and oversees the blight program.

"The outreach workers at one time worked under each councilperson's budget and when Mayor Broome came in, I do believe she was trying to stand up blight in like, an Office of Neighborhoods I believe is what they called it, and then kind of pulled them into that, which then became part of Neighborhood Revitalization, which is the formal name for the blight department," Lambert said.

Cole and Jackson, along with his wife Erica Jackson, are accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the city parish. One of the schemes agents say they ran was through the blight program.

According to court documents, agents believe Cole secured contracts for Jackson when he was on the Metro Council. Jackson worked two years as a community outreach worker, a position that requires a recommendation from a council member.

His first year he made $22,500. The second year, he received a $1,500 raise after the council agreed to raise contracted workers' pay to $24,000 a year.

Cole and Jackson discussed this in text messages included in the indictment. Jackson texted Cole on Jan. 23, 2023, that Cole and likely another council member whose name was redacted "have another blight spot."

Jackson told Cole, "If you finesse it to me, we can split that 24K." Cole asked if they would split it with the other person. Jackson responded, "Kinda I'll run it to you" and Cole replied, "Cool."