Sound Off Louisiana

Louisiana State Board of Cosmetology (LSBC) Member Rene’ Bosworth glances at the comment card of Rev. Freddie Lee Phillips, Jr., as she demands he cease speaking (notwithstanding the fact that Board Chairman Jennifer Cobb Reed had informed him that he could continue) as colleague Nicole Gaudin looks on.

On June 8, 2026, the LSBC’s “official three-minute timer” for public comment went off as Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns was making public comment before the Board Members.  At a subsequent meeting, Burns told the Board Members that such an occurrence would never transpire at any Legislative hearing nor any other Board or Commission meeting.

Burns told the Board Members that the appropriate thing to do is to utilize the stopwatch, not the timer, on a cell phone and, as the time is nearing an end, gently inform the speaker that he or she needs to wrap it up.

Here is a perfect example that the LSBC could (and should) use as a go-by of only about 25 seconds wherein former Louisiana State Police Commission (LSPC) Chairman Eulis Simien, Jr. very professionally and diplomatically informs Carl Brown that he has “about a minute-and-a-half left,” on his five-minute timeframe.:

25-second video clip of LSPC Chairman Eulis Simien, Jr., informing Carl Brown that he has, “about a minute-and-a-half left” on the five-minute period each attendee has for making public comment.

We want to go out of our way to emphasize one point:  Every Member of the LSBC, in our opinion, demonstrates professionalism and courtesy when it comes to interaction with the public except one:  That one would be Rene’ Bosworth of The Salon of Bocage (who is pictured as the fourth-from-the-left on this photo and upon scrolling down, is individually profiled).  For those who may be unfamiliar with Baton Rouge, one does not find a more upscale, high-end neighborhood than Bocage.

Now, rather than heed the admonition of Burns at a previous meeting, Bosworth, perhaps perturbed at Rev. Freddie Lee Phillips, Jr.’s stated steadfast resolve to, “solve this hostile work environment,” together with him  pointing out that cosmetology will be the most impacted program by the newly-enacted “gainful employment provision” by the U. S. Department of Education, chose to rudely inform Phillips that he would not be allowed to continue with his statements at the meeting of Monday, October 5, 2026.

Let us provide Rev. Phillips’ public comments in their entireties together with Bosworth’s blatant ignoring of our admonition that using the stopwatch and providing a polite notice that the public comment period (which we believe should match the LSPC’s period of five minutes) was ignored and, instead, she opted to continue using a timer.  The buzzer went off, after which Bosworth, ignoring the declaration by Board Chairman Jeffifer Cobb Reed that Phillips could continue speaking, demanded that he cease his public comment immediately.

Here’s video of what we deem to be most deplorable display put on by a Cosmetology Board Member in quite some time:

10/5/26:  After first declaring that he intends to, “solve the hostile work environment in this office,” Rev. Freddie Lee Phillips, Jr. shows everyone a news feature wherein cosmetology is expected to the the #1 most impacted field of the impending implementation of the “gainful employment act.”

Regarding the “gainful employment act,” our site visitors will recall our June 6, 2026 feature in which Board Member Jean Pitre outlined his contentions of the impacts of the act on cosmetology schools in Louisiana.  Three (3) days later, on June 9, 2026, we followed that feature up with this feature regarding the potential impact for for-profit cosmetology schools.

When the final rule was adopted, Pitre and other cosmetology schools succeeded in obtaining a one-year delay on implementation of the rule.  They were able to do so by contending that tips constitute a significant portion of hair stylists’ income.  Accordingly, in conformity with the One Big Beautiful Bill, the Education Department will use 2026 as a delayed year and analyze the tips reported on stylists’ income tax returns since those tips are currently not subject to taxation.

Phillips was providing a very succinct statement and, in our opinion, he did so very professionally, of this September 25, 2026 Washington Times article entitled “The Federal Rule that cuts off aid to degrees that don’t pay off.”  From that article:

The programs that fail, and by how much

The failures cluster heavily. During the rulemaking, the department’s own analysis showed cosmetology and related grooming programs accounting for more than 40 percent of projected failures, by far the largest share of any field. Allied health and medical assisting came next at about 12 percent.

The gap is not close. A Century Foundation study found cosmetology graduates earning about $16,600 a year on average, roughly $9,000 less than workers with only a high school diploma, while carrying an average of $10,000 in student debt. In the department’s most recent analysis, roughly 92 percent of cosmetology programs were projected to fail the earnings test.

We want to also emphasize one point.  For those who may say, “Well, this is Trump and his administration, and if the Democrats take control, they can reverse all of this,” this entire initiative was first undertaken by then-President Barack Obama, and we salute both his and President Trump’s diligent efforts to put an end to this scam!

The private cosmetology school programs have been nothing short of a massive victimization of unsuspecting students to enrich private school owners!  In the process, they have left taxpayers having to foot the bill for these schools’ greed and insatiable appetite to suck off the public tit, which is precisely what they have been doing, our crudeness notwithstanding!  At $2 trillion a year annual Federal budget deficits together with a $40 trillion national debt, there’s no more milk left in the tit!

Now, Pitre was definitely energetic in his efforts as evidenced by him authoring this June 26, 2026 NOLA article as a last-ditch effort to keep the gainful employment provisions from being approved in the final version of the rule.  We are not going to highlight any provisions of Pitre’s commentary but rather merely point out the fact that the paper chose to place a photo as its lead of a cosmetology program at Donaldsonville High School.  In our humble opinion, that is precisely where these programs belong!  High schools provide a more efficient and certainly far less costly approach to training future cosmetologists.

As for Bosworth, we believe every Member of that Board, along with the Governor, should be taken aback at her performance in the above video.  If it were a one-time occurrence, we could give her a pass.  Her continued crass, rude, unprofessional, belligerent, and militaristic mannerisms are, in our opinion, an embarrassment to the other Members of the Board and to Gov. Landry!  We call upon Chairman Jennifer Cobb Reed to strip her of her timekeeping duties for failing to exhibit even a modicum of professionalism and decorum in the historical performance of those duties!

Furthermore, she unquestionably owes both Phillips and Cobb Reed an apology for taking over the meeting (in blatant disrespect to the sitting Chairman) in the manner in which she did on the above video!

If anyone may be interested, Click Here to see the October 5, 2026 Cosmetology Board Meeting in its entirety.

At the meeting of the Louisiana State Board of Cosmetology (LSBC) of Monday, September 14, 2026, Rev. Freddie Lee Phillips, Jr., voices his concerns about the secrecy of a hastily-called meeting of the Board two weeks prior on Monday, August 31, 2026, with the core business at that meeting lasting approximately three (3) minutes.

It certainly didn’t require rocket science for one to determine that the August 31, 2026 LSBC meeting was clouded in extreme secrecy.  Consider:

== LSBC posts on its Facebook page, “We hope you didn’t miss the announcement of the meeting,” with several folk who follow the page religiously stating, “You never posted anything.”

== No agendas were placed on seats as is normally the case.

== The newly hired EBRP Sheriff Deputy was not present.

The bottom line is that, aside from Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns, there was no member of the public present.  Burns is not on Facebook; however, Phillips is, and he alerted Burns of the meeting literally about 14 hours before it convened!

At the September 14, 2026 LSBC meeting, Phillips let his sentiments about the secrecy of the meeting be known and the fact that he had to alert Burns about the meeting taking place:

9/14/26:  Phillips expresses his concerns over the secrecy of the 8/31/26 “impromptu” meeting.

As explained in our coverage of the August 31, 2026 meeting linked above, the Board convened to (though they gave no specificity of the contract whatsoever, most especially not the dollar amounts involved), amend the ’26-’27 budget to provide for $50,000 for the hiring of human resources consultant Mary Gloston.

We believe that most, if not all, Boards and Commissions would have a discussion about why the sudden need for a human resource consultant, why it couldn’t wait until that September 14, 2026 meeting, and exactly what all Gloston would be expected to do for that $50,000/year.  Not the LSBC!  Nope!  They were done in about three minutes.

Well, we’ve learned more than we could have ever dreamed during the 30 days since that hastily called meeting, and we can now shed a little light on the need for speed!

The LSBC was literally hemorrhaging cash paying for legal fees to deal with a single grievance as evidenced by invoices totaling $18,000 for one such grievance in the days leading up to the 8/31/26 meeting.  Rev. Phillips, who has been the point person for all of the LSBC investigatory matters of late, tells us that there are three (3) more grievances pending. The $18,000 for the first grievance was paid to attorney Alyse Latiolais of Breazeale Schase.  As is readily apparent from the linked invoice, Latiolais billed the LSBC at a rate of $350/hour.

We have also learned that an email was sent out to LSBC employees indicating that an “investigation” would commence on Thursday, September 24, 2026, with that investigation being headed by Ms. Latiolais’ colleague, Kayla M. Jacob.

Rev. Phillips has strong reason to believe that one or more parties filing grievances, which we explained to him would not typically be subject to public records requests, would waive their rights to privacy, thus making the grievances potentially subject to a public records request.  Accordingly, Phillips made a public records request for all grievances or signed statements from those filing grievances that they had either waived or invoked their rights to privacy.

The LSBC responded to Phillips’ request indicating that, even if those filing grievances did in fact waive their rights to privacy, they cannot waive the rights of others associated with the grievances.  We think that common sense dictates that those “others” would obviously have a vested interest in the contents of the grievances never seeing the light of day.

There has been plenty of talk within the last thirty days about many of the alleged problems which exist inside that office; however, at the present time, we are refraining from making any statements in that regard beyond stating the obvious:  The LSBC’s Office is presently in a state of near-total chaos with employees angry at one another and sniping at one another.

We have also been requested to publish several other documents, and we’re going to publish some of them at this time, and those who requested of us to request the documents may feel free to look at them and make any observations they may wish to make:

1. Long-term (i.e. two weeks or more) rental car invoices from Enterprise.
2. Premier South Roofing invoices for interior painting and sheetrock.

Those individuals who requested being able to see the documents can now easily view them.  Our focus is much more on the massive legal fees this Board continues to incur.  Don’t forget this same Board (though different Membership) spent $157,000 blocking hair braiders from being able to practice their trade without the LSBC’s blessing and a useless 500 hour course.

We’ve now observed this Board for a decade, and what it seems really quite astute at doing is serving as a conduit to direct licensing fees paid by its licensees straight on to law firms.  That’s a key reason that Phillips and Burns testified before the Senate Commerce Committee in staunch opposition to last year’s fee increase.  The Board sought $1 million a year, but Phillips and Burns managed to scale it down to $400,000 a year.  As anyone can plainly see, this Board is going through that $400,000 in consulting contracts and attorneys’ fees all for what, in our opinion, should be routine office activities that should not create this kind of chaos and acrimony.

We look forward to Monday’s meeting and whatever public comment Rev. Phillips may wish to make on the matters outlined above, and we sincerely appreciate his efforts.  He has joined the Baton Rouge Press Club, and he is now a full-blown associate of Sound Off Louisiana and, with him now retired from the EBRP School Board, he’s got far more time to assist us, and we deeply appreciate all of his dedication and hard work!

Louisiana State Police (LSP) Trooper Troy Pichon seconds before delivering a viscous kick to the head of a motorist who had been totally complaint with hands in the air followed by hands placed flat on the pavement (Photo courtesy of WAFB TV in Baton Rouge).

In today’s Sound Off Louisiana feature (like the prior one, all video), former Ascension Parish Sheriff Deputy C. J. Matthews assesses WAFB (Channel 9 in Baton Rouge)’s Chris Nakamoto’s September 22, 2025 feature on LSP Trooper Troy Pichon kicking a compliant motorist in the head.  Additionally, Matthews and Burns assess the leadership team of LSP after the changing of the guard with Col. Robert Hodges’ retirement to pursue becoming the next St. Tammany Parish Sheriff.  Hodges was replaced by former Lt. Col. and Chief of Staff, Frank Besson, with former Lt. Col. Robert Burns (no relation to Sound Off Louisiana’s Robert Burns) taking over as the new Chief of Staff:

9/28/26:  Matthews and Burns discuss the Nakamoto feature along with feedback Burns has received from recently-retired LSP Troopers regarding the new LSP Leadership Team of Col. Frank Besson and Chief of Staff Robert Burns.

We want to thank former Capt. C. J. Matthews, and we’re going to have him back on in the very near future to espouse upon the candidacy of former LSP Col. Robert Hodges entailing the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff race (beyond the couple of minutes devoted to that candidacy near the end of the above video).