The Echo Chamber-Part 1
The Echo Chamber- Part One :
At Echols’ guidance, I took a second look. I don’t like what I found. Below is a refresher and an update.
Refresher:
A few weeks ago, I published an article about the Meta project, briefly mentioning Echols’ ties to a contractor on the project and a potential conflict of interest. I found it interesting enough to include in the article, but honestly Echols wasn’t my focus.
His input in the comments raised an eyebrow that was previously at rest.
He has repeatedly accused me of slander while simultaneously refusing to correct me in the right direction. I decided to not mention that the word he actually was looking for was libel, as either way he was misguided.
Aside from various insults, I pushed to try and clarify some concerns and let him make a statement for himself. He declined. Those follow this story have seen the record of that. In my last encounter, I asked again if I could clarify some concerns and he made it very clear that it wasn’t happening, telling me that he is a very busy man who is running for Congress. All of this is documented on my page if you’d like more details.
The update:
After the public harassment that I endured by Echols, I remembered hearing rumors about his time as a Monroe City Councilman and his work in the downtown Monroe area. Since he was gracious enough to remind me of his efforts at restoring that same area, I took his tip and looked a little closer.
Louisiana House Majority Leader Michael Echols has built a public identity around two causes: revitalizing historic properties in downtown Monroe and reforming the state’s healthcare system. But a review of public records, including state tax credit applications, campaign finance disclosures, corporate filings, and legislative records, raises questions about whether Echols has used elected office to advance his own financial interests, and whether he has disclosed those interests as required under Louisiana ethics law. If you recall in my recorded Q&A with him recently, he said he wasn’t required to disclose certain ownerships of LLCs to the state. I totally disagree, and it is this reporter’s intent to refer those questions to the Louisiana Board of Ethics.
In the summer of 2020, during a special legislative session called to address the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, Echols introduced House Bill 16. The bill did not simply increase an existing tax credit, as it might appear on first reading. It created an entirely new, parallel tax credit track at 30 percent of eligible rehabilitation costs, specifically for structures listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as maintained by the National Park Service.
At the time Echols introduced the legislation, he was the developer of record on the Miller Roy Building, a three-story structure at 1001 DeSiard Street in downtown Monroe, a building listed on the National Register of Historic Places since March 2011.
The Miller Roy Building would have been eligible for the new 30 percent credit, a 50 percent increase over the existing 20 percent credit already available for properties in downtown development districts.
The connection between Echols the legislator and Echols the developer is not a matter of inference. A May 2020 application log published by the Louisiana Housing Corporation, dated the same month as the First Extraordinary Session in which HB 16 was introduced, lists the Miller Roy Building as Project No. 20 under the state’s PRIME NOFA program. The taxpayer entity is listed as Miller-Roy Development, LLC, at 1800 Riverside Drive in Monroe. The contact listed is Michael C. Echols, with his personal email address and phone number.
A 2021 report in REBusiness Online identified Michael Echols Enterprises as the developer for the Miller Roy project, which received $8.8 million in financing from Hunt Capital Partners, including $2.4 million in state and federal historic tax credit equity. The Louisiana Housing Corporation contributed an additional $15 million in low-income housing tax credits and Community Development Block Grant funds, according to a 2023 report by KEDM Public Radio.
In other words: Echols introduced legislation in 2020 that would have created a new, higher tax credit for National Register properties while simultaneously serving as the developer and tax credit applicant on a National Register property, and he did so without any public disclosure of that financial interest in connection with the bill that this reporter has been able to find.
The Senate did not pass HB 16. Whether any senator raised concerns about the sponsor’s financial interest in the legislation is not reflected in publicly available records. The Miller Roy project ultimately received the existing 20 percent historic tax credit rather than the 30 percent credit Echols’ bill would have established. The building reopened in February 2023 as an 18-unit affordable housing development with a ground-floor community resource center.
A Healthcare Executive Turned Healthcare Legislator
The Miller Roy conflict is not the only area where Echols’ private interests and public legislative work appear to intersect.
Before entering the legislature, Echols served as Director of Business Development for Vantage Health Plan, a Monroe-based insurance company, and its affiliated entity Affinity Health Group. According to a 2016 profile in BayouLife Magazine, Echols held that executive position while serving on the Monroe City Council. Three sources familiar with the situation have told this reporter that Vantage Health Plan was owned by Echols’ father-in-law. This reporter is continuing to work to confirm that connection through public records.
Campaign finance records filed with the Louisiana Ethics Administration document that in July 2019, as Echols was running for the House seat he would win that October, Vantage Health Plan contributed $2,500 in in-kind support to his campaign in the form of rental space for a fundraiser.
That same fundraiser was attended by Ronnie Myrick, a Monroe businessman whose documented business holdings include at least three nursing homes: Tensas Nursing Home Inc., Concordia Nursing Home Inc., and Lakeview Nursing Home Inc., along with rehabilitation, hospice, and ancillary healthcare entities, according to Louisiana Secretary of State records. Myrick contributed $2,500 in food and beverages to the same fundraiser, records show.
Myrick is identified by sources with direct knowledge as Echols’ stepfather. A 2016 fundraiser photo published in BayouLife Magazine shows Cathy Myrick and Christie Echols, Echols’ wife, photographed together at an Echols family campaign event, placing the two families in documented social proximity.
Since entering the legislature, Echols has become one of the state’s most prominent voices on pharmacy and healthcare legislation. This session, he is carrying House Bill 919, which would require pharmacy benefit managers, the companies that administer prescription drug benefits for insurance plans, to reimburse independent pharmacies at a minimum rate set by law. Supporters of the legislation argue it would protect independent pharmacists from being squeezed out by large corporate pharmacy chains.
Myrick’s healthcare network, which includes nursing homes and healthcare entities including PMN Medical LLC and Professional Health Services Inc., according to Secretary of State records, would stand to benefit financially from legislation that raises reimbursement rates for independent pharmacies, including those that dispense to patients in long-term care facilities such as the nursing homes Myrick controls, according to sources with direct knowledge of his operations. This reporter is continuing to investigate and document those connections.
Louisiana ethics law requires elected officials to disclose financial conflicts of interest before voting or participating in matters that could financially benefit themselves or their immediate family members. Whether Echols has made such disclosures in connection with HB 919, or in connection with HB 16 during the 2020 session, could not be confirmed at the time of publication. Echols has declined to answer questions about these and other conflict of interest concerns raised by this reporter.
Part Two of this series will examine the pharmacy network connected to Ronnie Myrick in detail, including the specific financial benefit that HB 919 and related legislation would deliver to that network, and whether Echols has met his obligations under Louisiana ethics law to disclose his family relationship with Myrick in connection with healthcare legislation he has carried across multiple sessions. It will also examine Myrick’s documented history as a political financier and his connections to Monroe’s banking establishment. Stay tuned.
