The Echo Chamber- Part 3

In 2019, the City of Ruston sold a former diesel power plant on East Mississippi Avenue to a company owned by State Representative Michael Echols.

What followed was a series of government decisions that layered public benefit on top of public benefit, all flowing in the same direction: toward a sitting state legislator’s private development company.

The full picture emerges from documents obtained through public records requests including appraisals, a purchase and sale agreement, an act of sale, city ordinances, a cooperative endeavor agreement, board of aldermen meeting minutes, and building permits. None of these documents have been disputed by Echols or the City of Ruston.

The former Ruston Power and Water facility at 300 East Mississippi Avenue had been sitting idle since the early 1990s.

The city then passed Ordinance No. 1761 of 2019, which authorized Mayor Ronny Walker to sell the property to Echo Development Ruston LLC, a company managed by Echols, at the appraised value. The ordinance said the sale would be at appraised value. The vote was unanimous, 4-0.

Based on the minutes and records I received, there was no competitive bid process. No other developer was invited to submit an offer. The city simply passed an ordinance authorizing a private sale directly to Echols’ company.

Buried in the purchase and sale agreement is a provision that received no public discussion and appears nowhere in the ordinance that authorized the transaction.

The City of Ruston agreed to unconditionally and fully indemnify Echols against all environmental liability from the site’s history as a diesel plant. That means if toxic contamination is ever discovered on the property, now or in the future, the city bears the legal and financial responsibility. Cleanup costs, court costs, expert witness fees, attorneys’ fees…all of it falls on the city, not Echols.

Former industrial sites like diesel plants carry real environmental risk. That indemnification has genuine financial value. It was given to Echols at no additional cost, and it never appeared in any public hearing or public vote.

Buying the property was only the beginning. Two years later, in June 2021, the City of Ruston created a special economic development district, the Power and Water Economic Development District, around Echols’ property.

Here is how that works in plain terms based on my understanding:

When a tax district like this is created, the government sets a baseline: how much tax revenue was being collected in that area before the district existed. Any tax revenue generated above that baseline gets captured and redirected back into the district to fund development costs rather than going to schools, roads, and city services.

The baseline set for this district was zero dollars. The property was vacant when Echols bought it. No businesses were operating. No sales tax was being collected. By setting the baseline at zero, the agreement ensured that every single dollar of new sales tax generated inside the district would flow back to Echols rather than to the public.

The Cooperative Endeavor Agreement signed September 15, 2021 between the City of Ruston, the district, and Power and Water Developer LLC (Echols’ development entity) authorized up to one million dollars in incremental sales tax to be redirected to the developer over the life of the agreement, which runs through December 31, 2042.

In addition to that, the board authorized a separate 1.75% additional sales tax to be levied inside the district. Those proceeds go into a dedicated trust fund to pay the developer’s economic development costs.

All of these measures passed unanimously. Every public hearing lasted zero minutes per my understanding of the documents reviewed. Not a single citizen comment was recorded at any stage of this process.

Building permits pulled from the City of Ruston between 2023 and 2025 show construction activity at the site is ongoing. The permits list the owner as Echo Development Ruston or Echols Development at 1800 Riverside Drive, Monroe.

Phase 1 of the development was projected for completion by December 2022. Permits for the Power Plant Building and Water Tank Building were not pulled until September 2023 — nearly a year behind schedule. A permit converting a structure into a leasing office was pulled in August 2024, nearly two years behind the original Phase 1 estimate. No permits for Phase 2 or Phase 3 construction have been identified among the permits produced in response to this outlet’s public records request.

Every permit fee across all commercial building, plumbing, electrical, mechanical, and gas permits shows the same amount: ZERO dollars. The city waived all permit fees as part of the deal.

The electrical contractor listed on multiple permits is Copeland Electric Company, owned by Seth Copeland. Louisiana Secretary of State records confirm that Copeland and Echols jointly own a separate company called Copech Properties LLC which also owns commercial real estate in downtown Monroe referenced in previous reporting. In a public Facebook comment responding to prior reporting, Echols stated that Seth Copeland has been a friend for over a decade.

The cooperative endeavor agreement describes the Ruston project as a three-phase mixed use development consisting of retail, housing, and commercial office space, with a total anticipated investment of approximately $30 million. Phase 1 was projected to cost $10.3 million with an estimated completion of December 2022. Phase 2 was projected at $12.4 million with an estimated completion of June 2024. Phase 3, budgeted at $8 million, was to begin after Phase 2 was completed and stabilized.

The agreement allows the development scope to be amended and supplemented at any time with the parties’ approval, meaning the defined use of any phase can be changed without a new public process.

In 2025, while the Ruston project remained ongoing, Echols filed House Resolution 249 in the Louisiana Legislature. The resolution created a task force to study and recommend policies promoting small modular nuclear reactors as an energy source for data centers in Louisiana, including tax credits, grants, and regulatory removal.

Echols’ development entity is named Power and Water Developer LLC. The district around his Ruston property is named the Power and Water Economic Development District.

In 2024 Echols also voted yes on House Bill 827, which became Act 730 — the state law creating a 20-year tax incentive for qualifying data centers, widely credited with attracting Meta Platforms’ $10 billion Hyperion artificial intelligence data center campus to Richland Parish, approximately 30 miles from Ruston. Seth Copeland’s company is locally known to perform work at that site, a connection that has not been denied when raised in prior reporting.

This outlet is not alleging that the Ruston development is intended for energy or data center use. Phase 3 has no defined purpose in the public documents, and no records have been produced indicating any change to the mixed use development plan. These connections are reported as matters of public record that raise questions the public is entitled to consider.

In a public Facebook comment responding to prior reporting on his business relationships, Echols wrote that he has invested in areas most people overlooked, calling it taking risk rather than insider advantage, and that he has acquired assets that were vacant and blighted and fixed them. He described the reporting as a politically motivated hit piece and did not identify any specific factual inaccuracy in the underlying records.

A sitting Louisiana state legislator purchased a publicly owned contaminated industrial property through a private no-bid sale. The city agreed to absorb all environmental liability from the site at no charge. A special tax district was created around the property with a baseline of zero, ensuring all new tax revenue flows to the developer. Up to one million dollars in public sales tax was pledged to reimburse development costs. An additional tax was levied inside the district for the developer’s benefit. All permit fees were waived. And the electrical contractor hired for the project is the developer’s own business partner.

Every one of these decisions was made by public officials. Every one of them benefited the same private developer. And not one member of the public showed up to comment on any of it.

The same board that never heard a single public comment when it created a special tax district, pledged a million dollars in public sales tax, and levied an additional 1.75% tax for a sitting state legislator’s private development company had no trouble demanding accountability from ordinary Ruston residents. Meeting minutes from the same period show regular citizens appearing before the board to defend their own properties from condemnation, including a woman who traveled from Alabama to explain why her parents’ home should not be demolished, and a property owner who requested more time to make repairs. Those residents were questioned, given deadlines, and required to return with documentation. The decisions that funneled public money to Echols generated no questions, no debate, and no public comment whatsoever. The hearings lasted zero minutes.