Support for Louisiana.

The state we're in is provided by Entergy.

Louisiana is strengthening our power grid throughout the state.

We're reinforcing infrastructure to prepare for stronger storms, reduce outages, and respond quicker when you do need us.

Because together we power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred B and Ruth B Ziegler Foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum, located in Jennings City Hall.

The museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is an historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana.

And the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

With support from viewers like you, one of the smaller races on Tuesdays, Ballard plays an outsized role in the life of Louisiana, and we'll look at the power of the public service Commission.

And with hurricane season winding down, is there any progress to help people deal with skyrocketing insurance rates?

I sit down with Commissioner Tim Temple for answers.

Grambling State University is investing in technology to help students succeed.

We'll go inside the school's new digital library and a local artist handcrafts jewelry that's uniquely Louisiana.

We'll show you how it's made.

Let's get started.

On.

Hello, everyone.

I'm Karen Loblaw, and I'm Dorothea Wilson.

Much more on those top stories in a moment.

On this week's edition of Louisiana, the State we're In.

But first, in this week's Beyond the Ballot report, we're looking at one of the lesser known races.

The Public Service Commission plays a powerful role in our lives, regulating everything from energy rates to moving companies.

Take a look at what you need to know before casting your ballot.

From the water we drink coming from non municipal water treatment systems and some privately owned, the PSC regulates water quality for many people.

The PSC is now by the flip of a switch.

It regulates our utility rates and those extra fees that you find on your utility bill.

Utility companies have to answer to the PSC for charges like this one.

Cost to rebuild infrastructure and equipment damaged by severe storms and weather events.

The Louisiana Public Service Commission keeps a watchful eye on a lot of consumer concerns.

Its origin started as a regulatory body to monitor monopolies.

The commission really got its start as the Railroad Commission in the early 1900s, and in the Constitution of 1921, when they amended it, they changed, from the Railroad Commission to the Public Service Commission.

And that took on just the same idea that we were when we were regulating monopoly owned railroads.

That's the same way that it came when utilities were coming on board and the investments were being made.

And so the commission, over time, has picked up jurisdiction.

Our utility regulation has always stayed.

Five members serve on the Public Service Commission, each elected for a six year term.

The district two seat on the PSC is up for vote in the November 5th primary election.

Two Republicans and a Democrat are vying for the open seat vacated by Doctor Craig Green, a Republican from Baton Rouge who is not seeking reelection.

We can serve three consecutive terms before we have to sit out a turn in a term before we run again.

But we are also staggered terms to ensure that a majority of the commission never changes in one election.

So this year, there's only one seat up.

Next year in 2026 will have two seats up.

PSC commissioners have a broad range of responsibilities.

Some that fly under the radar, such as regulating older broadband lines and prison phone call fees.

So that rate that you pay, when you're getting a call from someone who may be incarcerated, is also at the jurisdiction of the PSC.

So we touch a wide swath of things that really matter to people's lives.

Planning a move?

Need to call a moving company.

The PSC regulates those as well.

They're called common carriers.

We actually play all three roles of government.

We operate as as lawmakers by making policies regarding rates, regarding services.

In the electric, in the utility business, in water, as well as, moving trucks and tow companies.

We're also a judicial body.

We are reviewing to ensure that the laws are being interpreted and that they are following those orders that we have, issued.

But we're also executors to make sure that once we say, hey, you, utility must do X, Y, and Z, or you can't do x, y, and Z that they actually do.

So which brings me to my next question.

Outline what the most pressing issues are that the PSC is dealing with.

I think it's going to be our grid and reliability on the electric side.

Our grid in Louisiana is ranked 48th in the nation.

We have more power outages in Louisiana than any other place in the nation.

And we're not talking about power outages caused by weather storms.

We're talking about what we would call a fair day power outage.

And so our biggest challenge, I think, over the next five years is how do we build a grid that can sustain our changing weather environments?

Also provides the reliability that people need.

So when you come home, when you open your business, your lights come on.

But then also how do we do that in a way that keeps your rates affordable?

With challenges come opportunities, including the evolution of alternative energy sources beyond natural gas and coal, such as hydrogen, wind and solar.

As these renewable energies evolve.

The PSC will play a regulatory role.

I would tell voters really pay attention because when you think about the things you care about the most, are the things you really need to survive.

Heating, cooling, cooking, water.

They're all at the hands solely of the public Service Commission.

Not your mayor, not your legislature, not the governor, not the president, but the Public Service Commission.

So when you're when you turn that light switch on, when you get home, it's our decision.

So you should think very wisely about who you put in those roles.

From hashtags to headlines, here is what's trending this week.

New Orleans is still basking in that lavender haze of Taylor Swift's three nights in the Superdome.

That's right, Karen, and the feeling is mutual.

Taylor thanked New Orleans and the people of Louisiana for being so welcoming.

What a is Taylor Swift economic effect right that New Orleans enjoyed.

I think the latest stats said, 160,000 fans over three days, about $500 million have an economic impact in the city of New Orleans.

And to put this in perspective, Carnival season brings in about 900 a million show a whole season.

Yeah, the Taylor Swift economy is pretty powerful.

You know, talk about a good Samaritan.

Taylor Swift donated enough to give 75,000 meals to families with the Second Harvest Bank.

Come on.

Isn't that awesome?

It really is.

And another good Samaritan Saints defensive end Cam Jordan is partnering to help make sure that kids have access to healthy food as well.

To get this, he's donating meal carts and mobile milk coolers to 59 schools in need.

Great partnership there.

Lots of good deeds.

I love that.

Now let's shift a little bit to something completely wild now.

There's a Tulane PhD student, and he's getting big attention for an almost accidental discovery.

Get this.

He uncovered an unknown Mayan city.

And, Karen, I'm hearing that he found this all just by surfing the internet.

It's incredible.

With the latest technology, these new archeological discoveries and speaking of the latest technology, Grambling State University recently opened a new digital library.

It's the first of its kind in the HBCU system.

The $16.6 million facility is rewriting the book on the way a traditional library looks, feels, and functions.

I am taking you on a tour of this 21st century learning and lifestyle center where students study, collaborate and create using the latest technology and tools.

At Grambling State University's Digital Library and Learning Commons, conversation and collaboration are encouraged and strategically furnished.

Gathering spots.

We want to stimulate conversation.

We want to provide that environment that will do that.

And these are the most comfortable chair.

They have zero gravity.

You can sit them rack.

You can put your feet up.

Zero gravity.

We encourage them to curl up with a good book.

We encourage them to put their feet on the furniture so.

And some have even gone to sleep.

There are quiet spaces for concentration and workspaces to create, including this 3D printing lab.

We're getting a 3D scanner as well so that anything that that a person may have and they want to replicate it, they will be able to do so in here.

And then the idea actually is to stimulate like innovation and invention.

For those needing a laptop on loan.

There's a laptop vending machine.

And this is our laptop vending machine a laptop.

Check out kiosk for more formally.

And so students can come up and select check out this $16.6 million state of the art facility shatters library stereotypes.

It's a trailblazer in dynamic learning, providing students with the latest resources.

One digital library does that.

A traditional library doesn't do is give them relative, timely information that students will have when an assignment is given to them.

They're not going to the shelf.

They get up to get a book that was produced five years ago that's been sitting on the shelf.

They're getting some.

They have the choice through information literacy to select something that's been produced within the last 24 hours in some cases.

So you can't be any more timely than that.

I toured the facility on a Saturday morning just days after it opened.

The design embraces common and innovative technology touch points, including these digital whiteboards.

So, Karen, this goal in a group study for.

So you see we can accommodate four students in here.

Students have access to the whiteboard.

And they also have access to the smartboard where they can collaboratively work together.

And I've seen them in here with some assignments.

This is great.

So this is like a digital chalkboard a digital chalkboard, but it's also connected to the Wi-Fi.

They can go online.

They can search the library's resources as well as anything else that they want to.

The decor pays homage to Grambling history and integrates the psychology of color in its furnishings, objects, and art.

Yellow engages the individual.

Yellow also promotes learning.

So that's very intentional.

We have it on the floor.

We have it in seating.

So we want students to always have a learning opportunity when they come in.

And so we have throughout the meal blues.

We want to work with the calming effect, the energy.

You thought of everything we did because we didn't want to.

Again, we didn't want to leave any stone unturned.

Upstairs, the library transitions to a quieter space.

Now, it's not a teleporter.

What it is.

It's a cell phone booth.

It muffles the noise, and students can go in and take their telephone calls.

Or they can have an interview or webinar, whatever, but it keeps them from having to take it in the open space but have privacy.

I thought it was a teleport.

Students have access to more than 1.6 million digital and hard copy items, including books, periodicals, research journals and historical documents.

We have the Mary Heyman Collection.

But that's our Afro collection of things other than about the African American experience in the United States and abroad.

And so we're going to make that available to our students.

And they will also be able to check out if we have multiple copies.

So that's why we have some of the self-checkout machines downstairs.

Also upstairs, an information literacy classroom with movable desks engineered to accommodate left handed students, and an exhibit space that displays items from the university archives.

This is a part of our McConnell collection.

He donated over $1 million worth of African art effects.

And so we put some of the artwork.

You have a mask here.

What we've done with the collection, we've had it cleaned and preserved.

So what do you envision in this space?

This frontal space will be part of what we put on exhibit to showcase what we have.

In the rear of the room will be research space.

We end our tour of the 50,000 square foot facility on the outdoor balcony overlooking the campus and solar powered charging stations below.

Grambling aims to offer everything a student could want or need to learn, create and collaborate in the 21st century by transforming the library into a lifestyle space.

While we're talking about HBC use, the Southern University Law Center is the focus of a new documentary by LP's award winning digital team.

The school was founded in response to segregation and continues to be a force for justice and equality.

A lot of the breakthroughs in Louisiana from a civil rights perspective, would not have occurred without those graduates from Southern University who were really inspired to be change agents.

They had the mindset that when they got out of law school, they were out in the fight.

Students coming here being trained to take up the mantle to fight for civil rights.

Our mission is to build a certain kind of lawyer that's not going to accept systems that fail, but will challenge them.

You can watch Southern University Law Center A Civil Rights Dream come true at YouTube.com.

Slash and HBCU week now.

This year's hurricane season is nearing the end, and unfortunately, things have been mostly quiet in Louisiana.

That's good news for people dealing with the state's ongoing insurance crisis.

I sat down with Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple to see if legislation passed this year has started to ease the burden, and his plans on how to deal with rising insurance rates.

Well, I'm here with Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple, and what a pleasure it is to have you here with us today.

Thank you so much.

We're glad to have you at the department.

Thank you.

All right.

So you and I spoke about a year ago, a little over a year ago when you first stepped in.

And I'm so excited to have you here.

And there were a lot of things going on.

What the state of insurance at that time, we were about 800,000 claims going on, and there was so much money being paid out in claims.

Where are we now?

You know, when I became commissioner elect in August 15th of 2023, we were and still are in a very deep insurance crisis.

This is the deepest crisis that our state, our citizens have ever faced.

You know, for years we've had a crisis with auto insurance, whether it was your personal or commercial auto.

It's steadily been more and more expensive over the years.

And then starting in August of 2020 with Laura and then Delta and Zeta and Ida, those four hurricanes that we talked about that created 800,000 claims, $23 billion in paid losses.

That added a severity issue with, with personal auto, I'm sorry, with personal homeowner's insurance and the commercial property insurance as well.

And then on top of that, we've had flood insurance risk rating 2.0 is a dismal failure.

I don't think anyone, can say that it's working, is the way it's supposed to.

And I know our congressional delegation has been fighting a very good, strong fight to change that, but flood insurance is now added to the insurance burden.

So you add that burden.

And right now, I mean, families and individuals budgets are stretched to the point where they're breaking.

Businesses are to the point now where insurance costs are so expensive to three that some some companies are having to lay off employees.

So you came in six months prior to you officially taking office, and you hit the ground running.

I immediately began conversations with all the stakeholders to to try to address this crisis that we just mentioned, because it is important that we, you know, I wanted to make sure that I took, you know, every day advantage of every day that I had, to start to work on solutions so that when we came in office January 8th and we started working in the building there in the background, to bring these solutions that that, you know, we were moving as fast as possible on that.

Now, I do see some of the fruit of your work.

Thus far in some of the laws that you are helping to implement or you were pushing forward.

And one of those is the fortified roof program.

Talk to us about that.

You know, my predecessor.

I'll give him credit.

He was the one that asked the legislature to to create the program.

They initially allocated $30 million last year during the last budgetary process.

I think as of the most recent report, which is maybe a week old, we have over 1500 fortified roofs on in Louisiana now.

We just recently, awarded another 1000 applicants grants to put on another 1000 roofs.

So we're moving quickly on that.

But it's not fast enough for me.

It's not fast enough for a lot of individuals, and it's not fast enough for the state as well.

So we're going to continue to promote that program.

Next session, I'm going to ask the legislature to, consider some different ways to fund that program so that we don't have to go to the legislature and ask for the money every year.

Now, I know there has been some fear for people, you know, with rising costs and different or the lack of competitiveness.

And we saw in Florida that 37,000 claims were denied by one of Florida's largest insurance companies.

And there's some thought that maybe because of the similarities with disasters here, that that could possibly happen here.

Do you foresee anything like that?

Well, you know, one of the things I did when, I guess the second month I was in office was I called a meeting with some of the top insurance property writers by volume, by premium volume called them all in to the department we met in the hearing room.

I think it was a top 25.

I'm very concerned, and I'm very focused on making sure that our fellow citizens have the best claims experience I can have.

That's what we want.

You know, we pay premiums and we expect the insurance company to come in in good faith, start to adjust our claims.

Last year, with the legislators, help, we cleaned up some laws that created some, some ambiguity.

Some some conflicting statutes, if you will, that that muddied the process.

That was not good for the for the consumer.

And it's not good for the insurance company.

So we want to make sure that both parties, both sides understand what the what the laws are.

They understand what the you know, what the rules of the game are and the better clarity that both parties have, I think the better claims experience.

So I'm working with industry to make sure that they do what they're supposed to do.

Also, I know there's a special session coming up and you have some things going on with that.

Talk to us about it.

Yeah.

You know, the auto crisis is one that I think has been recently overshadowed because the property crisis.

You know, I thought people people like I said, their budgets are getting stretched, to the point of breaking.

But the auto crisis is one that has been overshadowed.

Like I said, we addressed a lot of those issues with property the during the last regular session.

But since I took office, and since before that, when I became commissioner, you know, I've maintained that we need to have a special session to address the auto crisis in our state.

It insurance is complex.

And certainly legislators during a regular session get bombarded with thousands of bills, you know, and, you know, and legislators, they've got to know they got almost be an expert on every bill that they vote on because they're they're voting yes or no for something.

And it has, you know, it, you know, intended and sometimes unintended consequences.

So the reason I think we need to have a special session on auto because it's complex.

There's a lot of powerful forces, around all sides of that issue.

And we need to make sure that that we are as transparent, as citizens deserve and uncovering why auto rates are as expensive as they are.

And look, the legislature and the governor have done a phenomenal job of tackling some of the economic challenges that are economic hurdles that businesses face in the Louisiana.

You know, they're doing tax reform.

As far as individuals, you know, they've addressed education reform.

They've done criminal justice reform.

These are all very worthy things and need to be done and need to continue to be focused on.

But insurance has to be part of that equation, too.

All right.

Well, thank you so much.

And thank you for all the work you've done so far.

And that you'll continue to do for us.

Well thank you.

I appreciate the opportunity to be here.

Enjoy it.

And, you know, like I said, welcome to the Department of Insurance.

You're welcome.

Anytime.

Well, the holiday shopping season is here.

And if you're hoping to find gifts with a little Louisiana flair, you might want to check out mimosa Handcrafted Jewelry.

Each piece is inspired by iconic images of life in Louisiana, and it's all made in a small facility right here in Baton Rouge.

I'm taking you behind the scenes to see how each piece is made.

Now, today we're at the Mimosa Handcrafted Jewelry Warehouse, and I'm here with the fabulous owner, Miss Madeline Ellis.

And she's going to walk us through how they make all of their fantastic jewelry.

What began as a passion project and a box filled with jewelry creations by designer Madeline Ellis, has transformed into one of the state's most recognized and celebrated local jewelry lines embedded in rich local culture, environment, architecture and spirit.

Mimosa handcrafted creates women's jewelry rooted in Louisiana and Texas history.

Ellis says she began her career in landscape architecture, but found it to be demanding and kept her away from family, and she didn't have much to show for it.

Right away, I realized how not like instant gratification.

It was like we've been working on projects for years before you actually saw anything implemented, but I can go home at night and make a piece of jewelry, and then at the end of the day, have something, you know, shame on me.

And so, I for a long time, I was just making for myself and friends, family, that kind of thing.

After the response she received from making jewelry for her family and friends, she decided to take a leap of faith and branch out, started doing the Baton Rouge Arts Market once a month.

And, then the experience of, you know, sharing the piece with other people and talking about it and then getting excited to make more and then, you know, that would generate more ideas.

And then it was also kind of infusing everything that I learned from landscape, you know, everything from design, scale, texture, color on that, but then also kind of the storytelling of the landscape from there, Madeline Ellis and Mimosa Jewelry has become a household name, with her jewelry being featured in places like Lee Michael's Fine Jewelry.

Caroline and Company, Birdwell, and even the Old State Capitol.

We are so blessed to have such a talented local company.

And, Madeline and her husband Dawson came here and they were looking for inspiration and ideas, and we have plenty.

And so I'm wearing one of the original pieces of mimosa, which is, a medallion that has an imprint or an outline of the building on it.

And they were fascinated by the architecture.

And, and so they have created a line of jewelry that's based on some of the signature elements in our building.

When we make a piece of jewelry, we take a mold of it, and the mold is like a silicone mold.

So this machine right here will inject wax into the mold and then make a replica of the original wax carving that we did.

Second kind of show you, we.

So this is the machine.

All of the pieces are programed, all of the different molds or program for how much wax needs to be injected into it, and the pressure of the wax that needs to go in.

So we just set it in here.

There's a little nozzle that lines up with the hole that goes into the mold.

It's so funny that just from a piece of wax, you make a beautiful piece of jewelry.

Whether you said it's 14 karat gold or sterling silver or even bronze.

So what a process, right?

Yeah.

All right, so show us more.

What do we have next?

Okay.

From there, the jewelry goes through a heating process to make sure it's fine tuned.

And all of the rough edges are smoothed out just before it goes through another buffing machine to make sure it's shiny and silky smooth.

And so once everything is done in there, and it smooths up as much as we can get, it will bring it into this room where we have our big vibrating machines like a tumbler and full color.

Yeah, I've got this medium that's got kind of like a grit to it.

So all the jewelry will take a bath in here for like, five hours at least.

Okay.

And then once it comes out, it's got like a really buttery smooth, so, you know, texture to it.

So okay, at that point, then it's ready to head to the store.

Nice.

All right.

So shall we put it in.

Yeah.

Okay.

And the rest is history.

Once the jewelry hits, the store, patrons from all across the state and beyond can flock in to get their little piece of Louisiana.

Karen, I found her jewelry to be fascinating, and it was all things Louisiana.

It is an interesting discovery for me personally.

I love jewelry, and the fact that she makes this jewelry with such meaning.

Yeah.

Great craftsmanship.

Got to visit it.

You've got to go there.

Well, that's our show for this week, remember, you can watch anything LPB any time, wherever you are with our LPB app.

And you can catch LPB news and public affairs shows, as well as other Louisiana programs you've come to enjoy over the years.

And please like us on Facebook, Instagram, and X for everyone at Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

I'm Karen LeBlanc and I'm Dorothea Wilson.

Until next time.

That's the state we're in.

Support for Louisiana, the state we're in is provided by Entergy.

Louisiana is strengthening our power grid throughout the state.

We're reinforcing infrastructure to prepare for stronger storms, reduce outages, and respond quicker when you do need us.

Because together, we power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred B and Ruth B Ziegler Foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum.

Located in Jennings City Hall, the museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is an historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana and by Visit Baton Rouge.

And the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

And viewers like you.

Thank you.