Lame duck Ferriday Mayor Gene Allen’s latest antic is unbelievable.

Allen sought (and received) permission from the Ferriday Town Council to use public funds to pay for travel to the Miss Black USA Pageant in Las Vegas. The trip will come in late June, just a little over a week before he leaves office. Fortunately, Ferriday voters ousted Allen in the last election.

Allen claims he wants to accompany Miss Black Louisiana, daughter of Councilwoman Gloria Lloyd.

What an awful display of both misuse of public funds by Allen and a conflict of interest by Lloyd.

Councilman Johnnie Brown apparently has been drinking Allen’s magic Kool-Aid because he approved the expenditure, too.

We see absolutely no benefit to the taxpayers of Ferriday in the trip. If Allen were lobbying for some issue that would benefit the people of Ferriday in Washington, D.C., then, perhaps, such travel could be justified.

But allowing Allen to strut into the lobby of The Orleans Hotel and Casino — site of the pageant — on the taxpayer’s dime won’t bring change to the streets of Ferriday.

We urge both the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office and the District Attorney for the Seventh Judicial District to investigate this matter immediately.

Quick action is needed before a single penny of public funds gets spent on this amazingly arrogant example of corrupt government.