Cantrelle, council at odds over security

Lafourche Parish President Jimmy Cantrelle and the parish council both agree on the need for improved security for the government’s legislative office months after break-ins.

However, the two sides seem to be at an impasse regarding the urgency and the method of beefing up security after tapes of Lafourche Home Rule Charter Commission meetings were discovered missing.

The Parish Council has made two requests of Cantrelle and parish administration to improve security in the legislative suite at the parish’s Thibodaux building this year.

At its March 28 meeting the council voted to approve the re-keying of all doors of the legislative suite. On June 13, the council voted to request adding a feasible but affordable lock on the vault housed in the suite.

The requests were made after two separate incidents when Lafourche District Attorney

Cam Morvant’s office found tapes were missing from the 2004 HRC Commission. Morvant was trying to retrieve the tapes, recorded to provide proper context for home rule charter discussions, to assist him in rendering a legal opinion for the parish. The Thibodaux Police Department is investigating the missing tapes.

In spite of the breaches and council requests, the parish has yet to make any changes to the legislative suite’s security.

According to Council Member Bo Melvin, the council must defer to the parish president,

acting as CEO of the parish, on matters regarding parish buildings and thus cannot rekey or install locks on its own.

Council Vice-Chairwoman Luci Sposito asked Cantrelle if there was any progress on the matter at last week’s council meeting, and the parish president said he was skeptical that only changing the locks would secure the suite.

“I don’t know if just changing locks would do it. Really, I suggest we put cameras to see who goes in, who goes out. I believe that would be a better fix than just changing locks,” Cantrelle said.

Cantrelle brought up Lafourche Homeland Security Director Josh Champagne to provide more context on security measures. Melvin asked Champagne, a 23-year law enforcement veteran, if locks act as a deterrent to criminal activity, which Champagne agreed to, albeit “for honest people.” Champagne said the parish needs to take a practical approach to improved security at the suite.

“I think we do have an issue with our keys,” Champagne said. “New locks need to be replaced, absolutely, yes. Cameras would be great, to where we can get footage of who was going in and out of there we could utilize in investigations and stuff like that.”

Champagne said any video feeds would be saved on a hard drive run by parish administration.

Council Member Jerry Jones was skeptical of the measure, saying video files could then be deleted later. Council Member Jerry LaFont also expressed concern about cameras, noting they could operate as surveillance for the executive branch.

“[Cantrelle] wants a camera system maybe so they can see what we’re doing in there.

Sometimes we have things that we want to discuss that we don’t want nobody to give out,” LaFont said.

According to LaFont, the security issues have lingered, and Council Clerk Carleen Babin’s office was disturbed and possibly breached two weeks ago. LaFont suggested re-keying office doors in the legislative suite and giving keys to only Babin and the acting council chair.

“I think executive branch should have their keys, and I think legislative branch should

have their own keys,” LaFont said. “Bottom line: I don’t want to go in Mr. Jimmy’s office. Nothing in there for me to go see. Just like I don’t think anybody in his administration should be walking in ours.”

Cantrelle was still skeptical about the re-keying and addition of locks as adequate measures.

Cantrelle and Champagne noted there are keys that are currently missing from past council members who said they lost the keys. The parish president wanted an assurance the same disappearance of keys that could threaten security would not happen in the future.

“What are y’all going to change, if we get more keys out and change the locks, what process are y’all going to go through to change it so it don’t happen again? I still didn’t get an answer for that,” Cantrelle said.

Sposito said re-keying the suite would give the parish a clean slate and a clear account

of whose key was missing and when if one ever did disappear in the future. She stressed the importance of security as a means of upholding the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches in Lafourche.

“The change would be there would be no missing keys, and we would be the ones that had the keys,” Sposito said. “Secondly, and I’ll admit this, I’m not comfortable with the administration managing the cameras in the legislative branch, because of the separation that’s supposed to exist. I’m not blaming anyone or saying you’re going to do something. I’m not even suggesting you’re going to delete it. I just think there needs to be a separation.” •

Jimmy Cantrelle