Ethics opinion clears way for Laf. jail progress

One year after requesting his hire as an architect, the Lafourche Parish Council on Tuesday night considered hiring prison mogul Michael LeBlanc as consultant in its ongoing effort to build a new detention center.

The agreement does not stipulate the size of the jail, nor does it grant LeBlanc authority to recommend a capacity level. Instead, the scope of the agreement – capped at $50,000 and in effect through December – focuses on site selection and consultation on an inevitable bond issue, among other tasks. The parish has not solicited any official bids regarding development of a new jail.

Meeting results were unknown as of press time.

“My goal is to be the architect,” said LeBlanc, owner of MWL Architects and CEO of the largest privately owned private jailer in the nation, before Tuesday’s meeting.

The Louisiana Board of Ethics issued an opinion in late May saying the positions are not mutually exclusive as it pertains to ethics laws, provided certain guidelines are satisfied.

But the potential influence a consultant can wield over the project’s direction, along with the possibility that the parish’s best interests could be at odds with LeBlanc’s wishes as an architect, should concern taxpayers, said Julie Thibodaux, education and outreach director for the ACLU Foundation of Louisiana.

“No matter if the ethics committee came back with this decision and it’s ethical, we still think it’s a huge problem for Lafourche Parish taxpayers and they should have many concerns with this,” Thibodaux said.

LeBlanc has pledged a 600-bed facility can be built for $22 million if he oversees the project. The sales pitch immediately attracted Council Chairman Lindel Toups’ support and other parish officials have gradually gravitated toward those figures.

“I believe this project will come in well below (hard construction) costs of $22 million. I’ll stand by that,” LeBlanc said. “I feel very good about this project coming in under budget.“

Councilmen have long resisted proposing new taxes to fund development and construction of a new facility, so his predicted price tag has been alluring. But the sheriff and the ACLU separately called for comprehensive studies to pin down acapacity target.

Located in Thibodaux, the Lafourche Parish Detention Center has been riddled with overcrowding and inadequacy issues for decades. It has a 244-prisoner capacity, though the parish’s prison population fluctuates at roughly 400 inmates on average, with overflow inmates housed in other parishes. Lafourche officials have expressed concern that the dire standing could prompt federal action if not rectified soon.

The council approved a resolution with a 7-1 vote almost one year ago requesting Randolph to hire LeBlanc to design a new jail; it was rebuffed because the parish had not yet set aside any money for the project and because she intended to bid out each phase, even professional services that fall outside the state’s bid law, she said.

Months later, during the 2013 budget process, the parish council appropriated $400,000, which can be used for a new jail’s site selection, land appraisal and architectural design.

If hired as a consultant, in order to preserve his chance to land the design contract, LeBlanc must recuse himself from drafting requests for proposals and maintain independence so as to not give the parish supervision over his day-to-day tasks, according to the framework on which the ethics opinion was based.

As delineated by the ethics board, the jail consultant’s role would be selecting a site for the new facility, employing a pollster to gauge public opinion regarding tax propositions, and developing inmate programs to be installed at a new detention center.

Randolph, who has not responded to Tri-Parish Times inquiries in more than a month, did not acknowledge an email or repeated phone calls seeking comment on her intermediate goals for the project.

As a consultant, LeBlanc would potentially have an influential voice in determining the parish’s prison needs, though that was not expressively stated in the ethics opinion. He said he based the 600-bed figure on a formula based on current inmates’ average length of stay over a set period of time.

Lafourche Sheriff Craig Webre, while acknowledging he does not have statutory authority to dictate how the parish builds a new jail, said it appears the parish has decided to work backward from what should be the endpoint, which could ultimately leave officials with an inferior jail.

“I believe that you cannot start with a number,” Webre said. “If you’re going to use a process, then the end result of the process is the number. … You’re putting the cart before the horse.”

Webre has urged officials to commission a comprehensive study of crime trends and incarceration rates. He also maintains that the jail’s prison population is artificially low due to a lack of space.

“You don’t build a jail for today,” said Webre, who also reiterated desires for rehabilitation and recreation programs to be incorporated. “Running and operating a jail is a very complicated business, and it requires quite a bit of strategy and proper thought.”

To offset the potential of a burgeoning prison population, the facility would be built with room to expand, LeBlanc has said.

Julie Thibodaux, of the ACLU, also called for a study to determine the parish’s needs. Pointing to the parish’s current prison population, she questions the need for even 600 beds. On behalf of the civil liberties union, Thibodaux has urged the council to hire a nationally recognized expert to study jail population needs.

“You need someone who can actually do this work, not who has built jails so they think they can do this work,” she said. “I think one of the hesitations with the council is these experts can cost 20-, 30-grand, but the thing is that you’re going to have to come up with money anyway to build this jail, so why not build it the size that you need instead of the size your architect tells you you need.”

No matter the jail’s size, securing a funding source will be tricky. Toups has maintained the parish can build a new jail at LeBlanc’s price through rededication of standing taxes rather than imposing new ones.

Parish leaders have shown a desire to rededicate a portion of the library system’s property taxes to the jail project, which would need voter approval. Toups supports this tactic but doesn’t know what additional income would complete the package. “We’re going to look at everything,” he said.

The recent ethics board opinion indicates parish officials plan to introduce a tax rededication proposition on a fall ballot. “We’re looking to go to the voters before the end of the year,” Toups confirmed.

The council created a committee to oversee development and construction of a new jail in 2011. The board met 11 times, the last of which was in October 2012. LeBlanc represented one of several agencies that made public pitches before the committee. Other firms’ representatives met with members out of the public’s eye, sources have said.

Toups, the committee’s chairman, said it’s likely the group will not convene again.

“We really didn’t have a jail committee,” he said. “I don’t know if it pays to have one.”