Not your father’s union
June 19, 2012LPSO tax title sale set for today
June 19, 2012
Saying that one of his district’s projects is marred in studies, a Lafourche councilman asked the council to shift $450,000 from the Bayou Blue drainage project into a fund that will pay for the refurbishment of Bayou Blue Bypass Road.
The appropriation passed by a 6-3 vote. Councilmen Aaron Caillouet, Jerry LaFont and Daniel Lorraine opposed the ordinance, which John Arnold sponsored.
The move reduces the Lakelong Drive Drainage Improvements Project fund to about $148,000. The project, which has been incrementally financed since 2009, calls for the installation of a 48-inch pump and various drainage improvements to an area that has been susceptible to backwater flooding from the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.
“We’re not abandoning Lakelong,” Arnold said. “The project can’t be started (this year). … If your hands are tied on a project, the best thing to do is to use that money wisely.”
Local stakeholders have been waiting for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to permit the project. Arnold said the delay stems over the project’s impact to a mitigation bank in the area. Because of issues procuring permits for the Lakelong project, work would not be able to start this year, he said.
The mitigation bank has quelled some of the flood woes since it was installed three years ago, Arnold said, and the area didn’t flood during the last rain event.
The councilman said inflation devalues the money in the account every year, and he wants to see it spent on a project that “has been neglected.” He also said the Lakelong project’s total cost is about $900,000, which will take time to attain.
The drainage project’s estimated fund balance was $598,000 when the council enacted the parish’s 2012 Operating, Maintenance and Capital Budget last November. The council approved allocations to the fund totaling $140,000 in 2009, $200,000 in 2010 and a $264,000 in 2012. The monies were allocated from Road Sales Tax District A.
Arnold said before and during the meeting that the funds for the Lakelong Drive project would be restored in next year’s budget. Such a strategy would need council approval and is far from a done deal.
Essentially, Arnold was suggesting that the council borrow money against next year’s budget. Parish President Charlotte Randolph, who supported the rededication, said that’s not the case because rededicating the allotment next year is not guaranteed.
Councilman Phillip Gouaux, who is seeking to have a road restored in his district, said he would not support replenishing the Lakelong fund next year.
Although the money was moved from one project to another in the same council district, Gouaux said it essentially allows the bypass road to skip ahead in road-renovating projects if the money is restored to the drainage project next year.
“I have constituents who travel dusty roads every day, so this really upsets me,” Gouaux said. “I will vote to move the money. Next year, I would hope some of my problems are taken care of.”
“This sounds like robbing Peter to pay Paul,” Lorraine added.
Bayou Blue Bypass Road will be repaved with the rededicated funds.
Arnold was involved in a fatal accident on the bypass road last year. Steven Guidry was killed when he failed to make a curve and his vehicle collided with Arnold’s truck, according to Louisiana State Police. “I made a lot of promises to the (Guidry) family,” he said.
The councilman said the road, which is traveled by nearly 1,000 vehicles a day, poses a threat to driver safety. The road is one of a few back roads that connects La. Highway 24 in Gray with La. Highway 1 south of Thibodaux.
Arnold said a one-mile stretch from Bobcat Lane to Burma Road would be resurfaced, which would eliminate a few potholes. Resurfacing the road shouldn’t cost more than $350,000, Arnold said.
Arnold also said excess money from the road project would be returned to the Lakelong project, but this is not spelled out in the ordinance.
An amendment to the ordinance sponsored by Joe Fertitta that would dedicate excess funds toward “materials and/or drainage on Plaisance Drive” failed by one vote. Mike Delatte, Lindel Toups, Phillip Gouaux, Caillouet and Arnold voted against the amendment.
Cars are driven along Bayou Blue Bypass Road. A rededication of money from a stalled drainage project will allow the parish to resurface the road, which the councilman representing the area claims is dangerously damaged.
