Lafourche council faces library debacle, stands against illegal immigrants by BRIAN FONTENOT

The Lafourche Parish Council got schooled in the simple lesson the more money someone has, the more problems they have in regards to libraries in the parish at its Sept. 11 meeting.

In the same meeting, the council also took a stand against hiring illegal immigrant workers in the parish with the support of a series of amendments by Lafourche Parish Council Vice-Chair Daniel Lorraine.

The council gave the Lafourche Parish Library nearly $6 million to build three new libraries.

It partitioned $1.9 million to build a new library in Lockport, $996,195 for one in Larose and $2.8 million for one in Thibodaux.

But Lafourche Parish Library Administrator Paul Chiquet told the council at the meeting that the people in Lockport don’t want the new library.

Chiquet said he received 39 requests to keep the Lockport library where it now stands.

Residents are upset with the fact the proposed new library will actually be smaller than the old one.

The current library boasts 10,732 square feet of space. The proposed new library is expected to have around 6,500 square feet.

Over expenditures have cost the new library square footage.

Chiquet explained the new library site requires an extra elevation of five feet, at a cost of $200,000. The project will also require $35,000 in culverts and an expected $250,000 for furniture.

Toss in the contractor’s fee, which will run a little less than 10 percent for a cost of about $150,000, and only about $1.3 million remains for the library.

To build a quality building, the money needs to be spent at close to a rate of $200 per square foot.

This means constructing a new library at a size comparable to the current library would cost $2 million.

Chiquet also explained residents are not happy with the fact the new library will be across Louisiana Highway One.

So, the teachers at Holy Savior Catholic School will not be able to take schoolchildren across the highway to go to the library. And senior citizen drivers in the area often have difficulty cross the highway.

Chiquet expressed the fact that he would like to repeat what was done with the library in Gailliano.

That library was built inside a renovated Wal-Mart building for a cost of about $600,000 for interior renovations. The figure doesn’t include, however, the cost of parking lot repairs, signage, painting and refinishing the exterior and repairs for the septic system.

But Chiquet holds this library up as the model as how the library should go about moving to new locations and opening libraries.

Jay Caillouet, the contractor overseeing the library projects, brought a similar problem with the cost per square foot at the new Thibodaux library.

He explained to the council that the library in Thibodaux was planned to be 17,000 square feet at a cost of $2.8 million, meaning it will run at a rate of $166 per square foot. This figure would require a very cheap building to be drafted.

By comparison, the new library in Larose just bid for $192 per square foot.

Funding was approved for the construction of the new parish libraries back in November, but nothing has been built.

Caillouet has received most of the blame for the delay.

At the Aug. 28 council meeting, members of the parish council threatened to fire Caillouet if he didn’t get started on drawing up plans for the proposed new libraries.

Caillouet said he has been waiting for a definite cost for the project and the required area of the building.

And he pointed out at that meeting that it wasn’t until June 10 that the parish council passed the definitive costs for the projects.

He explained he finally got what he needed, a cost and area requirement, by the end of last month, but the numbers he was given didn’t work out.

Despite the new funding, the parish library system will be $700,000 in debt this year.

Chiquette, who was once the Lafourche Parish Library director, has not been happy with Caillouet’s work in the past.

He tore into Caillouet’s project history, citing cost overruns on just about every past library project.

He said Choctaw was budgeted for $391,000 and ran over $201,000. Bayou Blue had a $391,000 budget and ran over $218,000. Raceland was $391,000 and cost $158,000 more.

And Larose which should have cost $650,000 ran over $284,000

Caillouet refuted Chiquet’s claim of overruns, citing the only project that ever went above cost was the Larose library, and it ran over because of post-Katrina cost increases.

Complicating library matters even more is the fact Councilman Mark Atzenhoffer proposed an amendment to the supplemental appropriation ordinance for the libraries.

The amendment, which passed, will redirect a $50,000 grant for computers for which the parish library applied to the building budget if the grant is awarded.

Chiquet fears handing this $50,000 computer grant over the council to supplement the building budget would tarnish the parish library and his own reputation and could possibly be a crime.

Lafourche Parish Council Vice-Chair Daniel Lorraine amended six resolutions to penalize companies wishing to participate in the Lafourche Free Enterprise Zone if they hire illegal immigrant workers.

The amendment read: “All companies participating or wishing to participate in Lafourche Parish’s Free Enterprise Zones must hire legal workers only (workers with valid Social Security cards or green cards). Any company found to be in violation of this amendment would forfeit future benefits of the program and would have to reimburse Lafourche for benefits received.”

Lorraine said the reason he introduced the amendment was because he had been following the news regarding the current immigration situation and learned there is a federal law that penalizes companies that hire illegal immigrants.

“I’m not against anybody coming to work, regardless of color, race, Mexican, whatever, as long as you’re legal,” said Lorraine.

“I don’t think that we should be paying for something if it’s not legal. If it’s legal, fine,” he explained.