Lafourche Parish Council axes 3

It took Lafourche Parish President Charlotte Randolph four years to build a government team she trusted and admired, and the parish council one evening to gut it.

The appointments of three former department heads – parish administrator Cullen Curole, Public Works director Ray Cheramie and Community Services director nominee Mary Hodnett – were all voted down by the decisive council vote. Prior to the start of last week’s council meeting, Community Services Director Philip Malcolm Jr. submitted his resignation to the parish administrator.

Before a packed parish council chamber, councilmen voted 2-7 against Curole, 2-6 against Cheramie and 2-7 against Hodnett.

The council also rejected creating an Information Technology and Communications position that would have been filled by Parks and Recreation Director Brennan Matherne. He will keep his current post instead.

Grants and Development Director Gretchen Caillouet will also retain her job with the parish.

“The progress and productivity of the last four years was the result of this core team,” Randolph said in an earlier release before the Tuesday vote. “I want to build and improve on the experiences of the team to better produce projects, programs and services here in Lafourche.”

However, she now has fewer than 60 days to refill the vacancies.

Repeated calls to Randolph after the council meeting remained unreturned as of press time. Her executive secretary Arlene Toups said the parish president was away on parish business until today.

At last week’s meeting, council chair Mike Delatte relinquished his standing position to co-chair Jerry Jones to make comments about the positions that were up for nomination.

Delatte said the council would have to either approve or deny Randolph’s nominations based on “good information” that best suits the parish.

“When we (returning councilmen) took office four years ago, we didn’t have problems in the department of Public Works or with the parish administrator,” Delatte said. “These are people we chose and they came into an office that was not doing great and running smoothly. Needless to say, the track was not built to where we could just fire up the train and run it down the track.”

The council chair said it took time and effort to build the administration from ground zero.

“I don’t think we need to reinvent the wheel. We have a parish system that’s working. We might need some tweaking here and there,” Delatte said, “but it’s working.”

Of the nine members, Phillip Gouaux and Delatte were the only councilmen to support all of Randolph’s re-nominated department heads.

Councilman Rodney Doucet abstained from voting on Cheramie’s reappointment.

The Home Rule Charter mandates that the council’s refusal to accept the reappointment of the sitting department heads means their employment with the parish ended immediately.

Randolph said she would advertise vacancies for parish administrator and directors for Public Works, Community Services and Human Resources.

Nominations are still required for the Finance and Coastal, Energy and Environment departments.