Parking lot owner chimes in on proposed government lease

The Terrebonne Parish Council will vote Wednesday night on a lease agreement, which, if approved, would create 30 additional parking spots outside of the Government Tower building at a cost of a little more than $40,000 per year for the taxpayers.

The idea has sparked debate on social media from people on both sides of the issue.

The owner of the parking lot involved spoke to The Times this week, clearing up what he believes is a lot of misinformation about the history of the issue.

HTV owner Martin Folse spoke to The Times for more than an hour on Friday, saying that his decision to purchase the lot next to his downtown studio was “to secure the future of his business” and that ideas that he bought the property with specific ideas of doing business with the parish are “just not true.”

Folse said no matter how the vote goes, he won’t lose sleep, adding that he was asked last month to offer his space in a lease agreement by councilmen who said that the parish needed additional parking. He said he agreed to go through with the vote because the council members approached him to help the people of Terrebonne Parish have easier access to Government Tower.

“I don’t know if it’s going to pass,” Folse said. “I will go to sleep Wednesday night and I will rest easy — no matter how the vote goes.”

HISTORY OF THE ISSUE DEBATED, FOLSE CLARIFIES WHAT HE CALLS MISINFORMATION

Folse bought the old Dupont’s building in downtown Houma in 2011 for HTV — the business he’s owned for close to 40 years.

He moved his business into the new, renovated studio in 2014. Folse said he identified parking as a real issue with his new location as soon as they made the original purchase and then moved operations into the building.

Folse said he first called the parking lot’s previous owner, Sonny LeBlanc, in 2015 and asked him if he’d ever consider selling or leasing the lot. LeBlanc turned down that offer because of a deal he had with Chase Bank, which was in operation in the building for years.

“He told me that he had a good deal with the bank,” Folse said, recalling the conversation. “So I asked him, ‘If they ever move, would you give me the first right of refusal on the property?’ He said he would, but I didn’t think that would ever happen, so I let it go. I was just trying to take care of my business. It’s an adjacent property.”

In that conversation, Folse said LeBlanc gave him a verbal agreement for first right of refusal over the property, though neither party expected the bank to leave the tower.

“Our agreement stemmed from a first right of refusal commitment made in 2015 between Mr. Sonny and I,” Folse said.

As fate would have it, the bank did move out of the Government Building. When it did, Folse received a visit from LeBlanc and it was LeBlanc who was willing to honor that agreement to sell the lot to him.

An appraisal was done by Hank Babin for LeBlanc, a price was set and a purchase agreement was signed on Dec. 1, 2017 at the appraisal price of $388,000, plus legal fees.

Folse said he “is not aware” that the lot could have been offered by LeBlanc to parish government and others for purchase. Councilman Gerald Michel stated in his editorial to The Times last week that the lot was offered to others before being offered back to Folse.

Folse said he wasn’t concerned with those details, only focused instead on securing his business’ future and getting a lot for his studio. He said in his mind, he had the first right of refusal and he was going forward to protect HTV. Folse also said he believes it is now a mood issue because he owns the property.

Folse said that the idea from detractors that this purchase was motivated by an attempt to go into a parish business deal with Parish President Gordon Dove is also not correct.

“If one day, I would place the HTV facilities building for sale, who would want to buy a large building without the property to park?” Folse said. “I surely gambled when I spent the $3 million to purchase and renovate this old building. The building was boarded up and near condemnment. I then spent $400,000 on the additional parking lot. Where was the outcry when the original sale of the Government Tower Building did not include this parking lot? That is because they never owned it, so it is not like I took it from them. They never had it.”

“When I started looking into this, Gordon Dove wasn’t even the parish president. Michel Claudet was. It was 2015,” Folse added. “For Parish President Dove to know that it would end up like this, he’d have had to be a fortune teller. Those things that are being said, they’re just not true.”

2ND TIME ISSUE COMES BEFORE COUNCIL

This is not the first time that the council considers leasing the lot from Folse.

In late-2017, Folse emailed Dove, informing him that he’d purchased the lot. In the email which was obtained via public records request by The Times, Folse told Dove that he’d have a plot of additional space available on the property and that he wanted to offer it to TPCG first “to ensure that the public has the first chance to utilize the nearby parking for convenience.”

He said he sent the email and offered the space because prior to the letter, he was approached by Dove and several council members who said parking was a need for Government Tower.

The original lease called for 19 parking spots to be leased to the parish.

Staunch opposition — mostly from Michel and councilman Darrin Guidry — caused debate and council division about the issue. This, ultimately, let Folse to pull the lease offer to the parish before it went to a vote.

“It got heavily rooted in politics,” Folse said. “So I pulled it. I didn’t buy this lot to get into the public fight. So I got out of it altogether.”

Michel and Guidry contend that the spaces are not needed and that the parish would be better served to avoid entering into a lease agreement that would dedicate thousands of public dollars for parking.

In Michel’s editorial, he said that the parish doesn’t often use the public parking that it has, adding that he thinks getting better use of the parking garage would be a better way to operate in the future.

“We currently have 420 parking spaces on eight levels of the parking garage,” he wrote. “With a realistic potential to add up to 72 more on the first level — some of which can be used for handicapped parking.

Guidry said on social media that a wiser strategy for the parish would be to seek out ways to create parking — either in the parking garage or closer to the Government Tower building.

Guidry also said he’d support the parish’s buying the property from Folse — an option that Folse said is not on the table because such a deal would ask him to lose money on the purchase when one factors in what he paid to buy the lot, the legal fees associated and the appraisal fees along the way.

“If they say they don’t need the spaces, then why would Guidry or Michel want to buy the lot?” Folse asked. “It’s politics. What a contradictory statement. What right-minded businessman would buy a piece of land for $388,000, spend thousands on appraisals and attorney fees and then immediately sell the land back at $388,000? I know that some entitled minds would love for that to happen, but it would be a terrible move business-wise on my part.”

Efforts to build additional parking around the building have proven difficult. A study was done by Parish Government to seek the feasibility of a lot closer to the Government Tower. But the State Fire Marshal nixed that idea, saying that such a lot would neglect fire codes because it’d prohibit trucks from getting direct access to the building to extinguish a fire.

So that led to a second attempt at a lease with Folse.

The business owner said in December, he was contacted by councilmen Steve Trosclair after Councilman Navy called for more parking at an official TPCG meeting. Trosclair said they were approaching him because the parish needed the space.

The new lease gives 30 spots to the parish and previous stipulations in the original lease (involving rights on Mardi Gras and other special events) were thrown out.

The previous lease was for $22,142 per year. This one is for a little more than $40,000 per year because of the additional spots. The lease is for three years and after its initial term, it would renew annually through 2033 with a small increase of 0.005 percent per year. If the lease is ended before three years, the parish would be on the hook for $10,000, which Michel said was an unnecessary part of the deal. Folse said it’s to recoup his lost attorney fees and appraisal which he would not have performed if the Parish had not asked him for a proposal.

Supporters of the deal say it’s necessary because of the additional traffic in the Government Tower with TPR moving into the building and permitting operations now centered there, as well.

The price per spot was set by appraiser and the new lease was posted to Folse’s website before any controversy surfaced and sent to the parish for tonight’s discussion and vote.

“It’s a year-by-year contract and the government can decide to not fund it on any given year,” Folse said. “If they cease before three years, I get a portion of my attorney fees back. I don’t get all my expenditures back. Just some. This is standard in business deals.”

“These spots would be theirs for 365 days a year,” Folse added. “I just told them they couldn’t gate the spots and they couldn’t tow people for parking there after hours. Steve Trosclair told me, ‘Martin, we need the spaces.’ They asked, so I obliged and we went from there. I didn’t seek this out. They came to me. I don’t need this money to pay my note. It has no bearing on HTV or how I run my business. I’m trying to help the people of this parish.”

Folse said he doesn’t believe this parking lot deal is as big a news story as it’s being portrayed. He said he believes part of the uproar is because he has often promoted Dove’s levee projects and flood gates with positive reporting and some people just don’t like that.

Another reason Folse said this has become a hot-button issue is because he believes this is a disdain for Dove by some who oppose Dove in politics. Folse said that he thinks there is a faction of people in Houma who will push back from anything Dove does or proposes. This small group, Folse said, would be better off looking at other ways the parish is spending its money, as opposed to this lease, citing the LEPA deal that Dove and others have criticized as being fiscally irresponsible for the parish.

“There needs to be a consistency,” Folse said. “There is a regime in Houma working both up front and behind the scenes that wants Gordy out of the way. They want the control back.”

PUBLIC VOICE SOUGHT BEFORE VOTE

In Michel’s column, he urged members of the public to voice their opinion about the lease.

They will have an opportunity to do so at 6:30 p.m. — minutes before the vote.

Exactly how much public discussion there will be is not yet known, but there has been spirited social media threads about the issue.

One post, a video by Theresa Ellender, has generated thousands of views, hundreds of shares and commentary from both sides. Ellender, an Executive Committee Member of the Terrebonne Parish Republic Party, said the lease isn’t needed.

Other commenters agreed, while some didn’t.

Michel said this is an opportunity for the public to let their voice heard.

“This is your right and your responsibility,” Michel said.

Folse, too, said he hopes the public lets their voice heard, adding that that’s part of what makes America the best nation in the world.

He said no matter how the vote goes, he wishes the best for the council in the future in 2019.

He said he was going to stay silent about the deal, but opted to speak out to The Times to clarify some of the things he’d read — information he said simply wasn’t true.

“When did it become illegal for a private business to become involved in a business transaction with government?” Folse asked. “The answer simply is that it’s not. It is legal and done every day. Attorneys, engineers, accountants, appraisers, consultants, vendors, suppliers and yes, other media, lease land and buildings or do business with the government every, single day. However, when it becomes the plan of Mr. Gordon Dove, then his opponents seize on the matter. It’s politics.”

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