Proposed Lockport pool complex moves forward

By a one-vote margin the Lafourche Parish Council green-lit engineering work on a proposed community center and competition-sanctioned swimming pool in Lockport.

The council still must approve an official transfer of land and is responsible for authorizing the parish to engage in a construction contract with a low bidder, but by accepting the $300,000 design contract on the spine of two altered votes, the governing body indicated a commitment to constructing the estimated $4.1 million community center.

At a February meeting, the council spiked the same contract by a 6-2 vote.

Councilman Phillip Gouaux, in whose district the proposal lies and a supporter of the contract, was absent the first time. Councilmen John Arnold and Michael Delatte changed their vote in the one-month span, leaving only Joe Fertitta, Jerry LaFont, Daniel Lorraine and Jerry Jones in opposition.

Arnold said he changed his vote after speaking with his constituents and after revisiting terms of the letter of intent the council signed last summer that set forth the terms for a local businessman to donate land to the parish for the community center.

“I talked to a bunch of people in my district, and they thought it was a good idea to have the swimming pool centrally located, where everybody in the parish had good access to it,” said Arnold, adding he planned to continue supporting the project each time a vote is required. “As long as everything continues to go in the direction it’s going, I don’t see why not.”

Both Arnold and Delatte said the fact Gouaux was in attendance – the first time since being critically wounded amid Ben Freeman’s deadly shooting rampage Dec. 26 – influenced their votes, though both also cited other reasons.

“Phillip (Gouaux) looked like he really needed it on his end, and he’s helped me out with some projects that were not particularly welcomed on my end. (We have) hard decisions to make every now and then,” Delatte said. “After looking at the facts, that’s the way I voted. Period.”

The proposed community center would include the swimming pool as well as a basketball court, a 10,000-square-foot pavilion, meeting rooms and a commercial kitchen.

The project is expected to cost $4.1 million and has been approved to receive $2.6 million in Gustav and Ike Community Development Block Grant recovery funding, officials said. Parish government set aside $1.5 million for the project last year and has applied for $500,000 in grant funding from the Gheens Foundation.

Lockport-based Valentine LLC, owned by Hugh Caffery, is willing to donate 5 acres of land at the intersection of La. highways 308 and 655 for the new complex, but Caffery presented the gift with terms.

The parish council last year approved Caffery’s non-binding letter of intent. It also set forth a desired timeline for the parish to achieve benchmarks related to the project – notably that the parish complete the design process by the end of 2014 and start construction no later than one year afterward.

The benchmarks offer protection to both Caffery and the parish, Parish Administrator Archie Chaisson III stressed.

“Once those (terms) are met, then we would actually do the formal act of donation, which is typically practiced like that with a large tract of property where none (of the surveying or engineering) is started yet,” Chaisson said. “Let’s say the money for some reason falls through, Duplantis can’t come up with a design or something major happens, if we had an actual act of donation done already, then we would be stuck with that property. It’s worth nothing to us if we can’t do anything with it.”

Supporters say a new public pool in Lockport is necessary to replace the deteriorated T.M. Barker pool, determined to be inoperable for safety and economical reasons in August 2012. Its closure cut off pool access to the general public, aqua-fitness groups and school and club swim teams. A new pool in a new complex would be a beacon to tournaments while also permitting recreational use, they say.

Opponents counter that taxpayer funds should not be used to build a recreational feature that will require annual allotments for operation and maintenance. They also question the location, saying the center is landlocked and the feasibility of future expansion is thus curbed, and complain it leapfrogged other projects in the parish’s capital outlay queue.