Randolph, Lasseigne argue future of Lafourche Parish

With the Oct. 20 election drawing near, neither Lafourche Parish president candidate – Tommy Lasseigne or incumbent Charlotte Randolph – is wavering from their desire to hold the job.

Lasseigne currently serves as the Lafourche Parish Council Chairman. The only political office he has ever held is the one he currently holds.

He said his main issues are pushing for a master plan incorporating a coordinate effort at parish-wide drainage, as well as addressing the sewage system.

“We don’t have a prioritized list,” he said. “Anybody can get water from A to B. I can tell you that right now. But it is to have a master plan where you get it from here to here and it’s going out efficiently.”

The plan would oversee drainage projects to make sure the water flow is directed in a methodical way across the parish. And the plan would seek to better prioritize projects.

He said the parish has canals that have not been re-dug in 40 to 50 years, while new canals are dug without being part of a larger drainage plan or prioritization.

He promotes a zero-based budget for the parish. Under a zero-based budget, all the agencies in the parish would have to justify the funds they need.

The agencies would no longer be able to ask for a new budget based solely on last year’s numbers.

“That’s not how it should work,” said Lasseigne. “Justify the fuel, the equipment and the manpower. Justify everything. Don’t just say, ‘We always did it. We always did it.’ I don’t care if we always did it. We’ve always did a lot of things and some of them aren’t correct.”

He thinks the parish charter’s drafters did a good job, but he would like to reconvene the charter commission to address certain issues and possibly make some amendments.

The most pressing, perhaps, is the fact parish councilmen are prohibited from speaking to parish employees and contractors.

He would like to see this changed, but said only the people can vote for the change.

“Hopefully, if I am parish president, I can generate the leadership skills necessary to get it to go to the people,” said Lasseigne. “If the councilmen are out there and they can only talk to a small list of people, I disagree with that.”

He is 55 and has had a girlfriend for years. He has performed contract consulting for about the last 13 years.

Lasseigne holds a variety of degrees: a Bachelor of Science in industrial technology and a MBA, both from Louisiana State University; a Master’s of Science in human resource management from Texas A&M; and a doctorate in strategic management and corporate finance from Florida State University.

He played corner and safety for the Nicholls State University football team.

When asked whom he roots for on game day, Lasseigne said he tries to root for everybody, but there are times when that becomes difficult.

“If it’s LSU and Florida State, I’ve got a problem,” he said.

His opponent, Randolph, has only held one political office – the one she currently holds.

And if re-elected, she said her focus will be on the coastal projects, as well as on Bayou Lafourche.

“The fact that we were able to secure so much money from the federal government for putting dirt on the ground, not just studies, that’s what I’m proudest of,” she said.

She said she will continue to focus on drainage.

“Drainage is the most important issue to the people of Lafourche,” Randolph said.

She said not only can hurricanes cause flooding in the parish, but rainfall can as well.

Randolph plans to appeal to the state and federal governments for additional money for pump stations, auxiliary functions and levees.

She said when she took office, a budget had not been passed in three years.

As a result, she and her administration sat down with a couple of outside parties to take a hard look at the budget and found some of the dedicated funds had excess money.

Realizing this, she said they took to the voters whether or not they could use the excess funds for other projects.

“The voters agreed and now we’ve actually been able to provide senior citizens and recreation districts and the animal shelter a lot more funding without having to go back to the people and ask for additional funds,” said Randolph.

She has concerns about rewriting the parish charter. And these concerns revolve around the decentralizing of parish government and a shift back to the old police jury system.

“We need to adhere to the charter – the strictest letter of the charter – which is what the people of this parish voted upon,” she said.

In the history of Lafourche Parish, a parish president has never been re-elected. But, Randolph said this fact doesn’t worry her.

At 54, she has been married for 15 years and has two daughters, one stepson and three grandchildren.

She attended Nicholls State University as an English major and previously graduated from South Lafourche High School.

She has worked for the Lafourche Gazette for 25 years in various positions and owned a public relations company.

While at the Gazette, she lamented the fact that the biggest story she covered was one where her cousin’s daughter was killed by a tornado. This prompted her to go onto something else.

“When news hits that close to home, you find yourself looking for something else to do,” she said.