Seafood board alternative bill gets mixed reviews

Sen. Norby Chabert began sculpting a new vision for the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board during the last legislative session, and continues a path toward change during the current one.

But the Houma Republican’s new bill, which would place the embattled entity under the auspices of the Lieutenant Governor rather than the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries has been less than well received by fishermen and others in the industry.

Primarily, they say, the problem is that they weren’t consulted.

Nonetheless Chabert – who comes from a family with commercial fishing roots – is moving full speed ahead. He and an increasing number of people in the industry see his bill, if nothing else, as a reasonable alternative to the measure from Rep. Gordon Dove (R-Houma) and Sen. Gerald Long (R-Winnfield) that would strip the board of the power to make its own contracts and in particular to choose its own director, without approval from the Secretary of LDWF, an entity Chabert says should not concern itself with the marketing of seafood in any event.

“Why would you have a department that handles biology and enforcement to do marketing work?” Chabert said after information on his bill became public. “The Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism under the Lieutenant Governor already markets Louisiana, why shouldn’t they market seafood?”

Kimberly Chauvin of Mariah Jade Seafood in the fishing village of Chauvin says she gets that point. But she and some others are distressed because Chabert floated the bill without consulting them.

“Would you do this with the oilfield industries, or with restaurants?” Chauvin said.

Although she no longer sits on the board, Chauvin’s opinions carry weight with the fishermen who now sell shrimp to her and her husband David, at their newly refurbished seafood dock in Dulac, an addition to their buying operation in Chauvin on Bayouside Drive.

If change is a problem for Chauvin, and Chabert’s bill the lesser of two evils when stacked against the one filed by Long and Dove, she says that’s not good enough to win her support.

“I do not want to back the bill because it’s the lesser of two evils,” Chauvin said. “I want to back it only if it is a really good thing for our industry.”

New Orleans seafood dealer Harlan Pierce, an opponent of the Dove-Long bill, is more circumspect about the Chabert measure.

Like Chauvin, Pierce served on the promotion board until this year.

“I haven’t formed an opinion but I would think seafood marketing might do better under the Department of Agriculture,” said Pierce, the promotion board’s former chairman. “They handle crawfish.”

Chabert and other area legislators had talks this past weekend, a lot of it concerning seafood matters, but there is no indication yet of how much support, if any the Chabert bill has picked up.

Visibly demoralized by any suggestion that he would write a bill damaging to an industry so intertwined with his own roots, Chabert said he is convinced the Lieutenant Governor’s office can do a better job overall with seafood marketing.

Chabert said that his bill is – in part – a response to the Long-Dove legislation, although he had already been considering the potential prior to hearing about it.

Dove said he does not see his bill and Chabert’s as opposing measures.

“I wouldn’t want to say my bill conflicts with Norby’s,” Dove said.