TEDA reprieve in the works

Terrebonne Parish’s legislatively-created economic development agency – presumed a goner after exclusion from this year’s government budget – shows signs of continued and potentially long life.

Parish President Michel Claudet – seen for months as the Terrebonne Economic Development Authority’s nemesis – has told members of its board that he is willing to aid a restructure of the agency.

Claudet discussed some details of his proposal during a private meeting Friday; additional details were disclosed during a committee meeting Monday, at which board members were preparing to talk about the potential of severance pay for its office staff.

“I think there need to be some changes in the composition of the board,” Claudet said during an unannounced appearance at the committee meeting, held at TEDA headquarters on Roussell Street.

Claudet invited board members to move the organization to the Government Tower building; He also said that money the parish seeks to get returned from its funding of TEDA this year will be returned to the organization after its revision and reconstruction.

“We would expect that we would have a cooperative endeavor agreement at that time,” Claudet said.

The parish’s long-standing cooperative endeavor agreement with TEDA expires in February. The organization has depended on a split of the parish’s occupational license fees for survival; the parish’s refusal to extend the agreement coupled with a clear statement in Claudet’s 2014 budget meant that TEDA would have no money to work with.

The promise that money would be returned softened the opinions of some board members as to cooperation with the parish, attorney Louis “Bubba” Watkins in particular.

The parish still has plans to hire its own economic development chief. But Claudet’s statements – while not expounded upon – indicate that TEDA would continue or could continue in some form of tandem capacity.

Conversations on Monday also gave indications that the Terrebonne Chamber of Commerce and the South Central Industrial Association, the parish’s most powerful business organizations, would be involved more directly with TEDA’s future.

Perhaps the biggest sticking point in the agency’s relations with the parish government – the continued service of its executive director – became a non-issue in October. Steve Vassallo, not seen as a Claudet favorite, resigned his position. The TEDA board later dismissed him prior to the expiration of his contract, allowing him to leave while still getting the balance of his pay.

Vassallo had initially announced a Dec. 24 departure. An admitted lightning rod for Claudet’s scorn of TEDA, Vassallo now has a position involving development of global economic partnerships and is currently in Oxford, Miss.

The full TEDA board meets Jan. 8 at which time the committee’s recommendations will be presented, and that will mark the first time all directors will have been informed formally of Claudet’s olive branch.

“I think you are going to be impressed by what takes place,” said Claudet, who expects to work with legislators who will reshape TEDA’s future plans.