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Tempers flared at last week’s Terrebonne Parish Council meeting when two contentious and disparate projects — the parish’s lease of parking spaces outside its headquarters from broadcaster Martin Folse and the parish’s entry during a previous administration — became topics of heated comparisons concerning fiscal responsibility.
Parish President Gordon Dove and Councilman Gerald Michel, whose relationship has long been demonstrated as tense and troublesome, locked horns during a discussion about a budget item that required amendment for the parking space lease to be paid for.
A presentation about parking spaces adjacent to the Government Tower by Dove specified which areas would be used for handicapped parking and how spaces would be apportioned.
Referring to a chart that specifies 16 general and 16 regular spaces, Dove presented his plan. Of the designated spaces, ten are for handicapped parking, four for elderly or handicapped parking, three with van access, two veterans spaces and one for expectant mothers.
Michel, a vocal critic of the parking lot deal, asked for a clarification of an element of the lease.
“To get out of the lease it does cost $10,000?” Michel asked.
“Did you read the contract?” Dove snapped.
“Yes, I read the contract,” responded Michel, who said he was seeking greater transparency of the deal for the public.
Some other matters before the council were discussed, after which the topic came up again.
Dove produced a slide that contained the cost of the parking lot lease and the cost of the LEPA plant to the parish, in the interests, he said, of transparency.
The LEPA agreement, made under the administration of former parish president Michel Claudet, who is expected to oppose Dove’s re-election bid. In the past Dove has specifically named Claudet as a participant in a deal he maintains was irresponsible and not in the best interests of the parish.
The parking lot lease, as the slide indicates, costs $3,300 per year, or $110 per day. The figure, Dove’s slide reads, amounts to $3.93 per parking spot per day.
The LEPA contract, as the slide indicates, costs $10,410 per day, or $3.8 million per year.
The slide also states that the deal is “bad for Terrebonne Parish.”
Thus began another round between Dove and Gerald Michel, that got personal.
“You manipulate the information so that you look right, and it doesn’t make you right,” Michel said to Dove.
Dove countered.
“You have worked at six school systems that you can’t keep a job and you’re going to sit here and say I am manipulating this,” Dove said. “I have had enough of you.”
Dove brought up criticism leveled in the past by Michel and others that the parish blew an opportunity to outright buy the parking space while they were still owned by the prior property holder, before Folse made the purchase and then immediately offered a lease to the parish. That contention is strongly denied by Dove, who says the previous owner offered Folse a “right of first refusal” to purchase the property in 2015,
Dove said Michel has not been educated on the LEPA contract, accusing the councilman of lying when stating that he has a grasp of the issue.
“This is all politics and games,” Michel said. “One thing I was taught a long time ago is that someone is willing to lie you can’t argue with them.”
Dove persisted, asking Michel which of the school systems he has worked in taught him that, prompting Council Chairwoman Arlanda Williams to intervene.
“We don’t need to come back with name calling or all of that,” she said. “All of us are adults up here. When I ran there was a sense of pride and dignity up here, let’s keep it that way.”
