Monies to help purchase Taser packages, surveillance equipment, training and pay OT
September 14, 2010
Amery Arcement
September 16, 2010
The smell of fresh paint might still linger in the air when clients walk into the new District Attorney’s office, adjacent to Southland Mall, but it is still best known as the old Kirschman’s Furniture Store.
“I’m debating on taking the Kirschman’s sign down because everybody knows where the Kirschman’s building is,” District Attorney Joe Waitz said of the former showroom that he purchased just after hurricane Katrina.
“They closed down and never reopened,” Waitz said, noting that he thought it was a good opportunity to bring all of the parish’s DA offices together in one building.
“Part of the problem with the DA office is that we’re scattered all over town,” Waitz said. Some DA buildings were located on Main Street, while others, such as the DWI and drug courts were situated off of Gabasse Street.
“I was all over creation,” he said.
In addition to inconveniencing many clients who would have to travel to multiple buildings, the buildings were also overcrowded and needed a lot of repair work.
“Between the drug court and the DWI court, we were having groups in the hallways and using my office [for meetings] and having to balance all the different times and days when we could have group,” said Danny J. Smith, Drug Court coordinator.
And the roof was also a problem.
“When it would rain, it would rain on my desk,” Smith said.
The former Kirschman’s building had a price of approximately $1.3 million, an expense Waitz said his office wouldn’t have been able to afford without the help of the Children’s Advocacy Center, a non-profit organization.
“We only had to come up with $750,000 in cash and the rest was taken off as a tax credit because we borrowed through the Children’s Advocacy Center, and they got a tax credit. So it was beneficial to them and beneficial to us,” the district attorney said.
And thanks to the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office, the approximately 30,000-square-foot building was completely gutted and remodeled inside by inmates who were supervised by Maj. Tommy Odom.
“These were people with drug offenses, not murders or crimes of violence,” Waitz said of the workers. “Some of these guys already had the skills. Most of them were carpenters and electricians that just made bad decisions.”
And the inmates who didn’t have any construction skill sets left the project a little more knowledgeable, according to Sheriff Vernon Bourgeois.
“The best thing about the project was out of the 40 to 50 inmates we had, about 75 percent of them had no skills of doing dry wall or framing,” Bourgeois said. “So they get to leave with some skills. I guarantee they will bring people to the building and take pride in the building and say ‘I did that.'”
Waitz explained one inmate stayed on the project for two months after his sentence was up, just because he wanted to finish.
The inside remodeling took approximately seven months, and according to Waitz, it almost didn’t happen.
“I bought this thing probably four years ago and I sat on it because I had mixed emotions about doing this,” he said. “I never could envision how nice it would come out, the detail and quality is really amazing.”
It isn’t just the quality that has people buzzing about the new building; it’s the convenience of having all operations in one location.
“Our clients are exceptionally excited about our new building, because in the past they had to go to one building for treatment group, then go to another building to pay their fees and to take drug tests – now they can do it all in one stop,” Smith said, who added he has 12 classrooms in the new building set aside for various groups and treatment, and, on Mondays, they are all full.
Child Support Services is the last to migrate over to the new location, and should move within the next two months, according to Waitz.
“We have to wait for fiber optic cables for the computer system that links us into the state, and we have to have that in order to operate,” he said.
“When we get child support it’s going to be a new adjustment,” secretary Marie Lapeyre said. “But it’s working out pretty well so far.”
Waitz said he has an office in the new location, but hasn’t moved any furniture in yet and continues to work out of the courthouse in downtown Houma.
“I may start spending a couple of days [at the new site] a week. We’re going to see what the need is,” he said.
In the meantime, employees at the new location are positively adjusting to their new surroundings.
“We’re happy to be here and I think we’re going to be good neighbors,” Smith said.
Terrebonne District Attorney Joe Waitz talks to secretary Marie Lapeyre about his staff’s adjustment to the parish’s new hub for legal services provided by his office. JENNA FARMER
