‘What was your business over there?’: Councilman’s visit to Bayou Towers raises Concerns at meeting

Terrebonne Parish Councilman Gerald Michel’s recent visit to Bayou Towers Senior Center was a topic of discussion at last night’s council meeting, with some alleging an overstep of boundaries and risking exposure to the coronavirus. 

Barry Bonvillain, Housing Authority Chairman, addressed the council first on the situation, claiming Michel visited Bayou Towers on Saturday and knocked on residents’ doors — disturbing some who were sleeping — and used authority he doesn’t have to pressure Nikita Gilton, Houma-Terrebonne Housing Authority Executive Director. “Our executive director does not have to respond to any council member,” he said. 

Councilman Carl “Carlee” Harding also shared his thoughts on the situation. Harding said Gilton felt threatened and that she was wrongfully accused of certain things. 

“To be employed somewhere and to be threatened on your job by someone posing to have all the authority over your well-being — I don’t particularly care for that because it affects people’s food on their table,” Harding said. “Ms. Gilton has shown me nothing but respect…She has [Department of Housing and Urban Development] as her boss, but her tenants are my people.” 

“I had someone come to my house off the second floor,” he continued. “He was so offended how someone can knock on their door like the police and walk in there and want to ask, ‘What’s the temperature of that building?’” 

Michel’s visit got the point to where security had to get involved, Harding said. Bonvillain said they were about to call the police on him. 

At the meeting, Harding then asked Michel: “What was your business over there?” 

Michel said he never once interfered with Gilton and called her on two occasions because of an air conditioning issue. 

According to Michel, this started about six weeks ago when someone in his district called him and said one of their relatives, who lives in Bayou Towers and is very sick, didn’t have air conditioning. Michel said he then called Gilton and texted Parish President Gordon Dove, “and [Dove] responded by saying that it was taken care of. He actually, if I’m not mistaken, copied and pasted the response from the executive director saying it was taken care of.”

The air conditioning problem was not taken care of, Michel said. He doesn’t think Dove and Gilton lied, he added, just that they got false information. 

“Let me make this perfectly clear: I did not go door-to-door,” Michel said of the visit. “There was a tenant there who spoke to some of her neighbors and she invited me on behalf of them, and she came with me to the door that she knew people were open to discussing this problem. And the problem is not solved.” 

When he visited on Saturday it was 80 degrees outside and 78 degrees in the apartments, Michel said. He also said he didn’t knock on the doors of anyone who wasn’t expecting him. 

“Many people who I spoke to said that they’re afraid to speak up because they’re afraid of retaliation. Do I believe that there’ll be retaliation? Honestly, I don’t think so; I couldn’t imagine. But this is the way these people feel,” Michel said.

He continued: “It’s weeks and longer that these air conditioning units are out…They’re afraid to say anything because, I’m told, [with] how much money they’re paying for rent — they can’t go anywhere else ‘cause it’s more. I’m trying to help people. And when that becomes wrong, then something’s wrong with that.” 

Michel also said he was not there as a councilman and the cameras would show him on one floor only. 

Dove also spoke about the incident at the meeting. “On that particular day I get a call from Ms. Gilton: she’s very upset because a councilman is going door-to-door knocking on the second floor and he told the security guard he was going to every floor,” he recalled. 

Dove continued: “I immediately told Ms. Gilton to direct the guard to tell Gerald Michel to leave. If not, call me and I will get the…Sheriff’s Office over there to make him vacate.” According to Dove, Michel left before going to the third floor. 

Dove said he has sent people to check on the air conditioning and it is working fine. 

His biggest concern was the spreading of the coronavirus in Bayou Towers, Dove said — as the facility has had no reported cases. “You cannot go into these facilities, especially during his pandemic, and do that,” Dove said to Michel. “There’s a procedure for everything.” 

Michel did wear a mask but wasn’t wearing gloves, according to the information Dove received that day.

“…I think [you’re] jeopardizing the spreading of the coronavirus by going up there when you got no business there — and that’s my biggest concern,” Dove said. “…To the public too: please stay away from there unless you have business over there ‘cause this thing is not over with.”