Gov. Kathleen Blanco announced her intentions this week as a contentious debate continues to flare up regarding a series of south Louisiana levees that failed in the face of Hurricane Katrina.
There are 24 levee districts that operate individual boards in the state to administer flood control programs. Most have their own budget with very little oversight, as well as full-time staffs and policing powers in certain cases.
A group of Republican lawmakers wants to consolidate all the boards and place full control in the lap of the state, in hopes that the move will impress Congress enough to dole out additional dollars. Levee boards around the state have built up various reputations, ranging from corrupt to pristine.
But any proposal to eliminate the boards, along with their memberships, could face stiff opposition from local lawmakers. "Combining all of the levee boards is a drastic step," said Rep. Damon Baldone of Houma. "I have faith in our levee boards in Terrebonne and Lafourche. I think it'll be a step back to combine them all."
Windell Curole, manager of the South Lafourche Levee District and a member of the Association of Levee Boards of Louisiana, believes the proposal is rooted firmly in politics. As officials continue to investigate the causes behind failures in St. Bernard and Orleans parishes, they may be trying to shift blame down, Curole says. But he adds that the end result of stripping local boards of oversight will only be a muddled system.
"The concept of always having consistency is a good idea," he says. "But when you're dealing with flood issues you need a local will to make things happen. It takes a local group to see the importance of something big. Administrations come and go, but we're always here. You don't have local will on the state level."
Rep. Warren Triche of Chackbay wouldn't mind seeing all of the levee boards disbanded. "All these levee board members, except for a small handful, aren't worth a flip," he says. "They spend taxpayers' money and don't have to answer to no one. If you put one person in an authoritative position, at least they would have to be responsible to the people."
Triche says the debate has all the makings for a barnburner, one that will surely create tension on both sides. "Some of these levee board commissioners would sell their mothers' gold teeth to keep their positions," Triche says.
New Orleans is at the center of the debate. Critics blame a variety of local agencies in the Crescent City with levee oversight for the recent flooding. Additionally, Orleans Levee Board President Jim Huey resigned last week amid allegations he awarded contracts to relatives and overstepped his own authority.
Terrebonne Levee Director Jerome Zeringue says he would support an oversight system like the one that exists between the Board of Secondary and Elementary Education and parish school boards, where the local entity still has some control over finances and priorities.
"I think lumping everything together is very shortsighted," Zeringue says. "It's ineffectual to vest all the authority in a state agency without the input and support of the locals."
If that were to happen, Zeringue says he fears south Louisiana parishes would be battling for attention against those in the north, where the challenges are completely different.
Turning the House and Senate interim committees on Coastal Restoration and Flood Control into standing committees that could pass out legislation is being considered, says Dupre. It would provide a legislative hub for the tens of billions of dollars worth of related projects.
The top projects being discussed include a massive $20 billion levee system stretching from Morgan City to Slidell. It would include several ongoing projects including Morganza-to-the-Gulf, a 72-mile system of locks, levees, floodgates and dams.
The centerpiece of the proposal, Morganza is estimated to cost $1.7 billion to protect from Category 5 storms and will take years to build. Construction is set to begin soon on the the most-vulnerable areas of the parish, including Pointe-aux-Chenes and lower Montegut.
Additionally, levees need to be repaired in southern Terrebonne, where Hurricane Rita made landfall. The storm's southeast winds overwhelmed the area's system of drainage levees, busting 33 gaps in Chauvin alone and pushing water into homes.
Rep. Loulan Pitre of Cut Off says all the debates in the upcoming special session could get contentious, which causes him to worry that major problems facing locales like Terrebonne and Lafourche, challenges that have been present for decades, could go overlooked.
"I fear that the focus on remediation between the two hurricanes may take attention away from things that should have been done some time ago, like coastal restoration, like upgrading the levee protections and like highways," he says. "We can't afford to do that. We need to use the devastation to reassess everything and to reassess what we want Louisiana to look like."
Jeremy Alford can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
MAY 22 This post was written the day after the second line shooting in NOLA, by Brentin Mock. Mock is a friend of Deb "Big Red" Cotton, a blogger who was shot in the back and was seriously injured. It is a raw, emotional piece of writing, something the writer obviously felt he needed to get off his chest. But it raises questions that can't be easily dismissed, and might give some insight into where the source of these events truly is.
MAY 22 In this Baton Rouge Business Report post, Rolfe McCollister considers the privatization of bus service in Baton Rouge. After decades of under-funding, it is a mess, and although a tax (partially) passed last year, improvement hasn't happened yet. McCollister apparently feels it is time to let private business get in on the transit business.
MAY 22 This post on Bayou Buzz by Jeff Crouere urges the defeat of a bill that would grant modest pay increases over the next several years to the state's judges and clerks of court. The state is in no position to fund pay hikes, Crouere argues, with the pay increases costing a total of $9 million over several years. It sends the wrong message to the (proverbial) hard-working people of Louisiana, he says.
MAY 22 The Advocate reports here that State Treasurer John Kennedy is complaining about a meeting of the corporation that oversees the state's tobacco settlement. The Governor wanted it restructured, and he has some support, but not a lot. The corporation agreed with his plan, but Kennedy didn't, and it appears that the meeting was noticed in a manner completely different than that of all previous meetings. Kennedy's given to hyperbole, but in this case the fish don't smell too fresh.
MAY 22 In this Advocate story, Carencro Police Chief Carlos Stout says the recent federal indictment of a strip club owner is all wrong. The indictment alleges that drugs and prostitution went on with impunity because club staff made arrangements with "local" police. Stout says it never happened, and while his cops do work security in the parking lot, they're not allowed inside.
MAY 22 This amusing post in DIG Baton Rouge recounts an ad that ran on Craig's List recently; the advertiser was seeking tenants for a Beauregard Town house. He knew his market, and wrote an ad that the most ironical hipster couldn't resist. Apparently, he really did know his market, because the ad worked like a charm.
MAY 22 In this post in The Lens, Mark Moseley comments on the rhetoric Gov. Jindal employed in trying to save his tax "reform" package. One interesting point concerns Jindal's use of his brother, Nikesh, in a little story. Nikesh left Louisiana because of his inability to get a decent job, the story goes, but the story won't hold water: Nikesh lives in DC, which has an income tax level comparable to Louisiana, Moseley says. If income taxes caused the dismal situation, it should exist in DC too. Right?
MAY 22 This post by columnist John Maginnis traces the trajectory of the bill that would fund construction at community and technical colleges -- and bypass the Board of Regents and traditional higher ed funding mechanisms. Sure, it will bust the legislature's self-imposed debt limit, but some leges feel that there's more need (because there is more growth) in the community and technical college area than in the university area, he says.
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