In October 2011 the Lafayette City-Parish Council played election year politics, ignoring a warning by Lafayette City-Parish Attorney Mike Hebert that the legal liability of revoking a valid permit to build a waste transfer facility in unincorporated north Lafayette Parish “could extend into the millions of dollars.”
Hebert’s was an opinion shared by most legal minds. However, faced with an angry constituency in the Sunbeam Lane neighborhood, which is in City-Parish Councilman Brandon Shelvin’s District 3, and an election just days away, the council voted unanimously to revoke Waste Facilities of Lafayette’s permit. At the time, the company had already made a substantial monetary investment: It had puchased the land and was in the middle of constructing the waste transfer station.
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| When the Lafayette council voted to revoke Waste Facilities' legally obtained permit in late 2011, the company had already purchased the Sunbeam Lane property and construction was well under way. |
The result of the October 2011 vote is that the council will soon pull from your tax dollars to pay for its mistake — in much the same fashion it paid for repealing a zoning change that blocked Greyhound Bus Lines’ move to Moss Street in 2008 (the settlement with Greyhound was finalized a month before the Sunbeam Lane project was blocked). But this time around, according to one source familiar with the negotiations, the price tag is upwards of $3 million. And that’s only a partial settlement. Progressive Waste Solutions, which had a contract to lease the facility from Waste Facilities, still has a federal suit pending.
Waste Facilities maintained throughout the process that it followed all guidelines when applying for a local permit to build the facility on a 16-acre site. The property is located on a small island of unincorporated land.
The facility was to be a daily stopping point for truckloads of garbage being hauled from surrounding areas so that the waste could then be trucked to a landfill outside of the parish. Just as the company was receiving its final approval from Lafayette Consolidated Government’s Planning, Zoning and Codes Department, nearly 10 months after the permitting process had begun, someone on Sunbeam Lane caught wind of the plans. Neighbors who feared the high volume of large trucks coming in and out of narrow roads leading to the Sunbeam Lane facility, noise from those trucks, the stinch of garbage and trash blowing into their yards complained to council members.
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| Councilman Brandon Shelvin led a neighborhood protest against the waste transfer facility on Oct. 14, 2011. |
Sunbeam Lane residents also were livid that they were never notified by the project’s developers or anyone else with a hand in the project — including LCG’s permitting office — that a facility of this type was moving in. Regulations governing unincorporated Lafayette Parish do not require public hearings or notifications for projects of this type.
Read more on the Sunbeam Lane saga and unfounded conspiracy theories surrounding it here.
While the council voted Tuesday to approve the partial settlement, it has not been finalized, and no one will publicly disclose the amount. The council must approve the final settlement, at which time the dollar figure is likely to be made public. Had the case gone to trial, the damages could have been substantially higher.
The Sunbeam Lane debacle is a fitting example of the need for a comprehensive plan that addresses land-use throughout the entire the parish. It’s the only way to protect everyone’s interests — and avoid another flawed vote that costs taxpayers millions of dollars.
JUNE 17 If anyone ever wonders why Saints fans hate Atlanta with a capital H, here's a good indication. Radio "professionals" at an Atlanta station created an entire segment around making fun of former Saints player Steve Gleason, who is now paralyzed by ALS. Listen, nobody's ever accused DJs of being rocket scientists. But how could someone think it is amusing to pretend to ask a man with a degenerative, fatal disease if he will be alive next week? The DJs have been fired, and are now whining about how gutless their former bosses are. Wow.
JUNE 18 Here's the latest from the Advocate on the fatal hit-and-run accident allegedly involving the president of the Livingston Parish School Board. He's accused by police of hitting a 21-year-old man on a highway early Sunday and driving away. The man died at a hospital later. On Monday, police seized the president's truck and towed it away. But he's available for board meetings: apparently a $500 bond is sufficient for this type of thing over in St. Helena Parish.
JUNE 18 Former broadcast journalist Griffin Scott has posted this plea on his blog for financial assistance from his readers. Scott, who says he was fired after he wrote something fairly innocuous (for Facebook) on his wall, is suing a media giant for his job back. He's framed himself as David going after a bloated media giant, and he's probably not far off.
JUNE 18 Here's a fairly absurd column posted on DIG Magazine about the completely absurd practice of naming killer storms. Tornadoes don't have names. Blizzards don't have names. But hurricanes do, and there's a big process to bestow them, Jacques Cormery writes. He's right about the crazy assemblage of names -- this year, there's everything from Tanya to Humberto -- and his idea that we don't waste good names on killer storms is a good one.
JUNE 17 Political columnist John Maginnis has some advice for Louisiana Republicans: grow up. After the schism that occurred in this past session - fiscal hawks teaming up with Democrats to spank the Republican "majority" and hand Gov. Jindal his, er, aspirations for continued solon control -- they need to figure out how to get along with each other, Maginnis writes.
JUNE 17 Here's the Picayune's obit story for Dorothy 'Miss Dot' Domilise, the lady who made poboys at the uptown restaurant that bears her name. Miss Dot moved to New Orleans during World War II, where she met and married her husband Sam. When she passed away Friday she was 90, and had spent more than 60 of those years working at the restaurant on Annunciation Street.
JUNE 17 This editorial in the Advocate speaks in favor of the consent decrees that have federal judges overseeing police operations and the sheriff's parish prison in New Orleans. Mayor Landrieu and Sheriff Gusman can't get along, so outside forces, like the Inspector General and the judges, are needed to make sure things run right, the editorial opines.
JUNE 18 Here's a post from Manny Schewitz on Forward Progressives that is good for a chuckle. Manny had an epiphany back in November, and is sharing it with us today: he believes that Fox "News" is killing the GOP by pandering to right wing nuts. Now, don't get it twisted: Manny's not broke up about it. He says he enjoys watching the downward spiral with a shot of whiskey and "a schadenfreude chaser."
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