If there was anyone who doubted that the Parish was attempting to negotiate with the Port of New Orleans, there is no possible reason to doubt that any more.
At the January 16, 2025, the ever vigilant Mr. Everhardt professionally and politely questioned Mr. Lauga when given the opportunity during the Capital Improvements update. Mr. Everhardt essentially asked, now that the Parish can no longer negotiate (or discuss) a deal (or proposal) to accept $4,000,000 in exchange for allowing the Port to tie in to our sewer system, where is the Parish going to get that $4,000,000?
Lauga’s response? Essentially that there was no plan B and that it was going to be up to the council to figure out how to fill that funding shortfall. Take a listen for yourself.
No one can reasonably doubt at this point that Parish was planning to allow the Port of New Orleans to tie in to our sewer system in exchange for the $4,000,000 to make up for the funding shortfall. There was no plan B then and there is still no plan B now.
Now that we have this point established, we really need to start asking some serious questions:
- How did we end up in this situation to begin with?
- Was this whole project done just to have a line for the Port of New Orleans to tie in to?
- Why did we start a project that we did not have the money to finish?
- Was this an intentional act of financial sabotage to put the Parish in a tight spot to force us to go broker a deal with the Port of New Orleans?
- What can we do to make sure that the Parish still doesn’t try to broker this deal with the Port of New Orleans?
Expect Mr. Everhardt to ask these tough questions, but don’t expect Parish Government to answer these questions.
