LDWF office closure on hold

Published 5:00 am Sunday, March 25, 2018

BATON ROUGE – Iberia Parish still doesn’t have much in the way of a guarantee that it’s Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Office will remain open, but it has more than it did two weeks ago when the deal seemed all but done. 

An assortment of parish leaders met at the Louisiana State Capitol Thursday morning for a meeting with Gov. John Bel Edwards concerning LDWF’s closure in New Iberia. Edwards was scheduled to sign an agreement for a $7 million facility in Lafayette that was meant to consolidate Iberia, St. Landry and Lafayette LDWF offices into one giant facility. 

There were several reasons for the consolidation, according to LDWF Secretary Jack Montoucet who spoke to a packed house of concerned Iberia Parish residents last week regarding the closure. 

The new Lafayette facility was meant to be a second homebase for the state department, so that in the event the Baton Rouge facility could not be used there would be a second building LDWF could work out of in the case of a crisis. 

Montoucet said it also came down to dollars. The repairs needed for the New Iberia and Opelousas offices, Montoucet said, were less cost effective than simply buying a new facility. 

That didn’t sit well for many Iberia residents at that meeting, many who argued that Iberia has better access to waterways than Lafayette, and another building simply could have been purchased in Iberia Parish. 

The business that LDWF does in Iberia, as well as the the 20 or so local LDWF workers who would have to relocate to Lafayette to do their job, didn’t make local public officials happy either. 

Offers to donate land to the LDWF were even discussed at the meeting, which would have been vastly more cost effective than a relocation to another parish. 

All of those factors culminated in the Baton Rouge meeting with the governor, where a joint proposal was made by Iberia Parish Government, the Iberia Industrial Development Foundation, the Port of Iberia and South Louisiana Community College to relocate the office to the Teche Area Campus Building on the SLCC campus, a 58,000-square-foot building on a 31-acre site. 

According to the proposal made, the building has truck loading and docking facilities and is adjacent to the Acadiana Regional Airport. Port of Iberia Director Craig Romero even offered to throw in an enclosed boat slip at the port for free. 

Other benefits to the site include its location, which is less than one mile away from the future I-49 corridor. The building is already owned by the state, and is adjacent to the ARA which would make it ideal for emergency situations. 

Parish President Larry Richard said he received a call from Montoucet Thursday evening, where Montoucet said the proposal is being reviewed. 

“I think we put something on the table, and the governor and the secretary certainly appeared to be receptive,” Richard said. “We don’t want to lose anything in Iberia Parish, whether it’s an employee or economic development.”

A final answer from LDWF regarding the proposal is slated to come on April 5. 

The situation is a unique one for Iberia Parish, particularly because the situation was so urgent and received such unanimous support from government offices and organizations all over the parish. 

Although the deal has seemingly been in the works for several months, many parish leaders weren’t even aware that the office was closing. 

The situation came to light at an Iberia Parish Council meeting two weeks ago, when Councilman Warren Gachassin introduced a resolution urging the state to keep the office open. 

After the unanimous support of the council, city governments like New Iberia, Jeanerette, Loreauville and Delcambre joined in and voiced their opposition to the closure with letters to the governor.  

“Lake Dauterive is an important waterway for Loreauville,” Loreauville Mayor Brad Clifton said Saturday. “We feel this is going to lower the response time.”

It’s a unity that Iberia hasn’t seen in some time, and many involved with the process have remarked at the cooperation taking place from local government and business entities to keep the LDWF in New Iberia. 

“This is people from all over the parish building for a common cause,” Gachassin said. “And this is where we should continue to build. Tear down the defenses between the municipalities and the parish governments and let’s work together.”