Levee district’s future?

Published 6:00 am Friday, April 6, 2018

At their meeting Thursday, the Iberia Parish Levee, Hurricane and Conservation District members asked for some guidance from their appointing bodies about the district’s future. 

The body has had a loss of direction since November, when their bid to place a property tax on Iberia residents for a levee was overwhelmingly voted down. Since then, board Director Ray Fremin stepped down and has since been serving as acting director until the board’s financials are settled. 

Board members are appointed by the cities of New Iberia, Jeanerette, Loreauville and Delcambre, as well as the Port of Iberia, the Twin Port Commission and the Iberia Parish Council. However, only the Parish Council had members present at the meeting. 

“What we as a board tried to do was get a discussion from the appointing entities,” board member Ben Langlinais said. “Since the election, we don’t have any funding source so we’re very limited with what this board could accomplish. We would like some guidance and some direction.”

Since the election, there have been suggestions to dissolve the board. However, because the district was created by state legislation, it would take state legislation to dissolve it.

During the discussion, there was talk of the board serving in an advisory capacity to the appointing bodies, but with some members resigning who have served for years with the district. There was concern that the board would begin to lose its voice for Iberia Parish. 

James Stein, another board member, said the board was created as one of the nine coastal parishes to have a levee district with a lot of optimism. But with the failure to pass a funding mechanism and other parishes recently forming coalitions, Iberia Parish may have less of a voice. 

“We’re concerned we’re going to lose our voice here” Stein said. “We don’t want all that water from up north coming on us. That voice is going to be lost because all this knowledge is going to go away, everything we’ve been meeting for 10 years on will be gone.”

Stein also that every parish in Louisiana voted to allocate GOMESA federal money for coastal restoration to coastal parishes like Iberia Parish. Without a funding mechanism to match the grants, he said, “The people of the parish voted to not have any coastal protection.”

“If the federal government walked in tomorrow and said ‘’I’m going to build your system for $500 million,’ we’d have to tell them ‘No thank you,’” Stein said. “We don’t have a lawn mower to cut it, we don’t have someone to open the gate for a hurricane, this parish missed the point.

“Where else do we turn as a board? We were as honest and brought as much knowledge to the voters and they overwhelmingly rejected it, but the state of Louisiana did not.”

Iberia Parish President Larry Richard suggested a possible alliance between the board and entities like the Acadiana Metropolitan Planning Organization, which aids in matching funds for state projects. 

There are more practical concerns, too, Stein said. Without a funding mechanism, the board has no one to pay for basic jobs that need to be done as a state entity. 

“Who puts together the agendas? Who publishes the minutes?” one of the board members asked. 

Langlinais summed it up with a laugh by saying that the board has a solution to fix the flooding problems in Iberia, but no money to accomplish it.

“This board’s going to continue to exist, but the (appointing) entities will have to make sure that it exists,” Langlinais said.