The New Iberia City Council narrowly approved a resolution that Mayor Freddie DeCourt hopes will move forward a 17-year-old railroad issue with the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development at Tuesday’s meeting.

A DOTD project to provide several railroad crossings with arms and lights in New Iberia has been in a “standoff” due to a particular crossing on Caroline Street.

The Caroline Street crossing has been a lingering issue for the state, along with a Deare Street crossing, for years due to the department’s desire to close crossing in accordance with a study produced years ago that opined that the city had too many railroad crossings in close proximity to each other.

City government has always been against the closure of crossings, but the Caroline Street issue has long had special opposition. In 2018, residents who lived on the street expressed their desire to keep the crossing open due to the access it provides for emergency services. Due to a nursing home and a number of elderly residents living in the area, many argued the closure of the crossing could have potentially disastrous effects.

However, DOTD has continued to express its desire to close the crossing, and DeCourt said that a state project to provide several other railroad crossings in town with arms and lights has come to a standstill until the Caroline Street crossing issue is resolved.

“DOTD will not quit calling our office, they are asking constantly,” DeCourt said. “I’m trying to get to some conclusion because we need a better working relationship.”

Apart from closing the crossing, DeCourt said the city would have to pay more than $400,000 in order to install arms and lights on the Caroline crossing.

“The people who live there are not for it and I’m not for it either,” Councilwoman Deidre Ledbetter said. “It doesn’t make sense to try to force the city to do something it doesn’t want to do.”

The mayor presented a new option at the meeting, however. DeCourt said the city could offer to pay half of the projected arms and lights costs to DOTD and send that offer in a resolution. DeCourt said the offer would be the first time the city had sent a resolution that wasn’t just opposition to a railroad crossing being removed.

“We’ve never sent them anything but ‘no,’” DeCourt said. “This would be the first time we send them something else.”

DeCourt’s original idea of offering to pay for half of the project was pared down to 20 percent of the costs by the council during the course of an hour-long discussion.

“I can get behind spending $100,000 to help our taxpaying citizens have a better situation,” Councilwoman Deedy Johnson-Reid said.

Other members of the council thought the idea wasn’t fiscally responsible, however.

“I’m fiscally responsible to the people, I think they’re going to do it regardless,” Councilman David Broussard said.

The council voted 3-3 on the proposal, with DeCourt making the deciding vote to approve the resolution.

“I’m voting yes,” he said. “I’m sending them something.”