Mayor LaToya Cantrell has issued a press release that seems to blame Lakeview residents and their political leaders for delays on a complicated project that would rework drainage in Lakeview, Lake Vista, City Park and other neighborhoods in that area. Now, Cantrell herself does not have a stellar record herself when it comes to hitting deadlines like the one she’s now talking about. I asked District A City Councilman Joe Giarrusso on the show to explain what’s going on.
Joe, were you guys surprised by this release? I was reading through the story, and I thought it seemed as though most everybody thought they were on the same page.
I was completely surprised and caught off guard. There is an agreement! That's what I told the paper the other day, that I was totally confused. The city, through the Department of Public Works, the Deputy CAO, the park, the Sewerage and Water Board, myself and Councilmember Green all sat around a table and discussed what all the issues were. Obviously we want to be good stewards of money and make sure that it's being used correctly. The agreement that we reached was that number one, there was a concern that this federal money needed to go out within the next 45 days or would be moved elsewhere. The concern for me is always, if you're moving money from one place to another project, that we have a commitment that if something happens in the future, we'll get that money back.
And the city agreed to that. So the money may be shifted to another project in Broadmoor and other places, but the city committed to ensuring that the $18 million would come back to the lakefront when it was appropriate. I'm also owed a drainage study from the flooding that occurred in Lakeview, both on Mother's Day in 2019 and after Ida, and City Park is gonna do a master planning process as part of all of its work with green infrastructure and other things. And the idea was that we just roll all of these things together, get the draining study completed, make sure we do the necessary public outreach, let City Park do their master planning process. I sent an email the next day to everybody - it's a CYA email - it says, ‘Below is confirmation of our discussion, please let me know if anything's wrong or if we need clarity.’ And nobody said anything about it. So in my mind, there is an absolute agreement between all of the stakeholders here about what's going to happen. We're gonna move forward as is appropriate for everybody and make sure people across the city, whether they're in Broadmoor or Lake Vista or St Roch or Lakeview are protected.
So what exactly did Lakeview residents do or say to make the Mayor think that they're trying to delay this project? Obviously that would not be in their best interest, right? I mean the bottom line is they just want water off the damn street, right?
They want water off the street. Look, I'm gonna try and be as diplomatic as I possibly can - there are a number of issues, some of which are historical and inherited and some of which are just… the way that they are. So let's start with one issue. Number one is right now our draining system, unlike Jefferson Parish, which has one central system, is managed between both DPW and SWBNO. So that already causes consternation about who's really in charge. Now we're adding a third party - the park - to the mix.
And City Park is actually a state agency, right?
Correct. And one of the other major concerns of everyone is - who's gonna be responsible for this? How many times have we talked about this, whether it's roads or buildings… having the initial capital injection is incredibly important, but then the next most important piece, maybe even the more important piece, is who's gonna be responsible for operating and maintaining it? There are significant questions about who is gonna be responsible and how much it is gonna cost every year. Where is that money gonna come from?
It seemed to me that this may have been a preemptive move by the mayor just for PR purposes. My suspicion is that this was more about another missed deadline and that she didn't want to have to deal with that. I can't imagine any other motivation to go and attack taxpayers for asking legitimate questions. You have a compounding effect here, right? Every time you miss a deadline, people get more skeptical and cynical about statements that you're gonna make in the future about other deadlines and the ability to deliver on any of these projects. And if she doesn't realize that by now, after a fairly tumultuous first four years of her administration, she's got blinders on. I don't know how else to say it.
