– St. Martin Parish President Pete Delcambre and Parish Council Chairman Chris Tauzin clashed over cutting back on the proposed parish government annex building project at the council’s Administrative/Finance Committee meeting this past Wednesday so that funds could be used for other needed projects without dipping into the parish’s emergency fund.
The parish president asked for clarification of the council’s wishes for the annex building project, thinking the project was taken off the board at the last council meeting. Tauzin said he thinks the council did not mean to take the project off the board, but to go back to the initial plan and reduce the size of the planned building so the funds can be used for projects such as Box Car Road, which is seeing its embankments washed out by the Vermilion Bayou, and other drainage and road projects that must be dealt with this year.
Delcambre had suggested emergency funds might be tapped for Box Car Road, but Tauzin said that money is meant for hurricanes and flooding and he’d prefer to cut back on the expansion project.
“We’ve got a lot of projects that came up in this five-year period that we’re looking at and we’ve got a lot of funding we’re gong to have to come up with,” Tauzin said. “If we can decrease this thing (the annex building costs) by about a half a million dollars, that’s money we can use in other ares of the parish for drainage projects, for road projects.”
He said making cuts in other projects shows residents that the council is willing to make cuts in areas that are wanted but not needed, as the road and drainage projects are needed.
“So it’s not a done deal,” Tauzin said. “It’s brought up to the council to decide for a discussion. If we decide we want to go that route and that they want to stick with the project as is, we’ll do that.”
The parish doesn’t have money to do all that it wants to do so must decide what projects it wants and what projects it needs.
Delcambre said the money for Box Car Road came from a $1.5 million that was earmarked for Box Car Road emergency funds.
“The annexation project has been online for going on five years and approved by both the previous council and this current council,” he said.
Two years ago $800,000 was set aside for an annex building project, with another $1 million received from the state’s capital outlay funds, and $150,000 in architecture fees and another $100,000 in costs have been spent already on the annex project.
If the project is changed, he said,that $250,000 will be tossed aside.
“We have no idea what that (substitute) project will entail,” Delcambre said. “We have no idea what the project will cost. I do know that there will be additional architectural fees and soft costs involved, so we will probably be looking at $350,000 or $400,000 of architectural fees on a million dollar project. Forty percent of this new project that you’re imposing will be architectural fees only. And you’re looking at just a storage facility. In the forward thinking of St. Martin Parish Government, you’re not just looking at a present need. Five years ago you said we had a need to expand. Five years down the road you’re saying we don’t have a need to expand. I’m not connecting the dots.”
Annex
Delcambre added that $3.2 million in excess video poker funds and another $1.5-$2 million will be added in six months to the emergency funds.
“Box Car is an emergency,” he said. “We’ve all deemed that.”
There also is $1 million in ARPA funds available for other projects, he said.
“You know, there will always be projects in which we go over, and there will always be projects in which we go under,” Delcambre said. “Can we fund all of the necessary projects at this time right now? You have never been in that position, nor will you ever be in that position. I think to take this project, this forward thinking project that will be needed for St. Martin Parish Government administration, that once built will service St. Martin Parish Government for the next 20 years, I think to take this off of the record right now as it has already been funded, has been approved time after time over a four year period by both previous and present council, to take that project off of the board right now, in losing $400,000 of architectural fees, I don’t think it’s a very efficient way to use parish money, public money.”
District 3 Councilwoman Tangie Narcisse said the council voted for the full annex project and discussed it later as well with other motions.
“We never had many questions or doubts about the costs,” she said.
The funds for the Box Car Road emergency work are available, she said.
“But to come back and start taking back things that we’ve approved and we were all excited for, and just like the parish president said, it was a need then, but now all of a sudden it’s not a need? That’s not making much sense. If it’s a change in attitude or just who’s here, but when Mr. (Chester) Cedars (former parish president) was here, we didn’t have that much discussion. It was quiet. I’m not looking for the parish to go backwards. I’m looking for our constituents to say, if they said it up here, we can take their word at it.”
District 7 Councilman Vincent Alexander said that after reading a letter from parish attorney Lee Durio, he feels the council needs to continue with the project as approved.
Durio said the letter was prompted because the parish had been sued over the project already after rejecting bids on the project, but that lawsuit was dismissed at no cost to the parish.
The council has the right to change its budget for the project, he said. The timeline moving forward is what’s important. Whether the council passes the current budget, there will be no issues. If the council changes the budget at its early June meeting, there might be problems if the project does not move forward quickly under an amended budget.
“As pointed out at our regular meeting, that resolution was passed unanimously by the council, publicly confirmed that we have the money, that money’s not the problem,” Durio said. “So that’s the red eye for me if this subsequently ends up in litigation, is that we’re talking about potential budget issues but everyone up here also said two weeks ago, money wasn’t a problem. So that’s the problem under scenario three as indicated in my letter on how this is going to play out. This is a lot of money. Someone’s going to want this project.”
Tauzin criticized Delcambre for putting the project out for bid last week when he knew that the project was going to be discussed at the committee meetings.
“We shouldn’t have went out to bid until these discussions were done,” Tauzin said. “But Parish President Delcambre chose to put it out for bid last week.”
“Did everybody up here vote unanimously on that resolution?” Delcambre asked.
Tauzin said Delcambre knew the issue was on the agenda and didn’t call him about it. Delcambre responded that the phone works both ways and Tauzin could have called him to discuss the matter.
‘You never reached out,” Tauzin said. “So at the same time you sent it out for bid last week knowing that this thing was up for discussion. So you put us in a position to where if we do it right now that we probably don’t have the time to be able to come back because if we do it (change the budget), we’re probably not going to have enough time to call a special meeting because you planned it just right.”
“I put you in a position?” Delcambre asked.
“You put the whole council in a position,” Tauzin said.
“Y’all approved the budget,” Delcambre responded. “Y’all approved the project.”
“We approved the project when we didn’t have the need that we have in the parish right now,” Tauzin said.
Tauzin then brought up Section 28 Road not being put in the capital outlay requests, which he said means the parish must spend its own money on it.
“We’ve got to start finding money seriously now, either that or we’ve go to the taxpayers to find us some more money,” Tauzin said. “So the easiest thing to do is start cutting projects we don’t need. We don’t need a Taj Mahal back there with a whole big parking lot, moving everybody’s office spaces. We need file spaces. When Chester first initially talked about this and it hasn’t been five years, the thing was that we were going to build something to be able to put file rooms for Sean and his people to have their paperwork in and for us to have our paperwork in.”
The original specs were $1.3 million, Tauzin said.
“We never intended to go and build what the architect came up with. That’s not what we agreed to build,” Tauzin said.
Delcambre said Tauzin is the only one saying it was $1.3 million allocated. Other previous council members and Cedars himself have told Delcambre it was for $1.844 million. When Delcambre arrived it had been approved at that level, by a unanimous vote, and the $1.3 million figure is only in Tauzin’s memory.
“When I came in it was $1.844 (million), it was budgeted, it was approved, it was approved by the unanimous decision of this council and of the previous council,” Delcambre said. “And as such when it gets to a position of budgeted project and put into the hands of the executor, it is my duty to then move it forward, bring a project to the table, and get it bid out, and then it is under my auspice to bring it to fruition.
“That is my job. Your job is to hold the purse strings and to approve the project, which the council did. My job is to take that project, get it architected, get it built, and then move on to the next. And that’s exactly what I did. I was confused when a resolution giving total acceptance to FP&C (state Office of Facility Planning and Control). FP&C with that directive said that ‘you’re good to go.’ I have FP&C approval, I have a resolution of 12-24 saying that I have the authority to bid out and go out to project, and that’s exactly what I did. Exactly what I did. All within the letter of the law. All with the acceptance of the council. Where did I go wrong, Mr. Tauzin?”
“You knew we were going to bring it up in discussion,” Tauzin said. “You could have waited to go out for bid after this discussion was held. But you didn’t. You chose to send it out for bid last week.”
“Why did you accept (the resolution)? Why did you press the green button?” Delcambre asked.
“Because we would have lost the capital funding,” Tauzin said. “You knew that because y’all messed up on the administrative side on the first round of bids and that’s why we had to cancel the bids.”
Delcambre said that the council was kept up on what was being done with four monthly updates beginning in February 2024, and was never approached by anyone on the council about design questions or issues until the final specifications were brought to the table.
District 6 Councilman Corey Melancon said he understood where both Delcambre and Tauzin were coming from but that council needed to step back from the heated discussion and realize it’s okay to readjust and discuss whether the parish government wanted to go through with a project or change it.
“I think we have a strong parish government and I just think we need to communicate a little better and be a little more open and transparent with each other,” Melancon said.
Coming back to discuss it is just being smart with tax money, he said.
“All this bickering and making snide remarks and comments about holding back this and that, and all this foolishness, that makes us look worse than having a debate right now,” Melancon said.
Durio said that if the council does decide to amend the budget to a lower amount on June 3, then it must have a plan to move forward quickly to avoid any potential lawsuits over the bids that have been sought.
Tauzin said he thinks that reducing the budget and the scale of the annex project would give the parish money to spend in areas that it needs it more.
“The public doesn’t need a building,” he said. “They need drainage and they need roads.”
Parish Director of Finance Sean Hundley said the parish has a full $2 million in drainage bond money available. A road project came in $700,000 under projections, adding to the available money. The Box Car Road fund already has a million dollars in it from last year’s budget, he added.
“All of the money for the administration building, aside from the million dollars from the state, is already in that project fund, from last year’s budget,” Hundley said. “So moving forward, all of that money’s already been set aside” When the audit is presented later this year, it will be apparent that fund balances have increased significantly, Hundley said.
“So from a budgetary standpoint, I’m not seeing where $500,000 is going to make that kind of a difference where you won’t be able to do other projects just based on budgetary numbers.”
