St. Martinville – St. Martin Parish Council-Councilwoman Carla JeanBatiste laid into Parish President Pete Delcambre at this past Tuesday’s Parish Council Administrative/ Finance Committee meeting over Delcambre’s characterization of the reason the parish council rejected all bids submitted for the expansion project for the parish government’s central office complex.
Delcambre introduced scaled-down plans for the renovation and expansion work after the council had voted at its Aug. 12 meeting to reject all bids for being over the available funds for construction. JeanBatiste and Councilwoman Tangie Narcisse had been the only council members who voted in favor of a resolution presented by Delcambre to award the bid to Castle Row Construction for $1,890,000.
In order to meet the council’s requested budget of $1.5 million, one-third of the original project was cut out including reducing the size of the parking lot by half. Other cuts were to a Public Works director’s office, a break room and a small break area outside the building.
Expansion
Delcambre said that the parish is coming up on its deadline of Dec. 31 where everything is in place for the project, or it may face the possibility of losing the state funds for the work.
“I make no bones about it, I was very displeased that moneys were budgeted for the project and that the $40,000 amount that was over the project budgeted, that the whole project was scrapped and 30 percent delineated from the project,” Delcambre said.
JeanBatiste challenged those numbers, asking if the architect’s fees and contingency fees for change orders were included in the $1.89 million scope of the original project.
Told they were not, she asked how much those fees added to the project and was told by parish Chief Financial Officer Sean Hundley that the architect charged $120,000 in fees.
The project was budgeted for $1.84 construction costs plus the architect fees, and a contingency fee amount as well, JeanBatiste said. The bid for construction costs alone was $1.89 million, which did not include the architect fees or contingency costs, which raised the amount to over $2 million total, she said.
“I hear you stressing $40,000, but it’s not just 40, because you had a hundred and something for architect fees that had to be added to that,” JeanBatiste said. “So when you’re looking at the total cost of that project, it’s more than $1.89 (million).”
“It would certainly be more than that to the effect that you have to we have to spend another $150,000 (for additional architect fees),” Delcambre said.
“It’s not just an additional 40,000 if you’re doing correct math,” JeanBatiste said to Delcambre. “And I know you had (in business and banking) a math background so it’s more than
40,000 (dollars). “So it wasn’t scrapped just for 40. It was scrapped for the additional fees that were added to that.”
JeanBatiste said that she had advocated for the original plan and wanted to share her concerns with Delcambre that it was more than just $40,000 more added to the total costs, not just the construction costs.
Delcambre then brought up a project in JeanBatiste’s district that went $500,000 over budget, which sparked an angrier response from the councilwoman.
That road project was delayed by COVID which led to higher costs for supplies, she said.
“When that project came in, we had those funds available, and that was for the constituents, so there was no underhanded, there was no left out, there was not deception with the constituents about that project,” she said. “So if we’re going to compare apples to apples, make sure we’re comparing apples to apples and not apples to oranges, because I did not leave anything out when my bids came in for that project.”
Delcambre said the drainage had not been included in that original project, which was the reason the costs went up.
JeanBatiste said that was because the public works department had not included drainage in the project that was put out to bid.
Delcambre said he was not in office when that project was put out to bid, and JeanBatiste that she had made uninformed decisions based on not having all the information needed at the time as a new council member.
“I came to you and I took responsibility,” she said. “I told you I was accountable. I didn’t try to hide nothing while shuffling on to the next stuff. So I want to continue to work with you in a peaceful manner, but I’m asking for you to have transparency. When I go and I have conversations, we go on site and we meet for hours with people, and for you to come back and not provide all of the information, that’s very underhanded. VERY underhanded.”
JeanBatiste had already expressed dissatisfaction with Delcambre during the Public Works Committee meeting earlier in the afternoon concerning letters of noobjection that the parish president had sent to AT&T regarding fiber optic cable issues in her district.
The parish government had used a federal grant to help Cajun Broadband establish fiber optic high speed internet access to residents in her district, but AT&T has on more than one occasion cut those lines and done work on residents’ property without seeking permission or notifying the residents of the work, JeanBatiste said.
“Now I’ve done everything that I could to not have this audience filled with residents complaining about these bad, bad letters of no objection that were sent out with no consideration for the residents that live in that community that has invested (tax) money so that you have a budget to do the things that you do,” she said. “But what we’re not going to do is compare apples to oranges and play the blame game.”
JeanBatiste said residents have called her and she’s talked with them about their concerns over the fiber optic issues, and that they’ve called Delcambre and he hasn’t returned their calls.
“I beg to differ with that,” Delcambre said.
“With that being said, I don’t have nothing else to say about this other than the fact that this project is more than $40,000 over,” she said in an increasingly tense exchange. “It’s $40,000 over, plus $120,000, Sean, you said. You do the math. What is that? I mean, you worked at the bank? What’s the math? One-sixty.”
“Excuse me,” Delcambre said. “Excuse me.”
JeanBatiste then asked Council Chairman Chris Tauzin to move on with the meeting, which he did.
Other Presentations The Administrative/ Finance Committee also heard presentations from Sheriff Becket Breaux and the head of his new rehabilitation program about that work, and from Recreation Board Supervisor Rowdy Huval about the parish’s summer recreation program.
The committee also heard a request from 16th Judicial District Judge Suzanne de Mahy requesting that Courtroom 2 at the St. Martin Parish Courthouse be renamed in memory of former Assistant District Attorney Shentell Brown.
The sheriff’s Substance Abuse Team for Addiction and Recovery (STAR) Program was explained by Sheriff’s Office Support Services Director Dana Alkadi.
Huval talked about the summer baseball and softball program which included leagues for youth players in Cecilia, Breaux Bridge, Parks and St. Martinville, each run by their own directors.
De Mahy introduced the idea for renaming the courtroom,, at the behest of 16th Judicial District judges, in honor of Brown, who had a history of working with children in the legal system. Brown was killed in February by her husband.
