Former Parish President says council must stay focused in fight to have wrongs committed by former LCG administration corrected
St. Martinville – Former St. Martin Parish President Chester Cedars took the opportunity at this past Tuesday’s St. Martin Parish Council committee meetings to publicly address the state Legislative Auditor’s report of the Lafayette Consolidated Government’s removal of spoil banks in 2022 that protected the Cypress Island community.
The Legislative Auditor’s office released its findings earlier in the week after investigating the secret removal of the natural flood barriers one night in February of 2022 under the administration of previous City-Parish President Josh Guillory.
Cedars hadn’t spoken publicly about the spoil bank removal since addressing the parish council in March of 2022.
“The reasons I’ve kept quiet other than those initial remarks was twofold,” Cedars said. “The first reason, I didn’t want this controversy to be viewed as some sort of personal feud between me and personnel of the Lafayette Consolidated Government at that time.
“The second reason was the matter was involved in litigation within a week or so after my appearance on March 15, and remains in litigation today.”
But with the release of the auditor’s report and a newspaper headline on Aug. 12 saying that the report found the former Lafayette City-Parish President’s handling of the spoil bank removal — and its being rebuilt on the Lafayette Parish side of the Vermilion River — was illegal.
The auditor’s report release was direct in its criticism of the Guillory administration’s project.
“Investigative auditors found that the Lafayette Consolidated Government (LCG) undertook a public works project involving the removal of a spoil bank on the St. Martin Parish side of the Vermilion River and its reconstruction on the Lafayette Parish side of the river, allegedly for flood mitigation purposes,” an overview of the audit said. “Auditors determined that LCG carried out the project without obtaining the required legal authority, land rights, or permits — raising significant legal, regulatory, and intergovernmental concerns. Specifically, LCG expended public funds outside of its jurisdiction without a joint service agreement or cooperative endeavor agreement, as required by its Home Rule Charter and Louisiana law; performed work on land it did not fully own, without documented consent from a known coowner; failed to obtain a local permit from St. Martin Parish Government; and withdrew its federal permit application from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, but then proceeded with the project anyway.”
Copies of the report were delivered to the District Attorney for the 15th Judicial District of Louisiana, the United States Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, and others as required by law, the audit summary stated.
Removal
“I have the report,” Cedars said at the St. Martin Parish committee meetings this past week. “It’s very comprehensive. I have reviewed it. There are some statements in the report that I don’t think can go without some sort of comment. And I think the comments are important because it clarifies some things. It corrects some misstatements. And more importantly, the comments I’m about to make justifies every single solitary move that this council and the former council made as a result of the surreptitious removal of the spoil banks in February of 2022.
“I’m not here to gloat because I told you so. In March of 2022, I told you so. But here’s what I want you to do as a council, as a parish government, is to keep your eye on the ball. The whole reason we raised hell about this as to protect the people of this parish in general and to protect the people of that Cypress Island community. That’s our objective. We can’t lose sight of that, because there’s nothing in this comprehensive report that puts those spoil banks back, or that imparts any kind of scientific conclusion that there’s no harm posed to that community by virtue of the removal of those banks.”
Cedars said the current LCG administration that took office in early 2024 has been cooperative on the occasions when Cedars has asked questions about what LCG had done under Guillory.
Appendix C of the report states that the St. Martin Parish opposition to the initial Army Corps of Engineers permit for work done by LCG in 2020 appeared to be largely due to misinformed public opinion rather than the merits of the spoil bank project, because it was apparently filed without St. Martin Parish ever seeing models upon which the permit application was placed.
Cedars said that was true because LCG never shared its models or data about the project with St. Martin Parish despite repeatedly saying it was going to do so.
The appendix went on to say Cedars was operating in bad faith as LCG attempted to work with St. Martin Parish on the project, and as a result LCG decided to revise the original spoil bank process
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and simply proceed.
Cedars denied working in bad faith. He said that on Dec. 10, 2020, there was a meeting at the St. Martin Parish Government Annex Building with LCG officials who wanted to discuss a concept of regional flood control that would include gapping of the spoil banks.
“I made it quite clear during that presentation and afterwards, to my personnel who were at that meeting … that we had no problem whatsoever with Lafayette Consolidated Government paying for any sort of study that they wanted to do,” Cedars said. “However, the fact that I had no issue with doing the study should not be translated or interpreted as meaning that I have no objection relative to the development of an actual project which would cause a result with the introduction of water into the Cypress Island community. That was made clear Dec. 10 to Lafayette Consolidated officials.”
Cedars said his initial objection to the study was that the concept was developed without St. Martin Parish being afforded the courtesy of any advanced notice, and that LCG officials visited their legislative officials in October of 2020 and that emails were sent about funding for the project afterwards.
Cedars also said he was opposed to any plan that would introduce more water into St. Martin Parish solely to relieve flooding in Lafayette Parish.
On March 15, 2021, St. Martin Parish learned that an engineer had been hired by LCG to undertake a study to make a model showing what would happen if the spoil banks were removed. LCG told St. Martin Parish public works people that Lafayette would send any data or conclusions from the model to St. Martin Parish Government.
After a call from a TV station asking to interview Cedars about a proposed LCG spoil bank removal project in April of 2021, St. Martin Parish hired an independent engineer from outside the area to help evaluate any modeling that might develop from the concept.
Cedars and Parish Councilman David Poirier, whose district includes the Cypress Island community, then scheduled a public meeting on April 29, 2021, for community members to inform them of the parish’s opposition to any project that would introduce any additional water into St. Martin Parish.
Cedars was surprised to see an Army Corps of Engineers official at the meeting, who told him he was there to talk about the project for which LCG had applied for a permit.
Cedars asked why the official would attend such a meeting without telling the parish president he was planning to be there, and also asked what project was being talked about.
The official told him that LCG had applied for a permit to remove the spoil banks in St. Martin Parish, which was the first time St. Martin officials had been told that LCG was actually planning such a project.
Cedars also said that Guillory texted him while the meeting was going on, saying LCG would never do anything to hurt St. Martin Parish. Cedars publicly wondered how Guillory knew he was holding a meeting at the time.
The following day St. Martin Parish began work to file a response with the Corps of Engineers to LCG’s application for a permit to remove the spoil banks.
Cedars also made plans that day to hire an attorney from outside the area to help represent St. Martin Parish in its opposition to the planned project.
It wasn’t until May 28, 2021, after a meeting Cedars had with Guillory, that LCG gave St. Martin Parish its engineer’s model of what would happen if the spoil banks were removed, Cedars said.
In September of 2021, Darrell Barbara of the Corps of Engineers told Cedars that LCG had informed the corps that it was no longer interested in pursuing the spoil bank removal in St. Martin Parish.
But on Oct. 14, 2021, a meeting was arranged in St. Martin Parish between Cedars and Guillory. An attorney, two engineers and several public works employees also attended and asked why Cedars and Alex Guillory of Bluewing Civil Consulting, the engineer St. Martin Parish had hired, disagreed with the findings by the engineering firm hired by LCG.
A December phone call led Cedars to believe some progress was being made in talks between the two engineering firms to resolve the issues St. Martin Parish had with the project.
The position taken by the firm hired by St. Martin Parish was that the removal of the spoil banks by Lafayette Consolidated Government was a no-risk proposition for Lafayette Parish.
At best, though, the risk for St. Martin Parish was undefined because there was not enough data to evaluate the risk to St. Martin.
“Moreover, the report from the engineer says what LCG’s report has not demonstrated is the impact of the removal of the spoil banks on other waterways within the Cypress Island area,” Cedars said. “He said there’s got to be a study, we’ve got to have some kind of idea what kind of impact increasing the volume of water and/or increasing the rate of flow will have on those waterways. None of that’s been done.”
But on March 8 of 2022, Cedars was informed that the spoil banks had been removed, and was shown photos by someone who had seen the result.
Cedars said he made a call to the Mayor-President, and put the call on speaker with two St. Martin Parish administrative staff members present, and asked Guillory if LCG had removed the spoil banks.
“‘Yes, I did,’” Cedars said Josh Guillory responded. “‘It’s going to help both of us. That’s what the sign says.’” Cedars then asked why Guillory had not paid him the professional courtesy to let him know he was going to do it.
“There was a hesitation, and I’ll never forget his comment, ‘Well, you got me on that, Bub.’ I will not bother you with my response because it’s probably irrelevant, but the conversation ended.”
Cedars also took umbrage at the auditor’s report stating in Appendix C that St. Martin Parish was underhanded in the way it adopted an ordinance requiring a permit to remove any kind of levee, including spoil banks, in the parish, and that the ordinance is invalid and unconstitutional.
Cedars said that the issue was adjudicated in a federal lawsuit filed by LCG, in which the federal court dismissed those claims and said there was no constitutional defect in the ordinance.
Cedars said he knew the time since then had been hard on people in St. Martin Parish Government because they had chosen not to comment publicly, but the decision was made because litigation had been filed.
Parish Council Chairman Chris Tauzin asked Cedars if he thought any criminal charges could result against past members of the LCG administration for the spoil banks removals.
Cedars said that something being illegal did not necessarily make it a criminal matter, but explained the issue further and said people could draw their own conclusions. It would seem to a reasonable person, he said, that people had conspired in the matter.
The important thing to remember, though, was not to seek criminal charges, but to have the spoil banks put back.
