[StBernard] Emergency chief makes sudden exit

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard Parish's embattled emergency preparedness chief has cleared out
his office and says he doesn't plan to return to parish government. 
 
Larry Ingargiola is now on vacation and parish officials would not discuss
his job status. But Ingargiola said he has been told by his boss, Parish
President Henry "Junior" Rodriguez, that there is no money in the parish's
budget to finance his office or his position as the parish's director of
homeland security. 
 
"I'm not going to resign," Ingargiola said. "They are not funding me so they
are going to have to lay me off." 
 
Concerned about spending in Ingargiola's department, including
hurricane-recovery-related contracts that he entered for which the parish
has initially been denied millions in reimbursement by the federal
government, the Parish Council eliminated his department when it adopted the
2007 budget last month. The council slashed the department's proposed
$360,000, which included Ingargiola's $42,500 annual salary. 
 
After a dispute among top administrators resulted in Ingargiola's pressured
resignation and then un-resignation announced in one day in early August
when tempers flared, Ingargiola now finds himself holding a job that was not
financed by the Parish Council when it passed its 2007 budget in December. 
 
Rodriguez pushed the council to reinstate Ingargiola's funding at its first
meeting in January, presenting council members with a letter from the state
Office of Homeland Security Office of Emergency Preparedness, saying state
law requires each parish to have such a department, with a director. 
 
But the council refused, and instead, approved a countermeasure designating
already-budgeted money in the Public Works Department for homeland security.

The council said the parish would be in compliance with state law because
Rodriguez, at the time of the council's budget slashing, had named himself
director of the parish's Office of Emergency Preparedness and Ingargiola his
assistant. 
 
Ingargiola, 62, who has been the parish's homeland security director for the
past three years, said he is a "sacrificial goat" in a squabble between
Rodriguez and the council. 
Because it is a personnel matter, officials have been tight-lipped about
Ingargiola's sudden departure. 
 
"We did not ask him to resign," Chief of Staff Charlie Reppel said. 
 
Chief Administrative Officer Dave Peralta said that Ingargiola has about 41
days of paid annual leave to use. 
 
This marks the second time in recent months that Ingargiola has said he is
out as the parish's head of emergency preparedness. He announced his
resignation in early August after a dispute among top administrators, but
then decided to stay on in the post. 

 
Ingargiola is one of several applicants for the open emergency preparedness
director's post in Jefferson Parish. He also is considering an offer to work
with the St. Bernard Parish Sheriff's Office in crime prevention, a position
he has held in the past. 

 
"I brought them through Hurricane Katrina. I evacuated 92 percent of the
parish," Ingargiola said. "They have too many people who want to be king of
the hill, and the hill is nothing but a debris pile. . . . I did in my heart
what I thought was right."