[StBernard] St. Bernard Parish Council moves to shift resources from slab removal to hospital

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard Parish Council moves to shift resources from slab removal to
hospital
By Chris Kirkham, The Times-Picayune 
March 17, 2010, 9:30AM

Setting up a possible conflict with the parish president, the St. Bernard
Parish Council on Tuesday requested that $5 million of the federal money set
aside for concrete slab removal instead be shifted to construction of a new
parish hospital.

The council's resolution was mostly symbolic, and would require approval
from the state Office of Community Development and the executive director of
the Louisiana Recovery Authority, which oversees the allocation of federal
block grant dollars. The $5 million in slab removal money from the LRA was
meant to address the problem of lingering slabs sitting on properties that
were demolished but not sold to the state's Road Home program.

Parish President Craig Taffaro said at Tuesday's meeting that he did not
want to move the money to the hospital until there was a backup plan to fund
slab removal.

"Our slab removal money is very critical, and I'm not in favor of moving
that money without having any replacement for it," he said.

Council Chairman Wayne Landry, who also chairs the parish's hospital board,
said he would want to replace the slab removal money as soon as the parish
was able to identify additional recovery dollars.

But there's no assurance that will happen. LRA spokeswoman Christina
Stephens said there will possibly be unspent money when the authority
disbands in the next few months, but that the state is far from knowing
exactly how much money would still be available for projects across the
state.

"We would certainly want parishes to be cautious about the plans they are
making," she said.

In terms of shifting the $5 million from slab removal to the hospital,
Stephens said, "We would have to sit down and have a very serious discussion
about reallocating this."

"We understood very early on that this was one of the parish president's top
priorities -- the slab removal," she said.

The Louisiana Land Trust is already in the process of demolishing slabs on
properties that were sold to the Road Home. The $5 million was allocated to
address the slabs for homes that were demolished by the Federal Emergency
Management Agency but are still in the hands of private owners.

Taffaro would have to sign off on a change to the LRA plan, and he said
after the meeting Tuesday that he is unwilling to do so. 

Landry questioned why there should be any disagreement after the council
voted 6-1 in favor of moving the money to the hospital.

"The governing authority has spoken today, that it's OK to be using that $5
million for the hospital," he said.

The parish already has nearly $70 million lined up to pay for construction
of a hospital and medical office building. Landry said the $5 million would
go toward making the medical office building larger. As it is now, he said
the current office building plans would have most of the space devoted to
hospital administration, not offices for doctors and specialists.

"That is not the size of the medical office building we need," he said.