[StBernard] St. Bernard needs to end losing battle: Kim Chatelain

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard needs to end losing battle: Kim Chatelain

Published: Sunday, July 17, 2011, 9:29 AM

 By Kim Chatelain, The Times-Picayune 

For years, the main drag in St. Bernard Parish was named for Judge Leander
Perez, a powerful arch-segregationist infamous for diverting millions in oil
royalties from public land into his private company.

In the 1990s, parish residents hoping to erase the stigma of Judge Perez
Drive pushed to change the name, but met opposition from those who felt
doing so would cause confusion for the postal service and problems for
businesses along the strip. Some suspected the opponents harbored an
admiration for Perez's bitter fight against school desegregation in the
1960s but used the postal confusion argument as a guise to avoid racial
turmoil.

In a clever solution to the street name impasse, the parish rededicated the
thoroughfare in the name of Judge Melvyn Perez, a respected state court
judge and St. Bernard civic leader who died in 1999. Thus street signs and
addresses did not change and the stain of an inglorious chapter in the
parish's history was removed from its most prominent commercial strip.

Despite that noble gesture, the perception is that the embers of segregation
continue to smolder in the close-knit suburb. And today those embers are
being fanned by the parish's fight against four mixed-income apartment
buildings in Chalmette.

For two years, citizens have rallied against the apartments, and parish
officials have thrown up every obstacle in their arsenal to block
construction, drawing charges of racism in the process. St. Bernardians
decry the apartments because they say the beleaguered parish, which saw
virtually every dwelling flooded during Hurricane Katrina, already has a
surplus of vacant housing units. Adding 400 more, as proposed by
Dallas-based developers Provident Realty, would drive down property values
and lead to more vacant houses and increased crime, they say.

That may well be true, but when such an argument comes from a community with
a history of racial intolerance, motives are naturally called into question.
Even if they didn't represent the feelings of most St. Bernardians, the
goons who spray-painted racial graffiti at the construction site served only
to further sully the parish's reputation.

Housing rights advocates say the opposition is simply an attempt to keep
minorities, who are most in need of affordable housing, out of the primarily
white parish. The issue has worked its way through the courts, drawing the
ire of federal Judge Ginger Berrigan, a left-leaning, civil rights advocate
appointed by former President Bill Clinton.

Berrigan, declaring efforts to thwart the development are racially
motivated, has held the parish in contempt of court for failing to obey her
orders to issue building permits, and she's levied fines that have reached
$40,000. Moreover, the parish has spent a small fortune -- an estimated $1.5
million -- in its long-shot legal quest to defeat the development. For its
money, St. Bernard has managed only to rekindle memories of the Perez era.

Lost in this racial debate are the stated concerns of most St. Bernard
homeowners, who question the wisdom of adding to the glut of housing units.

Parish residents remember all too well the disaster that was Village Square,
a cluster of multi-family units just off Judge Perez Drive that became a
decrepit haven for crime and drug activity well before Katrina. About the
only good thing parish residents can say about the 2005 disaster is that it
wiped Village Square off the map.

But the notion that most St. Bernardians' protests are based on pragmatism
rather than racism has not made its way to the surface, much to the chagrin
of the apartment opponents. They point to a similar Provident development
that was denied in predominantly African-American eastern New Orleans
without a peep from housing advocates as evidence that St. Bernard is being
unfairly singled out.

Ironically, it appears St. Bernard may have fallen victim to a form of
racial profiling, thanks in part to its reputation. That's why the pragmatic
side of the issue gets so little traction. And that's not likely to change.

Elected officials are wary of this fall's local elections and are no doubt
hesitant to give up a Provident fight their constituents want so badly to
win. But the parish should end this exercise in futility and allow
construction to continue unabated.

If St. Bernard government wants the last word on the issue, it should take
the high road of irony and rename the street on which the development is
built in a way that might help change the perception of the often-maligned
parish -- Judge Berrigan Drive.