[StBernard] 5 challengers vie for 3 seats on the East Bank levee authority

[Westley Annis]

5 challengers vie for 3 seats on the East Bank levee authority

Print Mark Schleifstein, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune By Mark Schleifstein,
NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune 
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on September 13, 2013 at 12:48 PM, updated September 13, 2013 at 2:22 PM

The president and vice president of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection
Authority-East have garnered two challengers each for their seats in the
aftermath of the authority’s controversial lawsuit against oil, gas and
pipeline companies.

The terms of both President Tim Doody, who represents St. Bernard Parish on
the authority, and Vice President John Barry, who represents New Orleans and
came up with the idea for the lawsuit, expired at the end of June, but both
have requested to be re-appointed.
A third authority member, former WWL-TV meteorologist Dave Barnes, who
represents St. Tammany Parish, has not requested to be reappointed. One St.
Tammany resident has applied for his seat.

Gov. Bobby Jindal has criticized the lawsuit, which is demanding that 97
energy companies repair wetland damage from their activities or pay for
damages that can’t be repaired.

Jindal is expected to try to replace the three authority members whose terms
are expiring with appointees who would oppose the lawsuit. The governor will
appoint authority members from a list of nominees presented to him in
October by an independent nominating board made up largely of engineers and
academics. 

That board held its first meeting Friday morning to begin the nominating
process, which is supposed to result in the recommendation of two names for
each seat. The committee is taking nominations until the end of September. 

Garret Graves, chairman of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority,
which serves as the local sponsor for all federal levee projects in the
state, has warned the levee authority that a failure to drop the lawsuit
could result in the Legislature changing the rules governing the authority,
including the appointment process, during the 2014 legislative session.

Graves and Jindal contend that the authority usurped the governor’s
authority in filing the lawsuit without Jindal’s approval, and say that the
action threatens to disrupt the state’s $50 billion, 50-year Master Plan for
coastal protection and restoration.

The authority voted unanimously to approve the lawsuit, which argues that
damage to wetlands in areas outside the East Bank levee system has illegally
reduced the protection provided by its levees and also violates various
state and federal permit requirements.

Applying for Doody’s seat are Michael Hunnicutt of Chalmette, and Richard
Sanderson II of Arabi.

Hunnicutt is the hazard mitigation advisor to St. Bernard Parish President
Dave Peralta, while Sanderson is listed as president of Clear Communications
Inc. in Arabi in Louisiana Secretary of State records.

Doody is executive director of the Chaffe McCall law firm and a certified
public accountant from Arabi, and has garnered praise for his leadership
during the authority’s first seven years.

Applying for Barry’s seat are real estate and construction company executive
George Ackel III and attorney Joe Hassinger, both of New Orleans.

Barry is a non-fiction author and researcher at Tulane University best known
for “Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed
America.” His work on that book has given him unprecedented entrée with
senior officials with the Army Corps of Engineers, the White House and
Congress in the aftermath of Katrina, which he used to lobby on behalf of
the post-Katrina levee improvements.

Hassinger already serves as chairman of the Non-Flood Protection Asset
Management Authority, a state agency with jurisdiction over Lakefront
Airport, a marina, the upkeep of Lakeshore Drive and other non-flood
protection items owned by the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection
Authority-East.

Those assets were placed under the independent management authority board in
the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, at the same time that the East Bank and
West Bank levee authorities were created to consolidate the operations of
local levee districts. Both the merger of the levee districts – and the
removal of their individual boards – and the separation of the non-flood
assets were aimed at taking politics out of the existing network of flood
protection agencies. Members of the new levee authorities also were required
to have specific engineering or scientific backgrounds, and several were
required to not live in the parishes within the authorities’ boundaries.

The only applicant for Barnes’ seat is John Faust, a resident of Eden Isles
who has actively proposed methods for improving hurricane storm surge
protection in St. Tammany Parish for a number of years.

In 2009, Faust organized a public meeting between Slidell area residents and
the Army Corps of Engineers to discuss plroposals for extending levees along
the parish’s eastern border and finding ways of blocking surges from
entering Lake Pontchartrain. That meeting was attended by more than 600
people.