[StBernard] St. Bernard Parish civic center's finances under investigation by state legislative auditor

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard Parish civic center's finances under investigation by state
legislative auditor
Print Benjamin Alexander-Bloch, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune By Benjamin
Alexander-Bloch, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune 
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on April 01, 2014 at 4:23 PM, updated April 01, 2014 at 4:55 PM

The state legislative auditor's office has begun an investigation into the
St. Bernard Parish civic center's finances, Parish President Dave Peralta
confirmed Tuesday afternoon. The investigations comes less than a month
after the civic center's director, Stephanie Bachemin, was fired.

Peralta said that state officials visited the parish government complex this
week and that "they are in the preliminary states of their investigation."

"We are just sitting down with them and giving them all the information that
they have requested," Peralta said.

He said legislative auditor officials started their investigation on Monday
by meeting with parish finance department officials "and we turned
everything over as I promised I would."

"They are definitely here and they are definitely going to handle that for
us and I am grateful to them for that," Peralta said.

Peralta had hired Bachemin as the Frederick J. Sigur Civic Center's
executive director when he took office in January 2012. Soon after firing
her in early March, he told NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune that he had done
so "because I was not happy with the state of affairs over there" at the
civic center.

Peralta said on Tuesday that he might hire a new director sometime this
week.

Bachemin has not publicly commented on her firing. She could not be reahed
for comment Tuesday. 

Both Peralta and Councilman Richie Lewis said on Feb. 28 that Bachemin had
been suspended earlier that week because they had grown concerned about the
civic center's finances. They both confirmed at that time that they had
requested an investigation by the legislative auditor.

"We had some poor management of the civic center, if you will, some ill
management," Lewis said at the March 18 council meeting. "We can't afford to
have money come up missing in the budget ..."

The civic center is managed by a non-profit corporation, St. Bernard
Cultural Center, Inc., which was created in 1991 and currently is overseen
by three board members. All three are parish employees: John Rahaim, who
heads the parish Office of Emergency Preparedness; Ross Gonzales, who is the
parish's finance director, and Melissa O'Neil, who is an assistant manager
in the parish's recovery office.

The center, which includes a 52,400-square-foot auditorium with a stage and
a 9,280-square-foot ballroom, is rented out for events and together can
accommodate about 3,000 guests.

At the March 18 council meeting, Peralta said he had discussed the center's
financial troubles with the St. Bernard Sheriff Jimmy Pohlmann and that
Pohlmann wass prepared to investigate the matter if the legislative audit
revealed any possible criminal wrongdoing.

Following that council meeting, Pohlmann confirmed he would "prefer to first
have that audit and, if it then seems anything criminal was going on, then
we will handle it."