Beginning of a series on using and abusing Parliamentary Procedure

More than four and a half hours into the council meeting with a near empty council chamber and deploying a tactic that should be titled “Parliamentary Injustice,” at the May 25^th New Orleans City Council Meeting, Chairman Joe Giarrusso passed a motion regarding his objective to develop West End Lakeshore Park stating: “I will remind everybody that this area has been a heavily a commercial concern from the turn of the century until Hurricane Katrina and not one for ‘ah’ for residents.”

This statement appears to contradict a previous sentence in his opening statement. “For more than eighteen years the West End neighbors hosted commercial and recreational activity.”

ACT 209 of 1906 restricted use of West End Lakeshore Park to “a pubic park or amusement park.” Since 2010, New Orleans Politicians have been passing legislation trying to circumvent that state act and others to convert the park into economic development to supplement the marina.

During the 1830s, the Irish dug the New Basin Canal and activity at West End as an entertainment destination developed along the canal. In the 1900s the state leased water bottom to become reclaimed land known as West End Lakeshore Park. If the park did exist as something more, as CM Giarrusso claims, none of the rezoning and changing of the New Orleans Future Land Use Masterplan (FLUM) would have been necessary the last 18 years. It would have already been rebuilt as the facilities along the New Basin Canal have been.

The manner CM Giarrusso presided over his motion to ask the Planning Commission to consider eliminating housing in the conversion of the zoning of 3-acres from “Park” to “Mixed-use” eliminated the Public from challenging his comments. Typically, during an agenda item, a presentation is made before public comments. The public can then hold accountable the speaker for data presented.

During the agenda item for CM Giarrusso’s plan to eliminate providing housing for staff and employees of his proposed development, he skipped the presentation and went straight to public comments.  He then asked those making Public Comments to sit down and then he made his remarks and asked for a vote of the council. Housing advocates spoke against his plan to add retail and bars jobs without adding housing. It appears he was responding to them without giving them the option to refute his comments.

After Public Comments he read a prepared statement and called for a vote.  He noted that there had been eighteen years to put affordable housing out in West End Lake Shore Park stating: “That would have happened more than eighteen years ago and it hasn’t.”  That logic should apply to the commercial development CM Giarrusso wants.

If a council member is going to refute Public Comments, then they are engaging the Public and the Public as a right to respond. It is unclear what is meant when CM Giarrusso stated: “For more than eighteen years the West End neighbors hosted commercial and recreational activity.” One can conclude he means from 2005 to 2023. However, he states “the West End neighbors hosted commercial and recreational activity.” No examples were given.

What commercial activity was “hosted by neighbors” is CM Giarrusso talking about? There seems to be a contradiction in his comments when he adds: “this area (is) not one for ah for “residents” after acknowledging “neighbors hosted commercial and recreation activity.”

The West End “neighbors” CM Giarrusso is referring to live in the High-Rise, Mid-Rise, and Low-Rise Condos, plus apartments and single-family homes. There is a limited about of commercial activity from Shubert Marine and Sintes’ Boat Works outside the boundaries of West End Lakeshore Park.   Quantum Sails closed years ago with the building being vacant.

West End Lakeshore Park serves as the neighborhood park for all those living without backyards, it serves as a bird sanctuary that is located between the bird sanctuaries along the lake of Jefferson Parish and Orleans Parish, and it serves as a storm buffer to New Orleans. It is used by citizens of New Orleans and Jefferson Parish. It is a community park that deserves to be protected and saved.

CM Giarrusso advised the City Council that he held a Public Meeting, and a super-majority of the eighty people present supported his suggestion of no housing in the development of West End Lakeshore Park. What he failed to advise the council on is that 94% of the 160 people that have responded to the on-line survey do not want retail, bars, commercial, gaming, restaurants, or housing in the park. They want those 3-acres to remain a park with its trees, wildlife, and with recreation. The survey is open to the public and can be found on the website: www.RetifPark.org

Another instance of Parliamentary Injustice is that in October 2022, a resident submitted to the New Orleans Planning Commission to review returning the FLUM of West End Lakeshore Park back to Park designation as it was up until 2015, when changed by CM Guidry. CM Giarrusso blocked the Planning Commission from putting this on their 2023 agenda and hearing from the residents.

In 2018, Jefferson Parish Council Member Jennifer van Vranken meet with Bucktown residents who opposed commercial activity in the 40-acre Bucktown Harbor. She listened to her constituents and passed an agreement restricting the use of Bucktown Harbor to recreational.

Whereas CM Giarrusso is moving to tear down heritage oak trees, the Jefferson Parish Council is moving to increase protection of heritage oaks. At the June council and Metairie Road neighborhood meeting, Council Member-at-large Ricky Template quoted from Joni Mitchell’s 1970 song: “They tore down paradise and put up a parking lot.”

The full song has been on the Retif Park website for over a year.

The MYHMC Board is chaired by former New Orleans Fire Chief Tim McConnell. The board voted in May to spend approximately $250,000.00 for the initial phase of a third Feasibility Study of developing West End Lakeshore Park. The first two Feasibility Studies came back stating the area is “saturated” with bars and restaurants.

The MYHMC Board voted to have all correspondence with the HR&A Advisors go through its attorney Stone Pigman, which blocks citizens from doing Public Records Requests to discover what the MYHMC Board is advised HR&A Advisors. One key topic is the heritage trees and available buildable space.

The MYHMC board has no members of the West End neighborhood and voted to spend the resident’s money without first determining the available buildable area assuming the 29 Heritage oaks are to be saved. The recently released Batture Engineering study shows only 2 buildable acres if the heritage oaks are saved. How much will it cost in legal fees to communicate to HR&A Advisors the disclosure from the 2017 Batture study? Would HR&A Advisors, have even been interested in the doing a feasibility study for 2 acres, that is limited to restaurants?

In June of 2022, it was proposed to the MYHMC board to consider applying for the 3 to 1 Federal Matching Funds available for environmental projects with frontage on Lake Pontchartrain. The Board declined to agenize this opportunity. The MYHMC motion restricted the Feasibility Study to West End Lakeshore Park and excluded the larger Breakwater Park adjoining the Boat Launch.

Many of the plans to develop West End Lakeshore Park were presented on the night of February 14^th – Valentine’s Day.  At the March meeting it was reported that State Rep. Stephanie Hilferty “Hilferty has a draft legislation that is being worked on. We gave some feedback on the subject.”  Whatever legislation Rep. Hilferty was working on, she did not present it to the state prior to the April 10, 2023 cutoff. This has not been explained to the public.

Rep. Hilferty had indicated at a January 2023 Lakeview Civic Association Meeting, she was going to propose modifying ACT 209 of 1906 to allow only restaurants. The MYHMC April meeting was cancelled with no explanation given as to what happened to Hilferty’s proposed legislation.  One possibility is that CM Giarrusso wants more than restaurants (such as commercial and retail) in developing West End Lakeshore Park.  However, that size development should provide housing for the workers. Council Member van Vranken and the 2021-CEA passed by CM Giarrusso called for residents at West End Lakeshore Park.

The Breakwater Park location offers several advantages over West End Lakeshore Park. To name a few: It is twice the size, it already has a large parking lot to handle boat launch traffic that is empty after sunset, there are no heritage oak trees to cut down, there is no revenue split with Jefferson Parish, the view will not be of a pumping station but of boats on the lake,  music can face out into the lake, there is no pelican colony that will be displaced, there is the ability to have boat docks, single jurisdiction permitting and public safety would be more efficient.

As recently reported in The Hayride that new 2023 Feasibility Study is being conducted by HR&A Advisors, whose president is a former Deputy Mayor to Mitch Landrieu, during a time that Landrieu’s staff was tasked with promoting the development of West End Lakeshore Park.

In 2018, CM Giarrusso was passed the baton from CM Susan Guidry and Mayor Mitch Landrieu who had begun the process to convert West End Lakeshore Park to commercial, residential, retail, bars, restaurants, and gaming. This process started with former Mayor Landrieu removing West End Lakeshore Park from the Parks and Parkways’ budget.

This is the eleventh in a series of articles published by The Hayride since the second feasibility study for developing West End Lakeshore Park was presented in April 2022.