St. Pierre, council hash out differences
After an emotional retreat in which no punches were thrown but words weren’t held back, Parish President V.J. St. Pierre and the Parish Council are left feeling refreshed.
“The facilitator told us that we were like a car that had been on the road for two years without any check ups,” St. Pierre said. “We just needed some routine maintenance.”
Councilman Terry Authement agreed.
“My thoughts are that big corporations take their people to retreats in order to rejuvenate them,” he said. “We are all under a lot of pressure. We just needed to stop, take a deep breath, and move on.”
The overnight retreat was held last week at the Cook Conference Center and Hotel in Baton Rouge. The event began with dinner on Aug. 4 and a meeting led by a professional facilitator started at 8:30 a.m. the following day. Councilmen Shelley Tastet, Marcus Lambert, and Paul Hogan were unable to attend.
Tastet and Lambert couldn’t get away from their jobs, while Hogan underwent surgery before the retreat.
St. Pierre came up with the idea for a retreat because he said the public could sense the animosity within the council and between the council and the administration.
“(The council’s) biggest issue was what they perceive as a lack of communication between the administration and the council,” he said.
St. Pierre said that the administration routinely gets council members the information they need to make decisions beforehand. But because council members have full-time jobs in addition to their council seats, St. Pierre doesn’t believe that some of them have the time to look the information over.
Councilwoman Wendy Benedetto said that there have been instances where council members received information about a project “after the fact.” However, she does believe that St. Pierre and the administration have started communicating better with the council.
“I don’t agree that we don’t communicate with them, but I’m going to work harder (to communicate with them),” St. Pierre said.
The retreat cost about $3,000, with a facilitator that was paid $200 an hour.
St. Pierre said the facilitator was necessary to help everyone open up by leading the group in team-building exercises. One of those exercises involved the mediator standing behind one of the retreat participants and asking others in the group to say what they believe that person is thinking.
“It did get heated, and there was some crying, but we also laughed a lot,” St. Pierre said. “This retreat accomplished everything it was supposed to accomplish.”
Councilman Larry Cochran, who admits that he had mixed feelings about the retreat when it was announced, said that everything went well and that a lot of issues were sorted through.
“I didn’t pull any punches, and what I liked about it is that it was a very honest, open discussion,” he said. “We got everything out in the open, and I actually felt like it should have lasted longer.”
Not all of the issues discussed had to do with communication problems between the council and the administration. There were also some issues that needed to be worked out within the council.
However, there was an overriding solution to all of the problems.
“The main thing is that everyone has to agree to disagree,” Cochran said. “Just because we vote a certain way or disagree with something doesn’t mean that it’s personal.”
Authement echoed that sentiment, saying that it’s always difficult when you get different personalities together.
“I don’t think either side is right or wrong, but none of us should bring personal issues into it,” he said. “It’s not about us, it’s about what we can do for the people of the parish.”
Benedetto said the facilitator told the group that you always have to watch what you say to another person and how you say it.
“Almost all problems come down to communication,” she said. “If someone votes against you or disagrees with you, you need to let go and move on.”
Cochran believes that getting to know each other better during the retreat should help everyone set those personal feelings aside.
“Since we got into office, we really haven’t gotten to spend time with each other because we are all so busy,” he said. “We can talk on the phone occasionally or communicate through e-mail, but it doesn’t compare to face-to-face time. Every other time we talk face-to-face we’re on camera.”
Cochran, Benedetto and Authement all hope that more retreats are held in the future, preferably at the beginning of each year.
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