Says parish needs good pumps, not cheap ones
St. Charles Parish Councilwoman elect Carolyn Schexnaydre and Ama resident Jara Roux have filed a lawsuit against the parish to stop a $24.7 million bond sale that was slated to finance the construction of a pump station for the West Bank.
Due to the pending legal action, the St. Charles Parish Council has put off accepting bids on the west bank pump station.
However, Parish President Albert Laque says it’s an impossible lawsuit and Roux and Schexnaydre can’t win.
“The lawsuit caught us by surprise,” Laque said. “I’ve met with my attorney and he says it’s a lawsuit they can’t win and I believe it’s an effort to stall for time.”
Laque says there’s no validity or reason for the lawsuit and his attorney assures him that the judge will more than likely throw it out of court.
Councilman elect Terry Authement says he hopes the new administration will be able to make changes and look at some better options concerning the pump station.
“If the lawsuit stands, I feel comfortable that the new administration will revisit the bids,” Authement said. “I’m for the project more than anyone else. I absolutely want the pump station, but if we can save $3 or $4 million dollars for the tax payers, why not try?”
Authement says he began looking at the pump project and examined each item line by line. The parish was willing to spend $19 million on the pump in September. But Authement said he found a less expensive option.
“I got a price of $2.9 million from another company, Associated Pumps in Houma,” he said. “Since Katrina, they have gone up by slightly less than 3 percent, compared to the 20 percent increase we’re seeing in prices for the pump project in our parish.”
Authement says just on the pumps, gear boxes, bar screen and the cleaners, he came up with a savings of $4 million. “And that was just in the first few line items of the project,” he said.
Schexnaydre and Roux’s lawsuit claims that the cost of building the pump is over priced and residents would be left bearing the burden of the outgoing council’s bond decision.
“We had three companies bid to do this project,” Laque said. “All three of them were within $100,000 dollars of each other.”
Laque says his administration has been working on the West Bank project for eight years and after finally coming this close to getting the project off the ground, facing a lawsuit is frustrating.
“The prices are going to continue to skyrocket,” Laque said. “Before Hurricane Katrina, there weren’t as many pumps needed. Now, more pumps are required and the prices are much more expensive, not to mention the cost of labor.”
Authement says the cost of the project can be reduced.
“I would like to thank the members of the council that didn’t vote for the bond issue,” he said. “We asked them to just delay the action so we could revisit the bids and encourage contractors to go out and look at a less expensive option.”
The parish council voted to move forward with the $27.4 million project against pleas by Schexnaydre, Parish President elect V.J. St. Pierre, and Authement.
“I provided the parish with my findings after doing a price comparison,” Authement said. “The cost was at least $9 million dollars above the estimate and they were trying to shove it through.”
Laque says the high price was warranted because he wants good pumps for the parish.
“You can always buy something cheaper, but it won’t be as good,” he said. “You want a pump that’s going to last at least 50 years or so, and the engineers who looked at our project know what they’re doing.”
Laque says the citizens just want levee protection, and it doesn’t matter how they get it.
“I think it’s a serious mistake to delay the pump project, and they (Roux and Schexnaydre) really don’t have good reasons for it,” he said. “It’s a political ploy.
“The citizens don’t care who builds the pump, they just want to know they’ll be protected.”
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