As impacts from Hurricane Ida fade and the recovery process loses the urgency it demanded from government officials in the past, port and council meetings are beginning to revolve around more typical conflicts. Specifically, at the October 14 Plaquemines Port Harbor & Terminal District (PPHTD) meeting, port commissioners and port administration resumed the tense conversation about the port’s legal counsel.
Two ordinances at the meeting were responsible for re-sparking the tensions around this topic.
The first ordinance discussed by port commissioners was introduced by district 5 port commissioner Benny Rousselle. Though, ultimately, the ordinance was deferred to be voted on at the next port meeting, it would—if passed—create an “in-house” legal department for the port.
This idea has been considered a possibility for years—a similar ordinance was even voted-on, and failed, at the August 26 PPHTD meeting.
Proponents of the “in-house” legal department (such as Rousselle), hold that contracting out legal counsel costs PPHTD too much money. By creating a legal department staffed by full-time, “salaried” attorneys, Rousselle believes PPHTD will be able to manage the cost of the legal fees and save some money.
“I think there’s probably general agreement that we are moving in the direction of creating an executive counsel, a full-time person working for the port as an attorney,” Rousselle stated.
Rousselle’s ordinance at the October 14 meeting was not identical to the one that failed at the August 26 meeting, however. He offered multiple amendments that specified how the ordinance would function if adopted. These amendments explained how PPHTD would go about hiring an “in-house” attorney, the responsibilities of that attorney, and that the attorney would represent “the board” of commissioners (whether the port attorney represents the administration or the port commissioners has been a topic of contention in the past as well).
If passed, executive director Sandy Sanders would have to provide at least three candidates for the commissioners to consider by November 30, 2021. From there commissioners would interview each of the candidates at a public meeting and vote-on which candidate will be selected as the port attorney.
“This lays out what I would expect from a port attorney working for [PPHTD],” Rousselle stated.
Since there were so many amendments, Rousselle chose to defer the ordinance so other commissioners could have some time to review the changes.
The other ordinance discussed by commissioners added around $70,000 to the port’s 2021 legal budget. Sanders stated that at the 2021 budget hearings in November 2020, the administration requested a legal budget of $195,000. However, commissioners cut the budget all the way down $125,000. This $70,00 would give the port the budget the administration had originally asked for.
“We asked for $195,000 for our legal department before the budget hearing based on COVID-19 [and other issues]. But at the end of the budget hearing, we were cut to the point where we ran out of money on items that we need legal assistance,” Sanders stated. “Right now, we are below zero, and I’ve got many things happening towards the end of this year that I need legal counsel on.”
After some back and forth between Rousselle and the administration—where Rousselle pointed out that commissioners had no choice but allocate more money as the administration had gone over budget and made monetary commitments PPHTD must honor—the ordinance passed unanimously.
“There is no management of the attorney on an outside basis that rationalizes why we can’t stay within the budget,” Rousselle stated, explaining that the port had gone over budget many times in the past. “There is a lack of management here.”
“This is not new; we have said this over and over again. [So], I hope we move in the direction of putting an in-house attorney on board. [That way] we’ll have a full-time attorney and cut this budget considerably and have more accountability,” he concluded.
In other news:
• Commissioners unanimously approved an ordinance to cancel the November 25 and December 23 meeting for the Thanksgiving and Christmas Holidays.