The controversy over a proposed barge cleaning facility that would be located on the riverfront near the Riverbend subdivision and BREC’s Farr Park Equestrian Center park continued to heat up this week.
After Port of Greater Baton Rouge Director Jay Hardman told Daily Report on Monday that the controversy was overblown, Mayor Kip Holden fired off a letter on Tuesday to the port director criticizing his defense of the facility.
“Just because the port owns the land, you are willing to sacrifice the best interest of the citizens of Baton Rouge for a $120,000 a year contract the port entered into with Tubal Cain,” reads Holden’s letter. “This is outrageous and a total disrespect to the people of our community.”
While Hardman was defending the proposed facility, a pair of Metro Council members began moving to change the zoning of the proposed riverside site to stymie the project. A resolution to that end will be discussed at the council’s meeting on Wednesday next week.
“This is just absolutely blowing this thing entirely out of proportion,” Hardman told Daily Report of the controversy over the facility, which Texas-based Tubal-Cain Marine Services has been planning for years and is now seeking permits for. “I’ve never seen anything like it. We’ve always been very sensitive to nearby residents (when considering potential lease offers on this property), and we’ve said no before to potential tenants. But I would have never thought this operation, with the modern technology they use, would cause this much controversy. I’m just taken aback by it.”
On Thursday, Baton Rouge Area Chamber President and CEO Adam Knapp told Daily Report that BRAC has reached out to Tubal-Cain to suggest alternate sites for its project. But a Tubal-Cain executive says his company has had limited communications with BRAC on the subject and isn’t interested in talking about other sites.
“I guess one phone call and one email could be construed as ‘advising the company to find new locations,’” says Randy Cooper, operations manager for Tubal-Cain. “However, we are not working with them on this.”
Also this week, after a roughly two-year effort, organizers of the city of St. George incorporation effort announced that they will not file a legal challenge to a recent ruling by a Baton Rouge judge that effectively killed the effort—but they say the fight is far from over.
“Pay close attention to those who cheer this as a victory,” Lionel Rainey III, spokesman for the Committee for the Incorporation of the City of St. George, says in a prepared statement. “Nothing has been won. All they succeeded in doing is temporarily delaying the democratic process. … Our opponents claim to have a desire to bring people together. By fighting to deny people the right to vote, these groups have driven a permanent wedge. They have not poured water on this fire. They poured gasoline on it.”
Here’s a rundown of other top stories making headlines this week:
- Reacting to news that Goldman Sachs Bank has filed a lawsuit against Mike Moreno for defaulting on a $52 million loan and is seeking to seize and sell his roughly 40 acres along Nicholson Road—on which a large mixed-used development called River District is planned—developer Mike Wampold told Daily Report he’d be interested in acquiring the property if it were to become available, depending on several factors including the timing and the price.
- Business First Bank announced plans to relocate its headquarters to the historic 500 Laurel St. Building, a six-story structure in the heart of downtown that was designed in 1955 by the late A. Hays Town. The bank will occupy four of the six floors in the nearly 20,000-square foot building, which will house a full-service banking center as well as bank operations and corporate offices.
- After more than a year of planning, the Baton Rouge Area Foundation on Thursday evening released its master plan to rehabilitate the LSU Lakes at a public meeting attended by about 300 people.
- After years of delays, Cane Land Distilling Company has abandoned plans to build a rum distillery on River Road and is instead moving forward with its plan at a new location on St. Phillip Street. Co-owner Walter Tharp says he and business partner Jim Massey have just signed a lease for a 9,700-square-foot warehouse at 760 St. Phillip St., near the 13th Gate and Interstate 10 overpass.
- For the first time this year, sales tax collections in East Baton Rouge Parish were lower in May than they were during the same month last year. The city-parish netted a total of approximately $15.1 million through its 2% sales tax and its share of vehicle tax collections in May. That’s about 2% less than the roughly $15.4 million netted in sales and vehicle taxes in May 2014.
- Despite all the cars lining the streets in downtown Baton Rouge and the pay-per-stall lots that fill up by midmorning on weekdays, there are in fact enough parking spaces for every driver on the lookout for one, AECOM Louisiana Transportation Practice Leader Bob Schmidt told the Downtown Development District at its meeting this week. The so-called parking problem, he said, is more perception than it is reality.
- The annual legislative scorecard compiled by the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, released this week, served up a failing grade for 94 out of the Louisiana Legislature’s 144 members.
—Steve Sanoski
