In what could be a significant shake up to the Planning Commission, Metro Councilman Chandler Loupe has nominated and is supporting fellow councilmember Chauna Banks to be the council’s representative on the commission board.
Banks’ run for the post pits her against councilwoman Tara Wicker, who has served on the Planning Commission for several years and, until the beginning of this year, was its chairperson.
Loupe nominated Banks at the council’s first meeting earlier this month. The council deadlocked in a 5-5 vote on the matter, with Banks, Loupe, Lamont Cole, Donna Collins-Lewis and Erika Green voting for Banks. Buddy Amoroso, Dwight Hudson, Matt Watson, Trae Welch and Scott Wilson voted for Wicker, who was absent from the meeting. Barbara Freiberg abstained from voting. The council will vote on the two nominees again at Wednesday’s meeting.
Though Loupe says Wicker “has done a fabulous job” on the commission, he says he nominated Banks because Banks asked him to.
“When someone asks me and wants to serve, I put them up,” he says.
Loupe’s support of Banks is a classic example of the cliché that politics makes for strange bedfellows. The two sparred frequently last year when Loupe was mayor pro tem and in charge of running what often devolved into contentious Metro Council meetings. Those tensions have apparently cooled.
“I get along with everybody,” Loupe says.
Of late, however, Loupe has been at odds with the Planning Commission over a proposed 90-day moratorium on new development on a busy stretch of Highland Road. The development community and Planning Commission opposed the moratorium.
Wicker says she does not know whether Loupe’s decision to try to replace her on the commission is a tit for tat. Loupe also withdrew support for Wicker’s bid to be mayor pro tem earlier this year.
“I have no idea what this is all about,” she says. “Chandler hasn’t had any conversation with me about any of this. We usually talk and laugh and have conversations about our families, so I thought we were OK.”
In another recent shake up to the Planning Commission, Planning Director Frank Duke disbanded his informal advisory board, the Zoning Advisory Committee, after the Parish Attorney’s Office suggested that the committee could pose a conflict of interest issue for the commission. It is unclear what prompted the Parish Attorney’s Office to weigh in on the committee, which has been around for more than 15 years.
—Stephanie Riegel
