Developers and real estate brokers from the Baton Rouge area filed into City Hall on Wednesday afternoon for the scheduled Metro Council Zoning meeting, eager to get approval for their applications so they could move forward on their developments and land deals.
But they soon had to turn around after the meeting was canceled due to lack of a quorum. Seven of the 12 Metro Council members are needed for a quorum and only six showed up for the 4 p.m. meeting.
The meeting agenda was light, with only five items up for discussion and vote. Four of them had already been approved by Planning Commission unanimously, and the fifth was set to be deferred until next week’s Metro Council meeting, meaning the meeting likely would have amounted to a brief rubber-stamping of a few noncontroversial items.
“It is not good, it is embarrassing and it is disappointing,” says Metro Councilman John Delgado, who was among those present for the meeting, along with Buddy Amoroso, Trae Welch, Scott Wilson, C. Denise Marcelle and Ryan Heck. “Unfortunately, we have to follow the law and we cannot have a meeting without seven members.”
Amoroso agrees.
“The public was the ultimate loser last night,” he says.
It’s not the first time in recent months that the council has failed to reach a quorum. A regular meeting of the council ended after only about 40 minutes after some members left early. Council Administrator Casey Cashio says Wednesday’s session was the first he could recall in several years that had to be cancelled at the outset because not enough members showed up.
The six members who did not attend were Chauna Banks-Daniel, Chandler Loupe, Ronnie Edwards, Donna Collins-Lewis, Joel Boé and Tara Wicker. Cashio sent out an email to the council members on Thursday afternoon informing them that Loupe, Boé, Banks-Daniel and Edwards would not be present.
Banks-Daniel says she had to bring her mother to some medical appointments, while Wicker says she is on bed rest per her doctor’s orders. Collins-Lewis could not attend the meeting because she is recovering from a car accident she was involved in Monday afternoon. She says someone ran a red light at Winbourne Avenue and Victoria Drive, slamming into the side of her car and spinning it around several times until her vehicle became pinned against a pole.
“It was a very, very hard impact the way she hit us,” Collins-Lewis says, adding a friend in the car was very bruised from the impact. “I’m grateful just to be alive. I’m sore, bruised, banged up, but I’m good.”
Daily Report was unable to reach Boé or Loupe before this morning’s deadline. Delgado says he has requested that the five items on last night’s agenda be placed on next week’s Metro Council agenda. The parish attorney’s office has to research the advertising requirements to determine whether there enough time allowed by law to place the items on the agenda, he says. If the five items cannot be included on the Metro Council agenda, they will automatically roll over to the next zoning meeting on Oct. 21, Cashio says.
—Ryan Broussard
