The recent leadership shakeup at the parish Mosquito Abatement and Rodent Control district has thrown into question the future of a tire shredder program proposed for East Baton Rouge Parish.
Under MARC’s former executive director Todd Walker, who resigned in April under pressure from the Metro Council, the agency was planning to enter into a contract with the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals to purchase a tire shredder with $605,000 in federal grant funds awarded to the state by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. MARC had planned also to operate the shredder program, which would presumably reduce the number of abandoned tires around the parish that are breeding pools for mosquitos.
But Interim Director Randy Veath, who succeeded Walker, says MARC is rethinking its proposed arrangement with the state.
“(Dr. Walker’s) vision and our vision are different with respect to how this will be operated,” he says. “But we do want to keep the state and the CDC happy because this is a pilot program and it’s very important so we are working on an alternate plan.”
Veath says it’s premature to discuss the specifics of that plan just yet. But DHH spokesman Robert Johannessen says discussions at a meeting earlier this month between the city, state, CDC and MARC officials centered on having the parish Department of Public Works, not MARC, purchase the shredder.
“We’ve learned that MARC district would prefer that the tire shredder fall under the office of DPW and we’re good with that,” he says. “The CDC is OK with it as well. We just have to get everyone together in one room to work out all details so we can go forward without there being any additional questions about it but we fully support the plan.”
Late last year, MARC came under fire from the council for
proposing a $1.6 million spending request for the tire shredder program, much of which would have gone to design and consultants’ fees associated with renovating a facility to house the tire shredder.
Months later, the council approved a much smaller, $900,000 spending request for the program, which had been stripped of the pricey design and consultants fees.
But the state held off on executing the contract with MARC—which would purchase the shredder then seek reimbursement from the state’s CDC grant for the equipment— because of questions that had surfaced about Walker’s future with the agency due to his inability to get a handle on its finances.
