At its last meeting of the year on Wednesday evening, the Metro Council deferred for the sixth time an item that has spawned an ongoing standoff between the city-parish and bus bench vendors over a $45 fee the vendors could be required to pay each time they place a bench alongside a state roadway.
The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development requires that companies receive approval from the city-parish to place bus benches alongside state roads, but no process for approval of permits for those benches exists in East Baton Rouge Parish.
Representatives from the Department of Public Works and the Capital Area Transit System are negotiating with three companies, Geaux Benches, Giraffe Advertising and National Concrete, to settle on terms of that permitting process.
The item put before Metro Council calls for vendors to pay the $45 processing fee for the new permits. The vendors are balking at the fee.
Councilman John Delgado is against the processing fee, which he said amounts to a tax.
Not only do the companies provide benches for CATS riders at no charge to the city, Delgado says, they also pay the city a portion of their advertising revenue. National Concrete in particular has allowed the city to advertise truancy programs and the DARE campaign at no cost, he notes.
“I’ve negotiated multimillion-dollar contracts in less time,” Delgado tells Daily Report this morning.
The item next will appear on the council agenda at its Jan. 28 meeting.
“I don’t see why we can’t get this thing knocked out in 45 days,” Delgado says.
In other business Wednesday, the council approved a contract with Grace Hebert Architects for the redesign of the council chambers. The city-parish has budgeted over $700,000 total for the redesign and renovation of the chambers, which are located in City Hall and haven’t been updated since the 1970s.
The council also approved three new members of the Downtown Development District board; they are Gordon LeBlanc, who owns property downtown; Cheryl McCormick, who replaces her husband Derrell Cohoon as the Spanish Town representative; and Melanie Counce Montanaro, president of the Beauregard Town Civic Association. —Kelly Connelly
