Local Swamp - Update

Opposing the toll bridge...…..

Engineers can be pesky critters. We are pesky because we read specifications and regulations for a living. So I read the Louisiana Statutes regarding Public Private Partnerships. It turns out that the proposing company is required by law to submit their proposal to "each local jurisdiction" and they then have 60 days to comment and "confirm that it meets the local transportation plan". This sounded to me like they needed local permission to proceed so I notified all the folks on the email list which included one of our councilpersons. He asked the parish lawyer if the proposal had been received. He could not find it so he sent an email to the Dept of Transportation lawyer asking where it was. Turns out that it had been delivered 30 days ago and our parish politicos had lost it. So now, there are 30 days left to comment and Hurricane Barely shuts everything down for another week.

This week we finally got someone to pay attention and realize that this was a chance, mandated by law, to influence the project.

Upon further reading, I noted the key word "each". So now I am checking to see if the neighboring parishes were informed and if the received a copy of the proposal. If not, we could re-set the 60 day clock.

The lesson here is that your politicians probably don't have a clue what the law says so it pays to spend some time and look into the details.