LOCC membership after Monday’s meeting
City Council votes don’t come much easier than Monday’s agenda item to approve a Community Partnership with Loving Our Community’s Children (LOCC). With a mission statement to “partner with the community to provide children and families with reliable, no-cost support that meets daily needs and fosters dignity, stability, and healing” and record of success…this was a layup and the right thing to do. Three of Gonzales’ five councilmembers (Eddie Williams, Kirk Boudreaux and Tyler Turner) realized it.
Which means that two (Cynthia Gray James and Terri Lambert) did not. Is it coincidence that they are the same two who opposed an agreement to authorize recreation league baseball in the city two weeks ago?
Will heartless city council refuse accommodation to LOCC? | Pelican Post – Online Newspaper
Lambert grilled LOCC’s Candace Melancon after a half-dozen passionate speakers touted the non-profit’s good works. Relating a telephone conversation which included State Representative Kathy Edmonston, Lambert condescended…
“I think we explained to you certain things and kinda decided the best path would be for you to do like a, uh, maybe go to a business owner or entity…I got off the phone with you and I spent another hour calling very well-known business people in the community to try and find you a space. Yet, here we are, back up here asking for this.
Lambert argued that the subject space, an unused couple of hundred square feet adjacent to the Office of Motor Vehicles at 320 E Ascension Street, could be leased for $600-800 per month. She persisted even after City Attorney Allen Davis explained that “the rental value is zero” since the city has never leased the space and has no intention to do so in the future. Preparatory to Monday’s meeting, Davis had already opined:
Louisiana Constitution Article VII, Sec. 14(B) contains twelve exceptions to the prohibition against donating public funds. Because this donation of public funds appears to fall within one of the exceptions in La.Const. art. VII, Sec. 14(B), the three-prong Cabela’s test used by our office in determining whether or not a donation is gratuitous, is not applicable. La.Const. art. VII, Sec. 14(B)(1) provides, “Nothing in this Section shall prevent the use of public funds for programs of social welfare for the aid and support of the needy.” Therefore, it is my opinion that because the LOCC provides services of public welfare for the aid and support of the needy, The Cabela’s test is not appliable. (Emphasis in original).
Councilwoman Lambert simply ignored Davis’ legal advice, seemingly intent on picking a fight with LOCC’s representative and miffed that Candace Melancon had not yielded to one council member’s diktat. It was unseemly and so distasteful that Councilman Tyler Turner interjected a brusque “motion to approve” the agreement during a pause in Lambert’s inquisition. Quickly seconded by Councilman Eddie Williams, City Clerk Anthony Keller called for a vote.
Three-to-one and a done deal, Councilwoman Cynthia Gray James sided with her sister councilwoman, explaining that “I’m gonna vote no because we need to do the same for everybody. We’ve had other non-profits and we haven’t done it for them.”
Factually correct but ignoring three other non-profit requests that were approved by this council. Community Partnerships were okayed to support the Boucherie Festival, Ascension Parish Re-Entry Coalition and Shawn Nelson Foundation. Five more requests were rejected.
Council members were elected to make such decisions.
Last night, three of them got it right.
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