New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu sues St. Charles Parish Council ...

A New Orleans civil court judge may decide whether Luling businessman Neal Clulee will get appointed to the New Orleans Aviation Board. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu is suing the St. Charles Parish Council to settle the dispute over who ultimately gets to determine the nine board members charged with governing Louis Armstrong International Airport.

In the suit filed Sept. 26 in Civil District Court, Landrieu argues that, as mayor of New Orleans, he has sole appointing powers to the Aviation Board and asks a judge for a declarative judgment in his favor.

St. Charles Parish was served with the suit last week, and at Monday's Parish Council meeting the council is scheduled to discuss a resolution to appoint Luling attorney Timothy Marcel as its legal representative on the case.

"It's about them trying to get out of the contract,'' St. Charles Parish Council Chairman Larry Cochran said. "It's not (Landrieu's) pick."

The suit is another layer in what has become a ticklish political situation pitting the Parish Council against Parish President V. J. St. Pierre Jr.?and Landrieu.

The Parish Council will consider hiring legal representation, despite already having a staff attorney, because St. Pierre does not support Clulee's appointment, Cochran said.

"Mr. St.Pierre has been against this from day one,'' he said.

St. Pierre could not be reached for comment on Friday.

For nearly a year, the St. Charles Parish Council has attempted to seat Clulee on the Aviation Board to replace long-time member Henry Smith, Jr. of Norco, who died last year.

Clulee was nominated by a majority vote of the Parish Council in November 2011, over the objections of three council members and St. Pierre who argued that the council should have considered several people and not just a lone nomination.

The Parish Council rejected Landrieu's request that St. Charles Parish submit other names for consideration. In August, a split New Orleans City Council voted 3-3 on Clulee's appointment and the measure died.

In September, the Parish Council again nominated Clulee as its choice and St. Pierre vetoed the measure saying the parish needed to choose someone else since the City Council didn't confirm him.

During its Oct. 1 Parish Council meeting, St. Pierre asked the council to support his veto. He warned that Landrieu was getting frustrated and that St. Charles could lose the seat if the Parish Council didn't select another person.

"His words to me were that there's a lot of investigation going on with the New Orleans airport right now,'' St. Pierre said, adding that Landrieu said he didn't want anyone controversial or politically connected.

Clulee sits on the parish's Planning and Zoning Commission and also has a sand hauling contract with the parish. When the City Council took up his appointment in August, several St. Charles elected officials attended the meeting in support of his nomination, including Sheriff Greg Champagne, District Attorney Joel Chaisson II and several council members.

Despite St. Pierre's warning, the Parish Council voted 7-2 to override the veto and reaffirmed Clulee, saying a 1985 agreement with New Orleans gives the council the right to select the parish's representative to the board.

"This appointment is a choice of the St. Charles Parish Council," Parish Councilman Clayton "Snookie" Faucheux said during that meeting. "This is about our agreement for 30 years. . . it's not about Neal Clulee being the candidate, right or wrong."

That 1985 agreement between the parish and city gave St. Charles the right to nominate a representative to the nine-member Aviation Board as part of a compromise to let the airport expand a runway into the parish. That agreement also gave the New Orleans City Council final approval of all members.

In the suit Landrieu said the Parish Council's interpretation that the agreement gives it perpetual nominating and selecting powers is incorrect, and if that interpretation is allowed to stand, it would violate the city's home rule charter.

The suit alleges that the agreement allowed St. Charles to retain the person who held the seat in 1985 and then to name that person's successor once the term expired.

Smith was the successor and held the seat until his death in 2011.

"The Mayor of the City of New Orleans has completed his obligations under the Agreement with regard to the Parish of St. Charles," the suit states.

Landrieu's suit asks for a declarative judgment that New Orleans' home rule charter, which established the Aviation Board, gives Landrieu the sole appointing power of all members.

In addition, Landrieu cites in the suit a 1984 state Supreme Court ruling that restricted other parishes and governments from appointing members to the board because it violated the city's charter and the mayor's sole appointing power.

Source: http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/10/mayor_mitch_landrieu_sues_st_c.html

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