NEW ORLEANS (Verite) — After successfully shepherding his bills through a special legislative session on crime, Gov. Jeff Landry has turned his attention to the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board. This is the next step in Landry’s ambitious agenda to fundamentally change the structure of both state and local government in Louisiana.
During his transition period before being inaugurated, Landry established a practice of forming task forces to research and make recommendations on various policy issues.
The most high-profile group was the crime task force. Landry was successful in passing his crime agenda during the special session. During the regular session, the recommendations of other task forces will be turned over to legislative leaders.
Although not a part of his original task force groups, the S&WB task force was formed as a response to what Landry described as “frequent failures, widespread flooding, and drinking water violations.” Any recommendations from the task force will likely show up as proposed legislation during the regular session.
While the current board structure consists of Mayor LaToya Cantrell, nine of her appointees and a City Council representative, the agency was actually created by statute from the state legislature which retains legal authority to change its structure and operation.
The new fourteen member task force consists of four of Landry’s direct appointees: Chair Paul Rainwater, a lobbyist and former S&WB interim director; real estate developer Ryan Berger; Lynes Sloss, a business owner and current S&WB board member; and accountant William Vanderbrook.
In addition to Landry’s direct appointments, specific agencies and business groups have representatives, including Transportation and Development Secretary Joe Donahue; Coastal Protection Authority Chair Gordon Dove; Jefferson Public Works Director Mark Drewes; and Environmental Quality Secretary Aurelia Giacometto, who is the only woman and the only Black member of the task force.
The engineering sector is represented by Nathan Junius of the American Council of Engineering Companies; Ken Naquin of the Louisiana Associated General Contractors; and Byron Racca of the Louisiana Engineering Society.
Rounding out the task force are representatives of three business groups: Walter Leger, III, of the tourism industry group New Orleans & Company; Business Council representative Paul Flowers; and GNO, Inc. President Michael Hecht.
Notably absent from the task force are any elected officials representing New Orleans. Members of the City Council have expressed concern that a task force composed of non-elected leaders will not be responsive to the community. Board critics have countered that the board has been under control of local leadership for more than a century, and local elected officials have been the cause of the board’s mismanagement and incompetence.
One reform the task force will look at, and already in use in many cities, is a stormwater fee. While drinking water is covered by customer fees, the flood control system is paid for by property taxes. The flaw in the property tax system is that about one third of total property in the city is tax-exempt based on non-profit status, government agency status, or some other special exemption. A stormwater fee would be paid by every property owner, with no exemptions, based on square footage. It is considered a more equitable system. Calculations indicate it would also bring in more revenue to repair infrastructure.
While changes in funding sources will be contentious, because some groups will pay more than they are currently paying, the most contentious issue examined by the task force will be changing the political structure of the board. Landry has made it clear he does not trust the elected leadership of New Orleans, and blames them for mismanaging board operations.
The task force might propose structural changes to the board with perhaps the governor receiving power to appoint some board members, removing some of the mayor’s appointments, increasing the power of the governor, reducing the power of the mayor, and bringing the board under more direct control of the state.
A governor is always most powerful at the beginning of his first term. Landry also has the advantage of Republican supermajorities in both chambers. The vast majority of bills Landry proposes this upcoming session will become law. Political changes to the Sewerage & Water Board will continue his process of centralizing state control over local governments, and attempting to exercise more power to change Louisiana politics than any governor since Huey Long in the 1930s.
By Robert Collins for Verite