Land battle looms in Livingston

Dispute over Section 16 land in parish may ‘open a can of worms’

“Believe me, if a judge is going to award them that property, the suing is going to start. I am personally going to sue the School Board, the clerk of court and the developer of the property.” e_SFlbBernard gourgues, Property owner

FRENCH SETTLEMENT — Bernard Gourgues won’t give up his home without a fight.

He and his wife bought the lot in 1995 because they liked the seclusion — their house sits about 2.5 miles down a dead-end road near French Settlement — and the access to Colyell Bay.

From Colyell Bay, they can get in a boat and in just minutes be on the Amite River or the Diversion Canal. A little longer, and they can be on Lake Maurepas or Lake Pontchartrain.

“It’s real peaceful back here,” Gourgues said. “Oh hell no, I don’t plan on going anywhere.”

Gourgues is one of about three dozen landowners sued by the Livingston Parish School Board, which is asking a state judge to declare that the landowners don’t legally own any part of the 143-acre tract in which many of them live.

The defendants were notified in November of the impending suit, which was filed Jan. 6 in 21st Judicial District Court in Livingston Parish.

Determining who owns the land has been a near decade-long quest for Keith Martin, who represents the parish’s south end — including French Settlement — on the School Board.

“When I first started representing French Settlement (after reapportionment in 2001), that’s when I found out about it,” Martin said.

He learned the tract lies in Section 16 — land held as a trust for local schools.

Congress adopted the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which initiated the rectangular survey of public lands in “the West,” cutting the land into townships that were subdivided into 36 sections. Section 16 in each township was later given to each state, as it joined the union, as a trust for schools.

Property deeds for those 640-acre tracts have always belonged to the states.

In Louisiana, there is no state agency, board or commission that oversees Section 16 lands, leaving the matter to individual school systems.

That means the documentation of the history of Section 16 lands in Louisiana is scattered and, in many instances, lost to history, depending on how well individual school districts kept up with the lands.

Martin said he brought the matter before the School Board in 2003.

Nothing came of it, though, until 2006, when Martin and some French Settlement residents, including Ron Picou, went to the state land office, where Martin was told the land should belong to the state.

“That was, I felt like, the first real time that anybody of any consequence stepped up and said ‘we know it’s your property,’ ” Martin said.

But then the issue lay dormant for almost four years.

Late in 2010, the School Board hired Glen R. Petersen, a Baton Rouge attorney and former assistant state attorney general, to look into the matter. Petersen did some research on the land and its history, and reported to the board in March.

“I am 100 percent certain that this is School Board property,” Petersen told the board. “There is nothing in the chain of title to indicate that anybody in this board ever sold it.”

Based on Petersen’s remarks, eight members of the board — one was absent — voted to grant Petersen authority to file a lawsuit asking a judge to declare that the land belongs to the state and should be used for the benefit of the school system.

Petersen said he believes the action is the first of its kind in Louisiana.

The suit alleges that the actual owner of the land, the state of Louisiana, has no record of ever having sold it, and since sale documents would be part of any legal sale, the land was never legally sold.

Gourgues, meanwhile, is gearing up for a fight. “There’s no way that the School Board can prove that they own that property,” he said.

Gourgues and 15 to 20 of his fellow defendants have retained Prairieville attorney Donnie Floyd.

Floyd said he has maps that show the land was owned in the 1850s by a man named Louis Harrell.

A courthouse fire in the 1870s destroyed some of the 30 to 40 years’ worth of records, Floyd said.

“Are they going to say that the original sale was illegal, so that means that all the other sales are illegal?” Gourgues asked.

He also says that if a judge rules in favor of the School Board, the fight will be just beginning.

“Believe me, if a judge is going to award them that property, the suing is going to start,” Gourgues said. “I am personally going to sue the School Board, the clerk of court and the developer of the property.”

The mortgage companies and attorneys who participated in the closings could also face suits, Floyd said.

“It’s going to be a knock- down, drag out, very expensive war,” he said. “This is not going to be a quick and easy thing.”

Floyd said his clients will not “roll over.”

“These are folks who have bought property, built homes or brought mobile homes in,” he said. “These folks have been paying mortgages and putting their hard-earned money into it.”

Floyd plans to file multiple defenses to the School Board’s lawsuit, and said he would be surprised if a judge summarily ruled that the land belongs to the school system.

“That would be a violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, depriving a person of his property without due process,” Floyd said.

Martin said he is sensitive to the homeowners’ plight. He wants the School Board to reclaim the land, “but how do we go about it without hurting any people?” he asked.

Other board members echoed that concern.

“I don’t think anyone on the board is out for evicting anybody,” said Karen Schmitt, who represents Denham Springs.

With that concern in mind, the board has not decided how to proceed if a judge rules in its favor.

In addition to the people who have houses in Section 16, two bigger plots of the land are owned as part of
larger tracts: 35 acres by the Cashio family, and another 50 or so acres by Livingston furniture store owner Valery Watts.

Neither Watts nor Cashio has a house on the land, but both say they intend to fight any attempt by the School Board to claim the land.

Watts purchased 300 acres or so — only a portion of which lies in Section 16 — from a timber company years ago, said his son Aldrich Watts.

Valery Watts said they plan to fight for the land. “I have paid taxes on it for a dozen years.”

Watts said he doesn’t know why the School Board is interested in his land.

“It’s a small portion and it’s mostly swamp down there,” he said. “There ain’t no way to enter it.”

Watts has retained a lawyer, but refused to name him, saying he prefers to keep it private.

Joe Cashio said Petersen called him in late 2010 to inform him the land belongs to the School Board.

“It was a hell of a shock,” Cashio said. “I thought it was a prank call.”

His father bought the land years ago, Cashio said, and he has paid property tax on it for the past quarter century.

“I don’t see any reason in the world why or how, after this many transactions have taken place, how all of a sudden they are going to pop up and lay claim to what is mostly an unusable property,” he said.

For Martin and the other board members, the answer is simple: money.

The Livingston Parish school system — like most in Louisiana — is suffering a severe budget crunch. In February, the board declared a financial exigency, or crisis. It froze employee pay, and instituted three furlough days for employees.

In that context, the idea that a piece of land could possibly generate additional revenue is attractive.

“Livingston Parish is one of the highest-taxed parishes,” Martin said earlier this year. “And French Settlement schools are one of the highest taxed.”

Mineral rights from the land could generate thousands of dollars, Martin said.

Letters to the School Board from land agents and petroleum companies detail negotiations to put a well on the property in the early 1980s and 1990s.

In addition, Ron Picou, whose land is adjacent to the Section 16 land, says timber was cut earlier this century.

There is a well is on the land and the timber had been cut, Gourgues said.

No revenue from any timber cuts has been paid to the School Board, said attorney C. Tom Jones, who advises the School Board.

“I will tell you that if people are making money on our land and it’s being put in their pockets, then I am real concerned about that,” Martin said in February.

Watts, however, says the entire effort by the School Board is a waste of money.

“They got so much other stuff they could be working on to make money, instead of fighting these people,” he said.

Gourgues is resigned to going to court. “You don’t know what will happen when it gets into the court system,” he said. “They are fixing to open a can of worms that they don’t want to open.”