Seven named to Ascension Planning/Zoning Commission
DONALDSONVILLE — The Ascension Parish Council ratified on Tuesday a slate of candidates to fill the parish Planning and Zoning Commission amid continuing criticism.
In December, the outgoing Parish Council cleaned out the commission, removing all nine commissioners and shrinking the body’s size to seven members amid public controversy.
Council Chairman Chris Loar, who helped shepherd that replacement process and served on the Personnel Committee that interviewed applicants in place of another councilman, gave a defense of the selections.
He argued the new commission’s seating was a chance to put a contentious chapter behind the council with a new commission that can have a respectful working relationship with the council to balance of rural quality of life and suburban growth.
“We have to be able to have a rational conversation about growth and not get involved or not listen to those who are playing the politics of selling fear and spreading falsehoods,” he said.
Loar also listed several reasons for removing the former commission members, including refusing to sign plats, calling for staff members to resign, throwing the comprehensive plan in the “garbage” and then asking for more money to restart the process, and risking a multimillion-dollar grant for Houmas House.
“The past Planning and Zoning Commission, to me, had created a climate that was harming our parish economically,” he said.
Loar’s comments are the first by a council member in a public meeting explaining why the council removed the old commission.
The new members of the commission are:
- Robert Burgess, of Prairieville, former president and chief operating officer of Eatel.
- Donald Songy, of Prairieville, former superintendent of Ascension Parish public schools.
- Jackie Callender, of Geismar, retired U.S. Army Corps of Engineers program manager.
- Morrie Alec Bishop, of St. Amant, former vice president of the Bank of Gonzales and lawyer practicing in New Orleans and Bay St. Louis, Miss., who manages family farming and real estate interests.
- Gasper Chifici, of Geismar, a Donaldsonville native who is a civil engineer with experience in water and wastewater systems.
- Paul J. Nizzo, of Gonzales, a Donaldsonville native who was past chairman of the now-defunct West Ascension Recreation Board, former deputy sheriff and an employee of CF Industries.
- Joshua Ory, of Gonzales, a draftsman for the engineering firm Forte and Tablada of Baton Rouge.
His comments followed criticism from failed applicants for the openings, including former parish president candidate and community activist Kathryn Goppelt, Coral “C.J.” Lambert and Milton Clouatre Jr.
Councilman Daniel Satterlee, a newly elected member who sat on the old commission last year, listed a variety of procedural missteps he said called the process into question and put the council in violation of the open meetings law, the home rule charter and its bylaws.
“Gentlemen, we can, and we need to do better,” Satterlee said.
He argued the council violated the open meetings law when it did not take public comments first on the use of a stakeholder advisory group that provided questions for applicants, saying the group was a subcommittee subject to the open meetings law.
Council attorney O’Neil Parenton Jr. disputed Satterlee’s interpretation, saying members of the group never met, never talked to one another and provided only input to the council.
Nominees making up the slate backed by the council are the seven top-ranked applicants brought forward last week by the Personnel Committee.
The council voted individually on each of the seven candidates Tuesday. None received less than seven votes on the 11-member council. Two attempts to substitute candidates failed.
Councilman Kent Schexnaydre was absent due to a family death. Loar does not vote unless to break a tie.