Residents in the Holy Cross neighborhood have sued the Port of New Orleans over plans for a controversial grain terminal in their area, accusing the port of failing to notify the public in a timely manner about a Monday meeting to discuss funding for that project and of failing to release records about its scope.
But Port officials challenged those claims in a Friday response to the residents’ lawsuit, saying they did, in fact, print a Dec. 21 notice in The Advocate about their Monday meeting, as required by law. The agency also argued that residents failed to request records properly and that there was no legal requirement to hand over records because Monday’s meeting was a simply a chance for public comment, with no votes planned by the Port’s board.
The legal dispute is the latest kindling in a battle between the Port and neighborhood residents over a grain terminal Canada-based Sunrise Foods International aims to build at the Alabo Street Wharf. While officials at the Port, who control the wharf, say they have already signed off on Sunrise’s plans, residents have accused Port officials of making no effort to inform them of the project until it was too late to stop it.
The residents have also decried the project’s potential to pollute the air in their neighborhood, lower their property values, and bring unwanted noise and rodents that might be attracted to the grain the terminal will churn out.
In the lawsuit filed Friday in Civil District Court, Holy Cross homeowner Jeffery Wittenbrink and the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association claimed that the Port failed to share information about Monday’s meeting where Port staff accepted comments on their plan to issue $100 million in bonds and use a portion of that for the terminal project. Though residents sought to stop the meeting, Judge Monique Barial denied that request, though the judge did schedule a 10 a.m. Friday hearing on their lawsuit’s broader claims.
Residents say they saw the Port’s Dec. 21 public notice, which referenced an “Alabo Complex Conversion” and instructed people to contact the law firm Foley & Judell if they had questions. But when residents visited that firm, they couldn’t reach any lawyers who were away for Christmas, and they never got any answers.
“The notice was promulgated on the last Saturday before Christmas, in a manner calculated to avoid public scrutiny of the record,” attorneys for the residents wrote. “The public hearing noticed is on the first Monday after Christmas at 10:00 a.m. … giving no reasonable time to review records and make written public comment prior to the Monday meeting.”
Residents also said past notices have been similarly scant on details, and that the project was approved without public input. They have raised concerns over efforts Port NOLA officials made to notify the public of their June 27 meeting where the board approved the lease that would allow Sunrise to open the grain terminal. Port officials have said the two notices they published in The Advocate in the weeks before the meeting met the legal requirements.
Sarah Porteous, vice president of external affairs and chief of staff for the Port, denied any wrongdoing after the Port’s meeting Monday.
“All meetings on this and any other subject have been properly noticed in accordance with applicable law,” she said.
Attorneys for the Port’s board also said in response to the lawsuit that if residents were looking for specific public records, they should have contacted the Port directly, not Foley & Judell, regardless of what the notice instructed.
The Dec. 21 notice “allows interested persons to contact the Board’s bond counsel for information about the proposed tax-exempt bonds financing,” attorneys wrote. “That does not make the Board’s outside bond counsel the Board’s ‘custodian’ of records under state law.”
About 35 residents packed the meeting Monday to sound off about the grain terminal project during a 90-minute public comment session. The $100 million in bonds, if approved, would pay for a wide range of Port projects, including the terminal.
About $9 million has been earmarked for the terminal project. Among other things, that would pay for fire and electrical upgrades to existing facilities, a dehumidification system, a vessel unloading system and a rail loading system.
The rest of the $100 million, Port Chief Financial Officer Ronald Wendel said, “will be for projects that the port generates income from.”
Wendel said the board has already preliminarily approved the funding, and that it is expected to sign off on it a final time at a Jan. 30 meeting. He said the bond vote will determine how the Alabo Street Wharf improvements and other projects are paid for, but not whether they will continue.
“Any of these projects not funded by the bonds would be funded by Port cashflows or reserves,” Wendel said. “The project is not dependent on this bond issuance. That’s the bottom line of this whole thing.”
Wittenbrink, the resident who filed suit, said if the Port seeks to continue the project amid the public outcry then the Port should not use bond funds, which are meant to pay for projects in the best interest of the public. Instead, they should be required to find other means of paying for it.
“I think if they want to figure out the funding, they should have to take it out of their own funds,” he said. “I don’t think they should get bond approval for it.”