Larose lift bridge opens
March 12, 2013
Lafourche Parish President awaits ruling on BP ethics charge
March 12, 2013
EDITOR’S NOTE: A printer error omitted the remainder of this story from today’s publication. The following is the complete story regarding Lafourche Parish President Charlotte Randolph’s private business dealings in connection with the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program – a move that could violate state ethics provisions.
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Lafourche Parish President Charlotte Randolph’s private business accepted more than $90,000 over five years from a coastal restoration organization that sought and received federal grant funding funneled through Lafourche Parish Government, public records show.
State law prohibits public servants from doing business with a party that “has or is seeking to obtain contractual or other business or financial relationships with the public servant’s agency.” Multiple parish officials have questioned whether Randolph’s dealings with the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program through its state administrator, the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, violate that provision.
Randolph denied ill intentions during an interview with the Tri-Parish Times. She said the business relationship preceded her being elected to office in 2004, that her involvement was detached during her parish presidency and that she halted the arrangement in 2011 after realizing it could pose an ethical conflict.
LUMCON paid Randolph’s advertising and marketing firm Randolph Publications $18,150 each year in 2006 and 2008 for promotional services related to festivals BTNEP sponsored in 2006 and 2007.
The estuary program in 2006 was being publicly considered as a recipient of federal grant funding for a restoration project near Fourchon. The Lafourche Parish Council approved a $700,000 allocation of the federal funds to BTNEP in 2008, and BTNEP signed an agreement with parish government in January 2009.
From 2008-10, Randolph Publications accepted more than $50,000 from the Barataria Terrebonne Estuary Foundation – a nonprofit organization closely linked with BTNEP – for the same promotional services.
The foundation served as BTNEP’s contractor handling all facets of the festival, and Randolph Publications was a subcontractor for marketing and advertising.
BTEF paid Randolph Publications $17,100 in 2008 and 2009 and $19,750 in 2010, according to records released by the foundation.
Randolph denied that the project’s inclusion in the grant program was a result of her private business dealings. Although she conceded they could pose an ethical question, Randolph and others who contributed to the decision to fund the project strongly denied the quid-pro-quo sentiment, saying the money was allocated because of the project’s merits.
Business income from those sources was delineated on Randolph’s financial disclosure paperwork filed with the Louisiana Ethics Administration, an annual mandate for public servants’ private dealings with state and political subdivisions.
Randolph said she consulted in 2011 with the Lafourche Parish district attorney, who told her she “could not be advised personally” regarding her private business relationships. Randolph ceased the business dealings without pursuing an opinion from the state ethics board.
“Upon reviewing parish contracts in 2011, I realized that I had been signing contracts in my official capacity for an agency with which I was doing business personally,” Randolph said in an emailed statement. “I immediately went to report this to the Lafourche Parish District Attorney, the legal advisor for the parish. I was told that I could not be advised personally. I immediately halted any future contacts with BTNEP.”
In an unrelated-but-similar matter, Randolph is awaiting a Louisiana Ethics Adjudicatory Board ruling as to whether she violated the state’s code of ethics via a separate personal business deal.
The state Board of Ethics charged that she illegally accepted money from BP following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster for the rental of her Grand Isle camp.
This alleged misdealing, which Randolph self-reported, began in June 2010, one month after BP paid several coastal parishes – including Lafourche ¬– $1 million each for costs related to emergency response work.
Charlotte and her husband George, doing business as Randolph Publications, allegedly received $50,000 from BP over four months for the camp rental.
Randolph told the EAB last week she rented the camp to help BP personnel be in a position to respond to encroaching oil in an area without hotel vacancies and said the personal deal did not alter BP’s relationship with the parish.
How the pieces fit together
The Barataria Terrebonne National Estuary Program is one of 28 national estuary programs throughout the United States, part of a system established by Congress in 1987.
The program’s goals include preserving and restoring wetlands and barrier islands, supporting diverse biological communities, promoting environmentally responsible business practices and implementing education and awareness programs that increase the public’s involvement. BTNEP overlooks 4.2 million acres between the Atchafalaya and Mississippi river basins.
BTNEP is under the purview of LUMCON on the state level and under the Environmental Protection Agency on the federal level; the EPA allocates an annual lump-sum grant and signs off on proposed expenditures; the consortium oversees BTNEP’s annual budget, reviews its contracts and makes its expenditures. BTNEP pays LUMCON 10 percent of its grants for this administrative service.
Each of the state’s contracts with Randolph Publications were submitted to the state’s the Office of Contractual Review and reviewed by the Legislative Auditor. None were flagged as incompliant with laws or regulations, said Heidi Boudreaux, finance and human resource manager at LUMCON.
The state did not sign a contract with Randolph Publications after the BTNEP-Lafourche Parish Government cooperative endeavor agreement was signed.
Kerry St. Pe’, BTNEP’s director, said the estuary program receives notification from the EPA on an annual basis as to the grant award. In turn, the program files with the agency detailing a work plan of how the money will be spent.
“There is a whole lot of hoops to jump through before any of these contracts are executed, which is perfectly fine,” St. Pe’ said. “I’ve been working with the state for almost 40 years, and I’ve had to deal with this, and it’s great because every individual that works for the state of Louisiana doesn’t know all of the contractual requirements. It’s hard enough to keep track of all the biology.”
One BTNEP project – through a partnership with the Greater Lafourche Port Commission forged in 2001 – has been the Maritime Forest Ridge and Adjacent Marsh Restoration Project.
The project entails pumping earthen material in open water to rebuild marsh and establish a 4,000-foot ridge at an 8-foot elevation north of Port Fourchon. Forested ridges, as the name indicates, are elevated to allow trees to grow despite the region’s abundance of saltwater.
In addition to serving as a spot for migratory birds to stop during their excursions, the bolstered marsh could offer some protection to Port Fourchon from northern storm surges, stakeholders said.
The estuary program annually hosts La Fête d’Ecologie, a one-day free-admission festival that focuses on local arts, music, culture and environmental threats existent in the estuary. In November of last year, the event featured 21 exhibitors and 20 artists, in addition to bands, food and children’s activities.
BTNEP turned to Randolph Publications with no-bid contracts to promote the event from 1999 through 2010, Randolph said. That job entails overseeing print, digital and broadcast advertising, the production of festival banners and printing of a festival guide and newspaper inserts.
After Randolph took office in 2004, she had “very little” involvement with the business, she said.
“(Charlotte’s husband) George (Randolph) handled the contracts we had left,” the parish president said. “My daughter handled all of the BTNEP stuff because that’s her strong suit. She did before, and she did after.”
The price tag has fluctuated over time. The services cost $4,000 in 2003 and 2004; $18,150 in 2006 and 2007; $17,100 in 2008 and 2009; and $12,350 in 2010.
After the festival was cancelled due to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the program decided to bolster promotion of its return in 2006 with advertising inserts, printed promotional materials tucked into regional newspapers, St. Pe’ said.
“The extent of the publicity and marketing for this was always determined by the amount of money that LUMCON and BTNEP received,” Randolph said. “If they had more money to promote, if they had more money to publicize it, we certainly got involved in that. One year, it could have been insertions into newspapers and the next year they had more money so we did billboards and we did some distributions to schools and things like that.”
The Barataria Terrebonne Estuary Foundation exists solely as a nonprofit group in support of BTNEP, according to Melancon. They are free to accept private donations – which BTNEP cannot do as a state-run entity – and spend the money according to BTNEP’s needs.
“Our existence is purely to help the program,” Melancon said. “We become the private arm, that 501(c) 3.”
As a BTNEP contractor, the foundation started paying for the La Fête promotional services upfront in 2008, but BTNEP through LUMCON ultimately paid for services from Randolph Publications, Melancon said.
The Coastal Impact Assistance Program was established by Congress in 2005. The program dedicated $1 billion to coastal states and parishes/counties to help offset impacts of Outer Continental Shelf energy production.
Louisiana and its 19 coastal parishes received $496 million, with 35 percent of that money dedicated to the parishes, according to state figures. The parishes coordinated the spending with the state.
The Minerals Management Service initially managed the money, though the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, also under the Department of the Interior umbrella, later absorbed that responsibility.
The parish’s Coastal Zone Management Advisory Committee devised a list of projects that it felt deserved local CIAP funding. Through Randolph’s administration, the committee presented the list to the parish council, she said. All of the recommendations were approved.
The parish president said her office “deferred” to the CZM committee on crafting the list “because we knew they had the expertise, and therefore, any decisions that they made on this were based upon their knowledge. People on the CZM board were directly involved in coastal issues.”
The state ethics law in question prohibits public servants and their legal entities from receiving “any thing of economic value or for in consideration of services rendered” during public service from any person who “has or is seeking to obtain contractual or other business or financial relationships with the public servant’s agency.”
The potential violation
The Maritime Forest Ridge Project first appears in official CZM committee meeting minutes in February 2008. The minutes from that meeting and all other meetings detail actions and some topics discussed but not the discussion itself, so it’s unknown how much the project was discussed then or beforehand strictly based on the official minutes.
The project name was handwritten in one board member’s agenda notes in February 2006, and it appeared in an email written by a state Department of Natural Resources employee in September 2006. The email lists several projects “recommended for CIAP funding from Lafourche Parish.”
In February 2007, a draft of the state’s CIAP plan was released. It included $700,000 in proposed Lafourche Parish CIAP funds for the Maritime Forest Ridge and Marsh Restoration Project at Fourchon Beach, then a seven-year-old project.
The parish council accepted the money in October 2008; the resolution stipulated a commitment to the forest ridge project. The council approved a signed agreement with BTNEP in January 2009.
The parish council unanimously approved the resolutions (excluding Councilman Daniel Lorraine’s absence at the October 2008 meeting).
Because she did not serve on the CZM committee and she does not have a council vote, Randolph had no official say on what projects received CIAP monies.
In 2006, LUMCON made a $12,750 payment to Randolph Publications on Oct. 31 through a contract covering Aug. 1 through Dec. 31, according to vouchers obtained by the Tri-Parish Times via a public records request. The consortium that year made a second payment totaling $5,400 on Dec. 22 for the same contract.
In 2008, LUMCON made the $18,150 payment to Randolph Publications on Jan. 11 for services rendered in 2007. That contract period was Aug. 15 to Dec. 31, 2007, a year after the email detailing the Maritime Forest Ridge Project’s chances for receiving CIAP funds.
Charlotte Randolph signed the 2008 contract for Randolph Publications. Her daughter signed the 2006 agreement.
BTEF, the nonprofit, paid Randolph Publications $46,550 from 2008-10 regarding La Fête promotional work. Each contract period ran from Aug. 15 through Dec. 31 for the particular year: $17,100 in 2008, $17,100 in 2009 and $12,350 in 2010.
The foundation paid an additional $7,400 to the marketing firm in 2010 for advertising related to the Grand Isle 2010 Bird Celebration, Melancon said.
Through CIAP funding, Lafourche Parish had paid LUMCON – on behalf of BTNEP – $219,526 of the $700,000 million council-approved, grant-funded budget through November 2012, according to parish vouchers.
The funds have been used to purchase more equipment for use on the ridge and one full-time salaried employee working on the project. It also pays for part-time salaries BTNEP’s senior scientist and deputy director, who frequently work on the ridge, St. Pe’ said.
Strong denials of quid pro quo
The parish president expressed concern that the transgression, which she said was caused by her overlooking the potential conflict of interest and facilitated by her lack of everyday involvement in Randolph Publications, would reflect poorly on the other parties involved.
“Maritime Forest Ridge is essential to Lafourche Parish and to the port just because it’s a good project that will benefit us for years to come,” Randolph said. “In no way can you make the connection (that the funding was a result of private business dealings). Barataria Terrebonne has planted before, and they will plant again. They did not continue our relationship in order to do this planting. It is part of their charge. It is part of the scope of their services. And it just fits. The principals involved in those organizations are very concerned that the continued focus on this is going to cost them money because people are casting aspersions on the relationship and not looking at the benefit of what the end result will be.”
Windell Curole, who was the parish’s CIAP coordinator and CZM administrator during the process of vetting CIAP projects, also flatly rejected that business relationships impacted the process.
Regardless of Randolph’s business relationship, the Maritime Forest Ridge Project was worthy of funding, Curole said.
“Forested ridges are one of the smallest percentage of ecosystems we have left in the estuary,” Curole said. “Secondarily, it was a ridge that stood between the Gulf of Mexico and the rest of Lafourche Parish. Also, it helped protect Port Fourchon from any storm surges from the north along with the environmental benefits of letting trees grow where the migratory birds would have a place to land and feed.
“We were looking at the ones that we thought we could put on the ground the fastest and get the most benefit from.”
In addition to the forest ridge project, Lafourche decision makers approved funding to elevate La. Highway 1 and money for small dredge projects in the Clovelly and Catfish Lake areas.
St. Pe’ sat on the CZM committee during the vetting process. He said state officials with the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority initially pledged to dedicate $700,000 in CIAP funds to the forest ridge project, but that Lafourche Parish Government volunteered instead to use its share.
“I remember that the decision to fund the migratory bird ridge was made by the state,” St. Pe’ said. “If the parish wouldn’t have funded it, the state would have funded it. It’s just that the parish had $7-9 million to spend on restoration projects.
“There was never any discussion of whether it would be funded. It was just accepted as one of the projects. … I explained what we had planned to the CZM committee, but I don’t think they were aware before that project was handed to them by the state.”
The Greater Lafourche Port Commission’s involvement in the forest ridge project was escalated when commissioners began exploring the port’s northern expansion. In dredging 700-feet wide slips for industrial vessels, the port had additional earthen material and was looking for a way to ease concerns with the expansion expressed by environmentalists, according to St. Pe’.
Port commission Executive Director Chett Chiasson said that while the project is under construction because of its environmental benefits, it offered protection from roaming storm waters during Hurricane Katrina.
“You could tell just by the way the debris seals were, the maritime forest ridge actually assisted in slightly reducing the amount of damage that the port saw,” he said. “There was a lot of debris that stayed put.”
Biologists have tracked at least one species of bird that has shifted its migratory nesting spot from Fourchon Beach to the ridge, Chiasson and St. Pe’ said.
“It’s really become a safe haven for some of these birds as well as the other birds that are prominent in our area,” Chiasson said.
Through the first decade-plus worth of work on the ridge, scientists have successfully grown trees on a portion of footprint, a task that required them to decrease the salinity of the soil through trials.
When complete – its end date is roughly eight to 10 years away – the ridge could feature a walking trail for bird watchers and nature enthusiasts.
“If Lafourche Parish wouldn’t have volunteered, we would have still gotten the money,” St. Pe’ said. “We don’t really care where the money comes from, as long as it comes, as long as we’re able to do the project.”
