Public Meetings

2008 Tentative Meeting Dates
(All meetings scheduled Fridays – 9:30 a.m.)

Algiers Development District
Board of Commissioners Meeting
Friday, May 30, 2008
Woldenberg Village/New Orleans

The meeting of the Board of Commissioners for the ADD was called to order by Chairman Arnold at 9:20 a.m.

Members Present:
Board members present were Assessor Arnold, Rep. Arnold, Val Exnicios and Speaker Tucker which constituted a quorum. Not present were Councilman Carter, Senator Shepherd and Pastor Wardsworth. A verbal roll call was taken by Ms. Duplessis.

Others Present:
Kathy Lynn Honaker, Executive Director and Vanessa Duplessis, Executive Assistant.

Minutes
The minutes from the past three meetings in April were presented for approval. Assessor Arnold made the motion to approve which was seconded by House Speaker Tucker. All voted in favor.

Treasurer’s Report
Ms. Honaker gave the Treasurer’s Report. She covered the Balance Sheet and Profit and Loss Statement in-depth with the commissioners answering all questions. She alerted them that for the first time since she has been on board, the LAMP account is under the million dollar mark with more expenses for Federal City anticipated shortly.

Ms. Honaker also covered a Historical TIF Report which detailed the money received from the city and state by year since inception. There was also a graph depicting the annual amounts. The commissioners thanked Ms. Honaker and Duplessis for the work. The motion to approve the financial report was made by Speaker Tucker and seconded by Assessor Arnold with all voting in favor to accept the report.

Old Business/Key Projects Update:

Assessment to Dos-Update
Mr. Charles Rice, Attorney for ADD for the assessment process with the state, opened by saying that he and Ms. Honaker had been working on all the issues in the assessment report and had spoken to the legislative auditors on Wednesday. He asked Ms. Honaker to cover the report which she did in detail. She told the commissioners that she had successfully gotten the agreement for Mr. Rice approved by the Attorney General’s office and referred them to the documentation in their reports. Mr. Exnicios welcomed Mr. Rice as the board’s attorney for the assessment process and everyone else joined in.

Ms. Honaker covered each bulleted item as to the status of each and stated that she and Charles should have the city approvals finished by end of July as they go before the budget committee, the city attorney, and the full city council for approvals. Councilman Carter’s office is helping with the process. The CEAs and contracts will all be approved at that time as well as the budget.

She explained that she and Mr. Rice will continue to work on the list for completion in the next few months.

CEA-NOFA and ADD
Mr. Rice explained that the Attorney General’s office has approved the CEA as is on behalf of ADD. He, Ms. Honaker and Mr. Reid for NOFA met for an hour with the legislative auditors by teleconference on Wednesday and took their input for the CEA. He explained that most of their recommendations came due to the Cabellas case in Gonzales which had to do with the allocation of public money.

Mr. Rice passed out the revised CEA and covered each recommended change from the auditors which was shown in bold. He answered their questions on each. Mr. Exnicios made several suggestions which Mr. Rice stated he would incorporate into the CEA.

Much discussion ensued about the request from NOFA for the chairman of ADD to have authority between board meetings to authorize up to $40,000.00 for unanticipated expenses related to Federal City. It was agreed that if such expenses are needed, the board would call an emergency meeting in New Orleans or Baton Rouge if needed to accomplish the requests.

Mr. Exnicios made a motion to adopt the CEA with the changes as discussed and Assessor Arnold seconded the motion. All voted to accept the CEA.

Addendum to MOA HRI-ECC
Mr. Exnicios stated that he had met with HRI-ECC representative Mr. Fairbanks to understand the request for the addendum. He explained that the $12 million of public funds for planning purposes that was suppose to be available last year, was not made available to HRI-ECC as they had anticipated and they would like to have the addendum approved. He suggested the ADD board consider approving an agreement to ensure ADD fulfills its obligations.

Mr. Reid also gave input from the NOFA board concerning the agreement and addendum. At that point, Mr. Rice suggested he obtain input from Mr. Exnicios and work with Mr. Reid to finalize the addendum. Mr. Rice also stated he would like to see all expenses paid thus far by HRI-ECC and all anticipated expenses through September.

A motion was made to table this subject until next week by Speaker Tucker and seconded by Assessor Arnold. Everyone agreed to have the meeting once the addendum is revised and approved by the Attorney General’s office. The anticipated date for the meeting is next Friday, June 6 at 9:00 a.m. at Woldenberg Village.

Requested Landscape of Kabel Drive
Ms. Honaker presented this request from the Westbank Redevelopment Board of Directors. She stated that one of the four areas of ADD focus was Kabel Drive to return the area to an economic corridor for Algiers. She stated that the road work was complete and paid for by ADD, but that the neutral ground needed landscaping for curb appeal to assist the store owners in attracting traffic and for the overall appearance of a major corridor in Algiers. She stated she thought the board should pay $15,000.00 to $20,000.00 for landscaping. She stated she would contact Parks and Parkways for assistance with the project.

The board discussed the recommendation asking questions as to whether the city had provided any money for landscaping in the original budget. One of the store owners in the audience stated that the plans did not call for landscaping but only the road repairs.

The board voted to take this under advisement and asked Ms. Honaker to contact Parks and Parkways on the project and projected costs. They also asked her to consider having the merchants co-pay an amount for the landscaping.

State Appropriation
Ms. Honaker reported that the state appropriation of $100,000.00 from last year was being finalized and we should receive the contract in the next three weeks in order to move forward with the previously approved projects.

Election of Vice Chair and Treasurer
Chairman Arnold stated that due to Senator Heitmeier appointing Mr. Exnicios as his appointee, we were now without a vice chair. He stated that Councilman Carter also resigned his treasurer duties, so that we needed both a vice chair and treasurer. He asked the board if they wanted to wait for a full board vote later, or proceed with the nominations. The decision was made to proceed. Mr. Exnicios was nominated by Mr. Tucker and seconded by Assessor Arnold as vice chair and approved by all. Mr. Tucker was nominated by Assessor Arnold to be the treasurer and it was seconded by Mr. Exnicios. All voted to approved both nominations. They will serve a two-year term for 2008 and 2009.

New Business

Federal City Update
General Mize gave a Federal City update to the commissioners. He covered the following:

He discussed key target dates of Breaking Ground by September 2008.
He stated that the Industrial Development Board should have the money secured in June and the CEA is already being drafted between NOFA and the state.
He reviewed the positive meetings recently with the Secretary of the Navy, Senators Vitter and Landrieu. He also gave an update on negotiations with the Department of the Navy for the EUL. He stated he should have the final agreement in the next two weeks. All is on track and moving forward positively.
He also stated that HRI-ECC had several meetings with future tenants, some of them with as many as 6,200 employees who could move to Algiers.
He had had eight neighborhood group meetings to keep the community abreast of the project.
When the Master Plan is ready it will also be done in a group meetings with the community.

Public Input
Question: What about the status of funds for Behrman Park
Answer: The board responded that no money was budgeted for 2008-09 for Behrman Park. They had solicited the city for progress and received nothing. They would consider such request when received.

Question: What about the $500,000.00 placed in HB1 for ADD
Answer: HB1 is not approved yet so nothing is guaranteed for ADD. Speaker Tucker explained that he had discussed placing an amount in the ADD budget for dealing with blighted commercial properties in Algiers. This amount of money would begin the plans. He has had input form Councilman Carter and the mayor’s office on this allocation. The city would give the ADD authority to expropriate blighted commercial buildings in Algiers for the purpose of returning them to commerce and improving the quality of life in Algiers by improving the blight.

Question: Can we get an update on the $100,000.00 allocation and the projects that ADD has approved.
Answer: An update will be given once we have a contract in place with the state and the projects can begin.

Question: Does NOFA have public meetings and why not?
Answer: NOFA is a 501c3 and not subject to public meeting laws. For more information on NOFA they were instructed to contact General Mize who was in attendance in the audience. It was also explained that no ADD board member was on the NOFA board.

Before the meeting concluded, Attorney Rice interjected as a reminder that all prior contracts by ADD were now approved per HB45. He further stated that it was proper for all bill payments, including Federal City, to resume again with the approval of the CEA today.

The meeting was adjourned at 10:45 a.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Kathy Lynn Honaker
Executive Director