Sucette meeting #147?
By Ernest A. Burguières
July 25, 2023
Ernest A. Burguières is a Mandeville attorney who formerly served as District III Councilman. Mandeville Daily is honored to publish Mr. Burguières’ column with permission which is a combined reporting of the goings on in Mandeville government with his personal commentary.
This is starting to seem like the movie “Groundhog Day.” It seems like week after week it is the same story.
There was one citizen comment that neatly summarized what was happening in a joke that I will try to paraphrase:
A man was going to have a party in which he requested that his guests bring a dish. One guest brought a beautiful roasted turkey. Unfortunately the host was a vegetarian and explained this to the guest. The guest responded that it was one of the finest turkeys around. But the host said he was a vegetarian. The guest then said the turkey was prepared by one of the city’s most famous chefs. But the host said he was a vegetarian. The guest then said he had sliced off a small portion of the turkey to make it all right. But the host said he was a vegetarian.
It does not matter how you dress it up or how you cut it, it is still a turkey and it is unacceptable.
Indeed.
What got us here?
Discussions of how and why the city should try to jam a highway zoning designation into a residential area that is hidden in a labyrinth of narrow streets far away from a highway.
The usual legal and intellectual gymnastics proliferated from the city attorney and director or planning. They were talking a different language and were apparently immune to the fear and loathing that has become a regular feature of citizen comments about this project.
An attempt was made to equate the 4,000-square-foot or 10,000-square-foot Sucette “event center” or “ballroom” (I don’t know what the functional difference is.) with the less than 2,000-square-foot Maison Lafitte on Lafitte St. How does this compare?
Then Sucette attorney, Paul Harrison, tried to equate local one or two bedroom B&B / VRBO short term rentals in the old town with Sucette’s 80-room hotel. Why, it’s almost identical! What’s the fuss?
Councilwoman Rebecca Bush then lamented how the magical (my word) traffic studies did not seem to take in to account the effect of frequent weddings or other events that could bring 100-200 cars into this tight area all at one time. The traffic study is an academic tool that amortizes traffic over a large period of time, years, which minimizes the effects of potentially frequent big events. It is a flaw in the study that because it is an unknown methodology we are likely powerless to criticize, despite the reality of events.
When asked by Councilman Jason Zuckerman if the reduction of the apartment units from 178 to 90 would correspondingly reduce the height of the building Sucette responded, “we don’t know”. Really? A 50-percent reduction in the number of apartments might not affect the height of a building that is almost twice as high as anything for miles around. Oh, and then what appeared to be a veiled threat that if Sucette is frustrated on height they may have to pull the marina portion of the project. That threat almost sounds like a virtue.
Sucette appears to want to view each component of its project separately when it suits their analysis involving density and scale but falls back to the big picture when they want to talk about the need to look at the big picture that they have divined through the CLURO.
The room was packed as usual and while there were many familiar faces there were also many new ones. Many were wearing red in solidarity with the No Sucette movement. I only counted one citizen that I know was a Sucette proponent although she made no comments. In fact no one but Sucette representatives spoke in favor of Sucette.
Another citizen rhetorically wondered how anyone could sit in judgment over this issue week after week and watch scores of citizens plead with their elected officials to protect them, and not do anything to hurt them.
The vice president of the New Golden Shores neighborhood association who lived on Dona Dr. (a neighbor of Councilman Skelly Kreller) shared the results of a poll on Sucette in which there was a ratio of 12-to-1 against Sucette. I wonder if Kreller participated in the poll?
The public comments wrapped up with citizen Pat Rosenow commenting on the difficulty in being a judge (which he is or was) and how delaying a difficult decision is death by a 1000 cuts. He, like several others, implored the council to separate the re-zoning issue from the conditional use and vote on the re-zoning. Very logical. Re-zoning would be forever. If you think re-zoning is in the best interest of the health, safety and welfare of the citizens of Mandeville, then vote to re-zone. If you cannot honestly say that re-zoning helps anyone but the developer, then vote no.
For a reason that is not clear Councilman Rick Danielson announced that there would be at least two more meetings on Sucette, August 15th and August 23rd. To discuss what that we haven’t heard already? A turkey is still a turkey.
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