OPINION | Latest Sucette meeting turned into tactic to save punch-drunk developer from knockout

Danielson halted new amendments and conditions

Effort to ‘filter’ which amendments come to a vote

Previously wanted city attorney, planning director to approve amendments prior to meeting

Afforded developer chance to deliver marina ultimatum to Mariner’s Village residents

Updated July 27, 2023, at 5:40 a.m.: Cleans up language for clarity; Adds artwork for agendas from July 12th and July 24th.

Editorial

The surprise change of format at Monday night’s special meeting (July 24th) on Sucette Harbor was designed to do two things — to provide a filter for which amendments can make it to the floor, and to allow the developer to deliver an ominous warning to those pesky and intractable property owners in Mariner’s Village: Give us the 120 units we want, or you don’t get your marina.

The property owners in Mariner’s village, particularly those along the body of water, would naturally welcome the installation of bulkheads and dredging to stabilize the shoreline, hence protecting their investments.

Woodward Interests President Bill Hoffman seemed to be counting on that as a means hopefully to peel away at least one vote from Los Tres Amigos — council members Jason Zuckerman, Rebecca Bush and Jill McGuire, who have formed quite a beachhead against what they characterize as high density development.

“We said from the beginning we thought the marina was an amenity… We would request some consideration on this,” Hoffman said.

So it now appears that Hoffman’s highly anticipated countermove to having been pelted with conditions and a near-fatal-blow from an amendment that cut the apartment number in half, was to get Councilman at Large Rick Danielson to surreptitiously change the format of the meeting, halting all new amendments and conditions, and holding all public comments until the end.

Pushback to meeting format change

The only clue that something was going to be different this meeting may have been signaled in the subtle yet significant differences in the published agendas from July 12th versus July 24th. (See images below.)

Not everyone was peachy with the change of format. Councilman at Large Jason Zuckerman voiced his objection right away.

“I’m not in favor of sort of taking a pause and backtracking. … I’m ready to keep moving forward with discussion on amendments, so that we can send the developer on their way to get a site plan together that reflects that and can be attached to an ordinance. That’s my two cents.”

Danielson replied that he thought if there could be a meeting where they simply discussed potential amendments with the developer first so that they could come back later and let them know if they were workable, it would be a more efficient way of proceeding instead of just voting the same night.

“Part of the reason for the discussion this evening is, for possible amendments or conditions that would be proposed, that the applicant and the council and the planning department could look at those things to look at what the different impacts could be before a vote is taken on those items,” he said.

Ad hoc ‘veto’ power over bad amendments

This retort revealed that Danielson had simply found another way to accomplish a tactic he had floated at the end of the July 5th special meeting when discussing how amendments and conditions would be handled at the upcoming July 12th special meeting.

He had suggested that council members should submit their potential amendments to City Attorney Elizabeth Sconzert and Director of Planning and Development Cara Bartholomew in advance so that they could reduce the list down to only those amendments they deemed as workable. District III Councilwoman Jill McGuire shot down that idea almost immediately.

On July 5th Danielson suggested, “Any possible conditions or amendments that we want to make need to be submitted for review to make sure they can be voted on. So if we have something we need to send it through Ms. Scherer (council clerk) so it can get through Ms. Bartholomew and Ms. Sconzert before the next meeting so if it’s applicable…”

McGuire interjected: “I’d rather do it in the public.”

But Danielson kept trying: “We’d be doing it in the public, but if there are some things like, no, no, no, you can’t even talk about that, then we don’t need to bring it up.”

Thankfully, McGuire prevailed.

There’s a reason for Robert’s Rules of Order when it comes to members of a body — the elected City Council members — being able to exercise their authority to offer amendments without having them, for lack of better term, censored first.

There’s no issue with a city attorney checking amendments for legal purposes when they’re offered, but that must happen in view of the public. It is part of the deliberative process which the Louisiana Open Meetings Law says is open to the public.

Sconzert has been seen by many thus far as being very pro-developer in this case. Having all amendments go through her first — privately and before a meeting occurs — would have been beyond the pale.

Only elected council members have the authority to offer and vote on amendments. Danielson’s tactics — both what he floated at the July 5th meeting and what he ended up doing July 24th — attempted to insert a “veto” step into the process. In the case of the former, it would have given an appointed official — the city attorney — a veto over potential amendments. The latter — what happened July 24th — was intended to hand that same ad hoc veto power to the developer instead.

Tactics out of order

These tactics are out of order and there is a strong case to be made they are an outright violation of Robert’s Rules, the city charter, not to mention state law. There is no provision in state law that says an appointed official or an applicant before a municipality gets to pick and choose which amendments come to a vote. This would be a usurpation of the authority vested in these council members by the people.

At the close of the previous special meeting on July 12th, the plan was to pick right back up with more amendments and conditions. In fact the last act Danielson did during that meeting was to defer a condition Zuckerman was trying to add that night until “our next meeting on July 24th.”

The presumption was that we had entered the final phase of the process, and amendments and conditions would lead directly to a final vote. Up or down, this long nightmare of a process would finally come to an end.

Nope. Not when you’re the acting council chairman. Pick your metaphor. Standing eight-count. Moving the goalposts. Hand on the scales of justice. It happened. More accurately, nothing happened at the meeting. It was all filler to allow Hoffman to unload about the marina having always been expendable, and to hopefully pare down potential amendments to only those favorable to the developer.

Adding insult to injury was Danielson at times stepping on his fellow council members, stopping them mid-sentence to allow an already filibustering project attorney Paul Harrison to continue. Danielson never seems to cut off Harrison when he interrupts Zuckerman or McGuire.

He never seems to show frustration when Sconzert or Bartholomew roll their eyes and make faces at elected council members when forced to answer contentious questions.

Danielson never showed any angst at the May 25th meeting when Harrison threatened to sue anyone and everyone “the next day” if they make an “insinuation” about his integrity. Not a peep. Just a sheepish “Thank you, Mr. Harrison.”

Keeping the rowdy folks in check

We wish Danielson would keep in mind that the “rowdy” people in the back of the room are the important ones. They are some of Mandeville’s most successful, most established, best and brightest. It’s not a good look when he snaps at them like a seventh-grade math teacher — “No clapping!” — or lectures them on social media civility or has a Mandeville police officer threaten and warn them.

And the final blow — at least to the spirits of those who thought this was nearing an end — came when Danielson announced the next scheduled meeting wouldn’t be until August 15th, more than three weeks away. Maybe they’re hoping that the extra time will soften the aforementioned beachhead of resistance.

Will Danielson allow any amendments or conditions from fellow council members at the next meeting?

Will we get another surprise announcement as the meeting starts, perhaps that the public won’t be allowed to speak at all? Remember, according to state law, they are not obligated to let the public speak unless there is an actual vote on the agenda item in question. Just saying.

So who knows. Stay tuned. It’s bound to get worse.

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