City Council scheduled to vote on unnamed P&Z nominee

Appointment would bring controversial process to an end

MANDEVILLE — The City Council is scheduled to fill a vacancy on the Planning & Zoning Commission at tonight’s meeting (December 19th), potentially bringing a lengthy process mired in controversy and challenges to an end.

Shawn Potter had been nominated by the committee at the October 24th council meeting, but at the November 21st meeting, the council opted to nullify that nomination at the urging of the city attorney due to an Open Meetings Law violation.

The nominating committee, made up of Councilman at Large Scott Discon and District I Councilwoman Cynthia Strong-Thompson, met December 5th to re-deliberate in public. No nominee was announced at the meeting, although City Attorney Elizabeth Sconzert indicated at the November 21st council meeting that she expected Potter to be nominated again.

The council has three applicants for the position: Ernest Burguières, a local attorney and former council member with regional planning expertise; Shawn Potter, Tulane University’s director of institutional research; and Judge Pat Rosenow, a chief administrative law judge with the U.S. Department of Labor.

Nominee not named on published meeting agenda

The agenda published by the City of Mandeville does not mention the nominee by name:

“Nomination and Appointment of Candidate to the Mandeville Planning and Zoning Commission.”

Under Louisiana’s Open Meetings Law (La. R.S. 42:19(A)(1)(b)(ii)(bb)) there is a requirement for “reasonable specificity” in agenda items for public meetings.

Councilman at Large Jason Zuckerman brought up the same issue at the October 24th meeting as the reason the council couldn’t vote on Potter that night — which they didn’t — presumably because “reasonable specificity” would have meant including the name of the person being appointed on the published agenda.

Ethics opinions requested without council consent

Sconzert contacted Rosenow’s Department of Labor superiors in early November to assess potential conflicts of interest for his role as an administrative law judge.

However, Sconzert did not inform the City Council that she was doing so nor did the council adopt a resolution to ask for the opinion, which is the normal process.

Sconzert’s request for the ethics opinion on Rosenow came after the October 24th council meeting where a majority of City Council members expressed opposition to Potter’s nomination.

Strong-Thompson also sought an ethics opinion on Rosenow in November from the Louisiana Attorney General’s office without the approval of the City Council.

Both officials noted that such opinions, which are non-binding, could take considerable time to obtain, leaving Rosenow’s candidacy in limbo, according to Discon.

“Two are qualified without any asterisk; we’ve got one with an asterisk,” Discon stated, referencing Rosenow’s pending ethics evaluations.

He suggested that Rosenow’s candidacy should be deferred until the questions surrounding his eligibility were resolved, emphasizing that “we appoint someone to the commission once a year, so in a matter of three years all three of these applicants could be on planning and zoning.”

After the December 5th meeting, a public records request by Mandeville Daily uncovered an email sent by Rosenow to Discon and other city officials less than an hour before the December 5th meeting began. In the email, Rosenow reported that that after discussions with the Department of Labor’s Office of Judges General Counsel and solicitor, he was advised that serving on the commission was not prohibited.

Sconzert and Discon both told Mandeville Daily they were not aware of Rosenow’s email, sent at 3:39 p.m., before or during the meeting, which started at 4:30 p.m.

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Updated 12/19/2024: A typographical error in the last paragraph of this report has been updated to reflect that neither Mr. Discon nor Ms. Sconzert were aware of Judge Rosenow’s email before the December 5th meeting. Prior reporting by Mandeville Daily on December 12th correctly reported this information.

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