LEONARD GRAY / L’Observateur / March 29, 2000

LULING – Nowadays, former St. Charles Parish President Chris Tregre sits inhis Maryland Drive home and watches the St. Charles Parish Council meetingson the public-access cable channel.

He never fails to be astonished.

And several things astonish him, he said last week. One is that the counciland administration apparently do not recall what was told to them in transition meetings. The second is that no one has called him to answer anyquestions.

“I’m sitting here with answers to 99 percent of their questions,” Tregre said. “Let them call me up and request me and I’ll answer.”For the past three months Tregre has silently watched as the Albert Laque administration and some council members have blamed all the present woes in the sewer improvement program and public works projects on him.

“I know I’ve taken a lot of hammering,” he said.

However, the awarding of contracts on several sewer projects without certain servitudes, Tregre said, was done that way to demonstrate to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that the parish was making a good-faith effort to comply with their orders, enabling the parish to get extensions to the EPA’s deadlines and get time to secure the rest of the servitudes.

“They should’ve known that was coming,” Tregre said.

Certain servitude agreements, he added, merely await the finished typing of letters for signature.

Recently, public works director Steven Fall outlined a list of millions of dollars in sewer improvement projects, mentioning that most were completed.

“There were only 28 servitudes left to get – that’s pretty good out of a whole pile of them,” Tregre commented.

As to the Destrehan wastewater treatment plant, Tregre insists the clerk of court’s office has on file letters from all the landowners allowing the parish to proceed with construction, contained in purchase agreements.

“Whenever they’re ready, it’s just a matter of closing the sale,” Tregre said.

“If there’s any problem, the parish still has the right to expropriate.”As to the lack of funds for personnel training in those wastewater plants, Tregre continued, “We didn’t put it in the budget until it was decided exactly what was needed. Rick Wright (the then-sewer director) submitted a list ofjob descriptions to personnel for civil service board approval. Then we’dmake the budget amendment. They didn’t know because they didn’t ask.”Tregre called the Paul Maillard Road sidewalk project a “nightmare project” which dates back to the time the parish first obtained the state grant in 1992 or 1993.

“We were informed at the time we got the grant that it was a new program and the state was not sure how to handle it,” he said. adding that much laterhe was told the state highway department would handle the entire thing, start to finish. Then, three years later, it was turned back over to the parishto submit engineering plans. The highway department reviewed and approvedthe plans. Any problems with the design, though, is the responsibility of thedesign engineers.

Tregre stressed that Wright told the council and Laque’s transition team of the sewer servitude problems, saying “it was going quite well but a few needed to be corrected.”On the Destrehan treatment plant, Tregre added, there’s “a real, hefty liquidated damage clause.”That means if the contractor doesn’t complete the construction on time, the EPA fines do not come out of St. Charles Parish’s pocket but from thepocket of the contractor, or rather its insurance company which premiums were paid by the parish.

In early 1997, Tregre pushed for a new 5.1-mill property tax to pay for $41million of sewer system improvements. Tregre won with a 65-35 percentapproval by voters in a May 7 election. Part of the campaign was to have twomajor, centralized sewage treatment plants operating by the end of December 1999.

Tregre commented, “I expected what’s going on now. All I can say is that it’snot as bad as they’re portraying it to be. I’m proud of my accomplishments.”However, though he offered full cooperation with the transition, “I have yet to get a phone call from any of them.”

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