REBECCA CARRASCO

CONVENT – Citizens concerned about the implications of the current proposal for a regional airport and transport complex, possibly to be located in St. James Parish, continue to meet, as “St. James United,” to explore the alternatives for grassroots action. Kurt Roussel, a member of the group, expressed the members’ shared frustration about finding out what is really going on with the multi-billion-dollar project. “I don’t know what you have been hearing,” he said, addressing the audience at a recent meeting, “but they really are looking at St. James Parish. I talked to a representative and he said it is not going to be on the east bank of the parish.” Denise St. Pierre gave a presentation on the Louisiana Airport Authority at a recent meeting in Baton Rouge, which she attended as part of a group of 20 citizens from St. James Parish. “For those of you who now live in Convent and Paulina,” she warned, “we have been hearing that it is going to be right above you. And for those of you who live in Lutcher and Gramercy, it may be going that way. That is why we need to be united as a parish, because even if it is on the west bank they could try to branch out with warehouses here.” At the end of the presentation in Baton Rouge, St. Pierre reported, Gov. Mike Foster agreed the development would be good for Louisiana and voiced approval of the site feasibility study. “One of the comments the governor made was, We may run into a brick wall.’ Well, with the 20 representatives at the meeting from St. James Parish, I am pretty sure he was talking about us being the brick wall. We need to stand up as a brick wall and let him know that we are not going to fall,” St. Pierre said. At this point no site has been selected. Besides St. James, other places mentioned have included St. John on the west bank, the Ponchatoula-Hammond area, and New Orleans East. The site feasibility study is supposed to take 18 months to complete. “It will be a year and a half before we hear officially where the site for the new airport is going to be,” St. Pierre conceded. Pam Taylor, director of the Louisiana Labor Neighbor Project in Gonzales, spoke to the group about research and technical assistance for grassroots community organization. “We have been working with your group since the first meeting, and basically we are helping to get the information that you need to be able to fight this,” Taylor said. “The best way I can work with you is to have a core group of people that can communicate with different groups. There might be some who are comfortable talking to the media, while others could be making phone calls or doing e-mail. Then you have that core group that can get this information, which has been collected by other people, out.” Taylor said she expected media training at the Labor Neighbor Project to take place by the middle of this month. St. James United member Adele Berthelot said she recently called in to a local radio show to speak to the governor. She said she knew Foster was for the airport but asked if he would still be for it if it meant moving a significant number of people out of St. James Parish? “The governor paused and said, No, I would not be for it.’ He started to give reasons why the intermodal airport would be an asset to Louisiana. I said this airport would impact my cultural heritage, and the governor made a joke saying that from his house he could see lights from the casino. I was going to talk about how this would impact the wetlands and then I was cut off.” Activist Brenda Huget said she had written to Sen. Louis Lambert, Rep. Roy Quezaire Jr. and Rep. Bobby Faucheux, as well as Parish President Dale Hymel. She said Lambert called to speak to her about the project. “He told me to tell everyone that he is giving us his full support,” Huget said. Huget urged interested parties to contact St. James United at P.O. Box 101, Paulina, LA 70763.