By CHRISTOPHER LENOIS and LEONARD GRAY

BATON ROUGE – With less than a week to prepare for Monday’s special session of the Legislature, local senators and representatives crammed to learn how the record 196 agenda items would affect their districts.

Wording of the items range from the very broad to the very specific, and lawmakers will be called upon to study each item before introducing bills. Two specific items relevant to St. James Parish, for example, address governance issues with the library board and parish hospital service district. Lawmakers acknowledged they had not had adequate time to offer a position on these matters.

“I think the call is too broad. (Gov. Mike Foster) needs to focus on economic development issues,” said Sen. Joel Chaisson.

The economic item most directly impacting the river parishes will be the introduction of a bill by Chaisson and 56th District Rep. Gary Smith Jr. to turn Bayou Steel’s $2.5 million tax credit earned under the Recycling Tax Credit Program into a cash refund. All area representatives voiced their support to aid the LaPlace-based company, which has had to scale back its operation and lay off 150 employees after being crippled by cheap steel on the foreign market.

“Bayou Steel has put over $2 billion back into our local community,” said Robert “Bobby” Faucheux, the 57th Dist. Representative. “We need to give them a level playing field with foreign companies.”

Smith said he will support the governor’s economic development package in exchange for the governor’s support on the Bayou Steel bill, as well as to allow Shell Chemical in Norco to clean up and remediate Bayou Trepagnier. Shell is currently blocked from doing so by the Protected Streams Act.

Local legislators also unanimously agreed that Louisiana needs to improve its image as a viable base for industries other than petrochemical.

“The governor wants to level the playing field with our sister southern states,” said Sen. Louis Lambert of his support for the economic development package. Which is expected to be aided by the newly developed cluster system.

“We have experts we can sit with and point us in the right direction. They need to educate us on the aspects of this approach,” said 58th District Rep. Roy Quezaire Jr.

Foster’s plan proposes a number of tax exemptions targeting key industries like biotechnology, computer software development, and film and television. Faucheux said the state used to receive $100 million in revenues from production companies in Louisiana, which dropped to $30 million when the Motion Pictures Incentive Act was rolled back.

“They warned us they would go to Canada, and that’s where they went,” said Faucheux.

The key to attracting new industries is having a workforce that is prepared to step into the jobs. This is an issue that ties in nicely with Senator Louis Lambert’s agenda to continue improving the River Parishes Community College. Since introducing the legislation four years ago, student enrollment has risen from 80 to 430 in five semesters, with a goal of 600 students for this fall.

Lambert says the opportunity is there for industry to take advantage of the 25,000 people educated in Louisiana community colleges.

“We have a research and development potential to work with industry to develop curriculums they want,” said Lambert, who said he will introduce legislation to maintain the $2.5 million facility during the regular session. “Just think if we had educated 25,000 people for the last 25 years. All those people missed a better education. We now have a bridge that was never built with the community college network.”

Work force training is also the top-priority item in the New Orleans Regional Chamber of Commerce’s 2002 agenda. River Parishes area chairperson, Lily Galland, called it a “win-win situation for the entire state.”

“One business can affect the entire region,” said Galland, who is also the Community Relations Manager at Shell Chemical Co. in Norco. “Shell, for example, relies on so many other companies for goods and services. If we can get our work force up to speed, we can attract businesses outside the petrochemical industry who will do the same thing.”

While endorsing the need for tax incentives, some legislators are wary of past experiences where exemptions have not been effective. Both Faucheux and Quezaire said they would ask for an assessment of the $12.2 billion in exemptions currently on the books.

“If we had that, we’d have no budget problems,” said Quezaire of the $12.2 billion figure. “We need to examine and make a darn good assessment of the front-end load in relation to the end results. Until I see otherwise, I’ll continue to say we have given and gifted away this state.”

Faucheux suggested some kind of grading system that the exemptions to the type of jobs that were created might be a solution but felt the exemptions made a positive impact on the whole.

“If you did a study on which parishes the industries that have exemptions are in, you’ll see the teachers are paid better and the school systems are better,” said Faucheux.

Faucheux pointed to the removal of the Inventory tax that led to the construction of three Wal-Mart warehouses as an example of tax incentives that work, but lawmakers are also concerned that some initiatives don’t create the right type of economic development for the region.

“True economic development is increased jobs with increased salaries,” said Quezaire. “Highly-skilled jobs that pay at least three times minimum wage is what gets people lifted to another level and turns the dollars back over (in the community).”

Another initiative Faucheux said will alleviate economic disparity is the rolling back the “penny taxes” on food, gasoline, utilities and prescription drugs which results in about $466 million in revenue for the state.

“(The taxes) affect poor people more than affluent people. If you make more money, you should pay more money,” said Faucheux, who added that he supported sales tax on purchases such as electronics, computers and automobiles, but that “food is not a discretionary purchase.”

Local representatives are also leery of the high-profile issues surrounding incentive packages for retaining the New Orleans Saints football franchise and attracting the NBA Hornets franchise from Charlotte, N.C.; viewing it as a local issue that should not come at the expense of the general fund.

“Will people above I-10 benefit? Baton Rouge received some hotel business during the Super Bowl, but nowhere else,” said Quezaire.

Galland said the chamber considers the Hornets and Saints high-profile examples of diversified industry that sets a good example for the state as a whole.

“We need to continue to think of ourselves as a region, rather than individual parishes,” said Galland. “Those are businesses and we need to show that we are diversified.”

But for bottom-line thinking lawmakers, the issue still comes down to whether it can be helped by the local hotel/motel tax.

“That’s going to have to be the deal,” said Smith.

Faucheux sees the expansion of the Morial Convention Center in New Orleans as having a more significant impact on the state.

“The convention center is a much bigger ticket item. It generates more money across more industries,” said Faucheux.

On the subject of the homestead exemption, legislators and the business community stand in almost direct opposition. The Regional Chamber of Commerce’s agenda opposes any increases to the nation-high $75,000 level, and states its support for a constitutional amendment that would remove the exemption from a portion of Orleans Parish’s property tax.

“The sacred cow of Louisiana will stay sacred,” said Quezaire, then also acknowledged it probably would not increase.

Another of the session’s hot items still has Chaisson on the fence.

Congressman David Vitter, considering a run for the governor’s chair next year, has vehemently come out in opposition to an item in Foster’s agenda.

The item, “to prohibit or limit the use of certain federal campaign funds in a state election,” has Vitter hopping mad.

Vitter has stated, “This is obviously an attempt to target me and my campaign funds with regard to a possible run for governor next year.”

“I haven’t made up my mind yet. I can see all sides, and it’s not an easy call at all,” said Chaisson.

Other items which may draw public attention will be a call for prayer or meditation in public schools, the enactment of the Louisiana Anti-terrorism Act (which would establish the crimes of terrorism, providing support for an act of terrorism, making a terrorist threat and provide penalties). Lawmakers promise they will view each item from the point of view of their constituency.

“Optimistically, I’m trying to be a team player,” said Quezaire. “I won’t say no-no-no-no, but I won’t say yes-yes-yes-yes, until I see how it’s going to impact my district.”