By LEONARD GRAY

HAHNVILLE – The St. Charles Parish Council voted to enclose 975 feet of the Ormond Trace canal which has been eating away at its banks – and the neighboring back yards – for years.

Public Works Director Greg Bush said the work will replace the open canal with culverts from the rear of 20 Ormond Trace to 4 Ormond Trace. It will leave open the rear of 2 Ormond Trace (a vacant lot).

“Five years ago, we tried shoring up the canal banks,” Bush said. “It didn’t work. There’s hardly a house without foundation problems.”

Some homeowners put in their own bulkheads, trying to keep the water out, but even the bulkheads are giving way. Meanwhile, heavy two-story houses sitting on fill are on the edge of leaning toward the canal itself, undermined by water.

Julie Moore at 14 Ormond Trace said when she and her husband, Kevin, moved in eight years ago, they were already aware of the erosion problem, but chose to move there anyway.

Instead of a bulkhead, though, he placed St. Augustine grass which seems to have slowed the erosion, but their neighbor tried a bulkhead with less success.

Gilmore & Son Construction of Hammond was approved with a bid of $631,830 to subsurface the canal segment. Bush said the bid was far below the $698,000 budget. The cost of actual materials, including installation, comes to $425,000, Bush added.

The agenda item also gave new chairman Lance Marino the opportunity to unveil his strict control measures for conduct of the council meeting. When Stanford Caillouet and Milton Allemand directed questions, he refused to respond, merely taking the questions for later response by the appropriate department head.

Marino’s meeting control technique carried over to the council members, such as when Dee Abadie wanted to determine if the Department of Planning and Zoning had acted on a request, prior to her moving to bring a tabled agenda item to discussion.

Marino would not allow her to ask director Bob Lambert during the meeting, informing her she should have done this prior to the meeting. Councilman G. “Ram” Ramchandran bristled at this, and commented he was “not going to sit here like a flower pot.”

The meeting moved on.

In other activity, the council approved a cooperative endeavor agreement with the state Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism for the Thomas Jefferson Exhibit at Destrehan Plantation.

Parish Administrator Timothy Vial said the parish is receiving a $7,500 grant to prepare a room at the plantation for the permanent exhibition, part of the parish’s Louisiana Purchase Bicentennial observance.

Marino was appointed to the MetroVision Foundation, Carolyn Tregre was nominated to the Library Board of Control, Clayton Faucheux was appointed to the South Central Louisiana Solid Waste District and Patrick Poche was nominated to the Planning and Zoning Commission.

Finally, the council noted the annual Martin Luther King Day observance on Jan. 20, including the 10 a.m. march from the West Bridge Park in Luling to the courthouse, with a noon program. Featured speaker for the program will be New Orleans Civil District Judge C. Hunter King. Grand Marshal will be John Clark III of Hahnville.