St. Bernard Facts

Low Income Apartments

The Apartment Projects

These apartment projects first came to St. Bernard by way of the Meraux Foundation and Lena Torres who brought them in and sold them the land to build them on…
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“other prominent community leaders”

While “other prominent community leaders” can’t be confirmed with documents, sources tell me it was members of various community groups such as the Chamber, the Regional Planning Commission, etc..

As the apartment plan hatched at this meeting moved forward for tax credit funding through the state, only TWO of our elected officials objected in writing to these projects:  Councilman at Large Wayne Landry and Councilman District B George Cavignac…

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offical_objection_letter.pdf
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Unfortunately,

several of our elected officials continued with the Developer and Meraux Foundation push for the apartments…

State Senator Crowe outright PUBLICLY supported it:



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support_letter.pdf
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And others quietly supported it

while playing politics like President Craig Taffaro and Councilman District A Ray Lauga…
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I could not get this on PDF file. But you can save this by right clicking and hitting save, it will print just the same.

When this first letter  got out to the Public,
      President Taffaro publicly defended himself by claiming this was the only letter that he sent to the State Tax Credit board and that it was NOT a letter of support, but was something he had to send about the infrastructure of the parish. THIS IS AN OUTRIGHT LIE. To my surprise, the below four letters were also found in the State Tax Credit file.
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Lets See
 What the court transcripts have to say:
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Testimony

Since the above document is the testimony of the Apartment Developer, I wanted to be sure of my facts, so let’s read the transcript of their own words during the court case testimony:

President Craig Taffaro:

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Councilman District A Ray Lauga:

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Public Outcry

When the public outcry started, they switched their position   Only Councilmen Landry and Cavignac stayed consistently against them and they never got to testify during the court case.

The Federal Judge ruled against St. Bernard

Only two elected officials testified -- Taffaro and Lauga -- and the Judge forced St. Bernard to issue the building permit. The Judge said in her Orders and Reasons that 2 of the 6 justifications of Parish Defense leading to her ruling were because Taffaro and Lauga's testimonies gave away their true positions and proved motivation due to the public outcry:

Then The Financing for the Apartment Developers stalled

 when the national economic recession started and the wait began.  Their building permit expired, and the tax credits were about to expire.  Then in December, Congress extended the tax credits for the entire region…

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Court-Ordered Permit

The apartment developers showed back up in January to get their court-ordered permit renewed and it was denied by the Parish because the zoning had been changed, which landed the Parish right back before the Federal Judge.  Then the Federal Government got involved through HUD, and threatened to take away the Parish’s federal recovery money…

Reissue the court-ordered permit

The choices  were: 
1) the Federal Judge issues the permit again and the parish loses the recovery money,
                                                     or

2) The parish issues the court-ordered permit again themselves, and keeps the recovery money. 
( legal advice had to be followed to reissue the court-ordered permit.)
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TIMES-PICAYUNE

IN CLASSIC TIMES-PICAYUNE STYLE, A REPORTER WROTE THE LATEST NEWSPAPER STORY SOMEHOW LEAVING THE IMPRESSION THAT 1) PARISH LEADERSHIP “CAVED” AND 2) THEY TRADED THE HOSPITAL FOR THE APARTMENTS.

 THIS IS SIMPLY NOT THE CASE.  BOTH HUD AND THE FEDERAL JUDGE  WERE AGAIN IN THE PROCESS OF RAMMING THE APARTMENTS DOWN OUR THROATS, USING ALL OF OUR RECOVERY DOLLARS AS A THREAT –HOSPITAL FUNDING, WASTE-WATER TREATMENT REPAIRS, ROAD REPAIRS, YOU NAME IT.

MAKE NO MISTAKE, THE BUILDING PERMIT WAS GETTING RE-ISSUED EITHER WAY.

IN MY OPINION, THERE WAS NO CHOICE.  THE REAL STORY IS IN THE BEGINNING WITH THESE APARTMENTS.  IF ALL OF OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS WOULD HAVE BEEN AGAINST THEM FROM THE BEGINNING LIKE COUNCILMAN LANDRY AND CAVIGNAC WERE, THE DEVELOPERS MIGHT NOT HAVE GOTTEN THE TAX CREDITS TO BUILD THEM.

YOU BE THE JUDGE…