Judge deliberates if ‘Open Meetings’ law was violated by N.O. City Council
23rd July 2018 · 0 Comments
By Ryan Whirty
Contributing Writer
As the overflow crowd filed out of the courtroom of Orleans Parish Civil District Court Judge Piper Griffin last Thursday, Mark Nguyen shepherded the dozens of opponents of a proposed Entergy New Orleans gas plant out into the hallway.
Slipping between English and Vietnamese, Nguyen — a leader of the Entergy First New Orleans movement and the New Orleans chapter of the Vietnamese American Young Leaders Association — had a buoyant smile on his face.
The result of that morning’s hearing about whether the New Orleans City Council had violated open meetings laws when it held two hearings regarding Entergy New Orleans’ proposed $210 million power plant in New Orleans East saw Griffin continue the case until this Tuesday.
Nguyen emerged optimistic as he viewed the roughly 90-minute hearing as a victory for the coalition of community and non-profit organizations opposing the controversial natural gas plant. Monique Harden, the lead attorney for the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, had scored several points off the team of city attorneys, boosting the spirits of coalition members as they await Griffin’s final decision on Tuesday.
“I guess the bottom line is, I’ll take it as a win,” Nguyen said.
Nguyen said he and other VAYLA leaders would conduct a “debriefing” for movement supporters, then hunker down and prepare for Griffin’s ruling with the hopes that the judge will declare the City Council’s March 8 approval of the proposed power plant void.
“Now we just pray and believe it will happen,” he said.
With all the players involved in the case — Entergy, the City Council and city attorneys, and opponents of the play — waiting with bated breath for Griffin’s gavel to fall, the case now hinges on a meticulous parsing of the slew of affidavits filed by the city and by the DSCEJ-led coalition of plant opposition.
With all the issues and quandaries that bubbled up following the two City Council meetings and public hearings in question — a Feb. 21 committee session and the March 8 full council meeting at which the power plant was OK’ed — the fate of the controversial, $210-million project hinges on Griffin’s interpretation of what actually happened at those gatherings.
A “he said/she said” situation now encompasses all the dizzying number of issues surrounding the matter — the presence at the hearings of actors paid by Entergy to voice support for the plan; whether citizens were turned away when they attempted to enter council chambers; whether city officials collected all the comment cards written by people who simply couldn’t fit into the hearing chambers; what exactly citizens’ rights during public hearings; and even the city’s fire codes and occupancy laws.
At the root of all of it is a handful of affidavits filed by both parties in support of their case. Sworn statements from citizens and advocacy-group leaders, police officers and other city officials managing the council meetings, contradict each other regarding what exactly happened at those meetings.
Griffin now must decide whose story is the truth — or at least whose comes closest to the truth — and whether that truth constituted a violation of open-meetings laws.
“I have two sets of people telling me two different things,” Griffin said from the bench.
Griffin ultimately order each side to file still more affidavits last Friday, at which time the judge will review the statements, gather information and decide whether, effectively, there will be a massive power plant in New Orleans East.
“We have to believe in the process,” Griffin said as last week’s hearing wound down. “The constitution says what it says for a reason.”
She added that, if a mistake was made regarding citizens’ rights at the council meetings, “can I order [the city] to fix it? It is a procedural technicality.”
Her ultimate decision could not be more vital to the lives of thousands of residents of New Orleans East — and the thousands of Entergy customers who would have their energy needs fulfilled by the proposed plant.
Opponents of the plant made that clear last Thursday. Before the hearing, two buses of activists arrived in front of the Civil District Court building, with many of the protestors wearing bright yellow T-shirts emblazoned with the phrase “No Gas Plant.”
Before filtering into the courtroom, the activists sang, prayed and took photos for posterity. (With no filming, recording and photographing banned once the proceedings started, those in attendance were told to turn off all phones, computers or other equipment.)
The room became so packed that citizens filled the seats in the jury box, while others stood lining the walls of the courtroom and even more waited outside in the hall. Expecting such an overflow crowd, court officials switched the proceedings to a larger chamber.
The tension in the room was ratcheted up when the hearing — which was scheduled to start at 10 a.m.— was delayed nearly an hour to allow Judge Griffin to dispose of other cases and, more importantly to those in attendance, huddle with attorneys for both sides to examine affidavits and make sure they and Griffin had received and read all evidence that had been submitted up to that point.
“It was nothing secret or special,” one city attorney briefed the audience. “We just had to make sure we’re on the same page.”
As the clocked ticked past 10:30, the murmurs in the courtroom rose and fell and then rose again. One of the first citizens to arrive was New Orleans East resident Dawn Hebert, who took her seat with a wearied look on her face. For several years—since news of Entergy’s plant became public — Hebert had stuck with her opposition to the plant and kept her spirits up. But it has still been exhausting.
“I’ve been doing this from the very beginning,” she sighed.
She and others now have to wait just a few more days longer.
This article originally published in the July 23, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
