‘Agonizing’ problems at S&WB draw resident complaints at Jeff Landry’s task force meeting
By Ben Myers
Source: The Times-Picayune | Nola.com
March 15, 2024
Outrageous water bills, flood-damaged property and unpaid court judgments were among the many frustrations about the Sewerage and Water Board rattled off by residents Thursday evening at the second public meeting of Gov. Jeff Landry’s task force to reform the New Orleans utility.
The task force, which is mandated to come up with recommendations for state lawmakers before the end of the month, heard from nearly 30 public speakers over the course of the three hour meeting at University Medical Center, with comments from the public taking up roughly half the time.
Clarence Narcisse, 74, said he lives by himself in a two-bedroom Central City apartment and recently received a bill for $1,600. Narcisse’s typical monthly bills are around $100, he said.
“The bill is more than what I receive in social security,” he said. “I just cannot afford that amount of money.”
Another resident, Gregory Jackson, said a customer service rep recently told him there were credits on his account, stemming from a dispute over a $2,000 bill he successfully appealed. But then he received a bill in the same amount he had been told the credits were worth, with late fees.
“It’s almost like y’all are trying to recoup the $2,000 you said I never owed,” Jackson told the task force members.
The public complaints from Narcisse, Jackson and others were directed towards Landry’s 14-member task force that will meet once more, on March 21, before issuing recommendations. Since taking office in January, Landry, a conservative Republican, has turned his attention towards New Orleans, which is heavily Democratic, and has vowed to tackle long-standing issues like crime and infrastructure.
The S&WB is a state agency controlled by local leaders, with Mayor LaToya Cantrell serving as the board President. It’s not entirely clear what Landry’s goals are with the task force, but he ordered it to focus specifically on its long-standing billing issues and its governing structure.
The S&WB says it is already addressing the billing problem by installing automated meters, which will allow customers to track water usage in real-time. The project is scheduled to be complete by the end of 2025, with half the new meters installed this year.
‘Making the case’
After residents had their say, discussion among the task force members turned to broader issues at the agency, including a governing board that includes the mayor and a member of the City Council, who are not always inclined to help address the utility’s funding needs.
S&WB officials say they’re stuck in a vicious cycle: they don’t have the funding needed to keep up the drainage system, but they can’t get public support for more funding because the drainage system continually fails.
In an extended task force discussion about the city’s drainage infrastructure on Thursday, S&WB Executive Director Ghassan Korban said property taxes for drainage aren’t enough to conduct routine capital improvements like clearing sediment out of canals.
“We are looking and inspecting, but we’re not acting because we don’t have the means,” Korban said.
The utility’s funding is controlled by the City Council, whose constituents are often furious with the S&WB for inaccurate bills, chronic flooding and frustrating customer service. But the regulatory authority over the S&WB primarily belongs to state lawmakers. That means council members are typically unwilling to ask the public to support increased funding, especially in recent years with out-of-control inflation, home insurance and property taxes strangling New Orleanians in every neighborhood.
“The council tends to rely on the main tool it does have, which is funding control, as leverage to hold the board accountable. That ultimately is not very constructive,” Mowbray said.
Mowbray suggested that the legislature should consider a new law establishing a rubric for S&WB funding requests, one that would ensure a fair outcome and remove politics from consideration.
Council member Eugene Green, who attended the meeting, said he was open to the idea. But in an interview, he also noted the difficulty in asking residents to support more funding, most recently when the S&WB wanted to “roll forward” its drainage millages to generate more revenue from increased property assessments.
“We are never opposed to making the case,” Green said, adding that the S&WB has to help convince constituents. “We need a case made to the public, and not just to the City Council. The public has to pay this.”
That is exactly what Korban and Mayor LaToya Cantrell have said they will do this year as they to seek a new citywide drainage fee to replace some property taxes. Earlier this month, Cantrell said plans are in the works for a “state of the utility” event to publicly discuss the current situation with the S&WB. Cantrell’s press office has not responded to repeated requests for more details about the event.
‘It was agonizing’
While the discussions about how to run the S&WB were a key part of the meeting, many residents who spoke focused on their day-to-day concerns about interacting with the agency.
Three speakers said the S&WB is stiffing them on a combined $10.5 million in court judgments awarded over several years — most recently in 2020 — related to damages from the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control project, which involved replacing underground drainage lines. Uptown homes and businesses were damaged as S&WB contractors tore up and repaired roads.
Peter Sladovich said he is owed for damages to his mail service business on Prytania Street and also to his home across the street. He said he’d been told that portion of the project would last no more than nine months, but it went on for three and a half years.
“I had a front-row view of this, and it was agonizing,” said Sladovich, who did not say how much he is owed.
Others complained of frequent street flooding, as well as the resulting impacts on insurance rates. Kathleen Cresson said her annual flood insurance on an apartment she owns in Mid-City is now $11,000, a nearly tenfold increase after multiple floods in the last seven years.
Another resident, Lynette Conley, said she had been trapped in the flooded Carrollton Avenue underpass in 2020 and had to be helped out of her car by a stranger. The car was gone when Conley returned later, she said.
“I called the police station. I called all over looking for my car. I still don’t have it,” she said.
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