Gov. Jeff Landry sought to reshape New Orleans’ flood protection agency. Legislators pushed back.
By Alex Lubben
Source: The Times-Picayune | Nola.com
June 12, 2025
A watered-down version of a bill that initially sought to allow Gov. Jeff Landry to reshape New Orleans’ flood protection authority is headed to the governor’s desk for his signature, ending a power struggle over control of the agency.
The bill, HB688, tweaks the procedure by which levee board members are nominated but otherwise leaves the current process largely intact. A previous version of the legislation would have given Landry the ability to handpick members of the South Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East’s board, who are currently put forward by an independent nominating committee.
The earlier version of the bill provoked concerns that reforms put in place after Hurricane Katrina to professionalize and depoliticize the agency were being eroded. The House and Senate both voted unanimously to approve the new version of the bill on Wednesday.
Shane Guidry, a wealthy businessman who serves as the governor’s informal adviser on New Orleans affairs, has become a central figure in the controversy despite holding no official government role. He celebrated the bill’s passage.
“Obviously when you want to do something, you reach for heights that you know are unattainable, knowing where you really want the dust to settle,” he said. “We wanted the stars and the moon, which we had no intention of ever getting, and we got a compromise that I think makes complete sense.”
Before Katrina, each of the parishes in the New Orleans area had its own levee board; after the storm, reforms regionalized the boards, creating one flood protection authority for the east bank, and another for the West Bank, across Orleans, St. Bernard, and Jefferson parishes.
The authorities are responsible for maintaining and operating the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-built flood control system, made up of levees, pumps and flood gates across the New Orleans region. Prospective members of each board are put forward by an independent committee that sends nominees to the governor for his approval.
An overhaul becomes a tweak
The bill originally proposed to scrap the nominating committee for the east bank’s flood protection authority and give the governor the ability to directly appoint board members. It maintained the nominating committee for the West Bank.
The bill that passed Wednesday maintains the nominating committee for both agencies, but gives the executive director of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) a seat on the committee — a position that is currently vacant. Glenn Ledet served in that role until this week, when he was tapped to lead the Department of Transportation and Development.
The bill also requires two names to be sent up to the governor in the event of an unexpected vacancy, rather than just one. And it allows members of the board to serve three consecutive terms, rather than two.
Guidry had taken issue with the nominating committee’s requirement of only sending one nominee to the governor for his approval.
“No board should ever be allowed to submit one name, let alone two. You should have to submit three,” he said. “That’s how you let the nominating committees not be able to stack the board for their own personal gain. Now they have to submit more than one name so the governor will get to choose between qualified people.”
Those opposing Guidry’s changes had accused him and the governor of seeking to stack the board with their own nominees by eliminating the independent committee, which is an expert panel comprising good-government organizations, universities and professional organizations. Guidry has also sought to expand the role of the flood agency’s small police force.
“It was a heavy lift,” said Rep. Jacob Braud (R-Belle Chasse), who sponsored the legislation. “I met with all interested parties and I ended up taking on the role of being more of a mediator than a legislator. What was passed was a revision that I think all parties were happy with.”
Sen. Patrick Connick (R-Marrero), whom the governor’s office had initially asked to sponsor the bill, said he was satisfied with the outcome. Keeping the nominating committee intact, he said, was “a key goal for me.”
“We changed it and fixed it,” he said. “The end product will keep politics out of the levee boards as much as possible.”
Advocates had pressed legislators to maintain the nominating committee. They also sought to remove the governor’s ability to appoint the board president, which he was granted through separate legislation last year. The bill that passed does not address that issue.
“I’m pressed to find anyone who thinks it’s a good idea to mix politics with flood protection,” said Blair duQuesnay, the head of Citizens for 1 Greater New Orleans, which advocated for the post-Katrina reforms two decades ago, at a Senate Transportation Committee hearing last week. She asked lawmakers: “Are you willing to stand aside and let the governance structure of New Orleans’ levee boards revert to the systems in place before Hurricane Katrina?”
“We still don’t know what this is all about,” she said. “We don’t know what the problem is that they were trying to solve by introducing this legislation.”
Trouble ahead
Trouble at the east bank’s flood protection authority is likely not over. Four members of the board resigned in recent months in protest over Guidry’s involvement at the agency and the leadership of the current Landry-appointed board president, Roy Carubba. That leaves the board with just five of its nine members.
“If you look at the bigger picture, I think there’s concern with the choosing of the chair,” said Steven Procopio, president of the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana, a good-government group that is part of the nominating committee. “I think that concern exists, but I think it’s going to continue to grow.”
The board did not have a quorum and did not meet last month to approve its hurricane preparedness plan before the official start of hurricane season on June 1 because Carubba could not make the meeting.
One of the board members, Clay Cossé, wrote a letter to The Times-Picayune calling on the governor to remove Carubba as board president.
Since then, Carubba and the agency’s police chief Joshua Rondeno have argued that the city is better prepared for a hurricane than ever before. Carruba has sought to elevate Rondeno’s role at the agency.
“We have never been this prepared to perform for flood protection season before,” Rondeno said on WWL’s Tommy Tucker show earlier this week. “We are able to move water out of the system at a flow rate of 53,000 cubic feet per second.”
The agency’s police chief has not historically played a role in flood engineering or system operations.
Editor’s note: This article has been corrected to clarify that the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority’s executive director is afforded a seat on the flood protection agency’s nominating committee under the new bill rather than CPRA’s board president.
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