By KEVIN CHIRI

Editor and Publisher

GARYVILLE — A company planning to build a tank farm in Garyville reversed gears this week and filed a lawsuit against two individuals, and an activist group, which has sought to use the courts to halt the $300 million project from starting.

Safeland Storage, LLC filed suit this week against Carl Monica, Elexia Henderson and Save Our Neighborhood (SON), seeking damages to cover the time they have had to sit idle, rather than start construction on the tank farm.

Safeland received permits the first week of January, 2008 from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), authorizing them to proceed with the tank farm, which will be situated on 400 acres of land to the east side of Garyville.

However, Save Our Neighborhood filed suit in early February, challenging the permits with DEQ and having a hearing called on their evidence of why the permits should not have been granted.

That halted progress on the tank farm, and things remain that way according to Safeland Managing

Member Paul Beaullieu, one of the key spokesmen for the group.

Even though Safeland had their permits upheld at a hearing before State Judge Curtis Calloway on March 13, there remains another opportunity for SON to argue against the permits when Calloway holds a final hearing on the permits May 28. That has, in effect, still kept Safeland from proceeding.

Even with the holdup, Safeland had originally decided not to file a countersuit against Monica, Henderson and SON. But leaders of that group said that a stalemate in settling the suit with attorney Geri Baloney has led them to change their mind.

“We were contacted by Mrs. Baloney through an intermediary, saying she wanted to negotiate the suit, so of course we wanted to talk,” Beaullieu said. “But after our attorneys went back-and-forth with her, they informed us that they don’t really think she really wants to negotiate. She just wants us to make some kind of offer.”

The petition for damages against Monica, Henderson and SON, filed by Reserve attorney Daniel Becnel Jr., points out the delays in the project as reason for monetary compensation. Becnel said it is costing the company a minimum of $1 million a month to sit idle.

“We tried to negotiate with Mrs. Baloney, but she said she didn’t even want to talk to me, she would only talk with Safeland’s other attorneys,” Becnel said. “Our attorneys asked her ‘what do you want?’ But she wouldn’t come up with a request list.”

Baloney’s response is that she still wants to negotiate, but is not going to put a bid out on her own.

“I am not going to bid against myself,” she said. “But I hope the doors are still open to work this out. I don’t even have enough information on this whole case to make an offer, but I still want to work this out.”

However the next action in the case appears headed for a deposition called by the Safeland attorneys, when Monica and Henderson will both be called at Baloney’s office on April 29.

Beallieu said that Safeland has more than bent over backwards to accommodate the SON group, which Monica has been at the forefront of.

“We have met with Carl Monica many, many times and listened to everything he said he wanted,” Beaullieu said. “And we have agreed to everything with the exception of zero. We agreed to a levee with nice bamboo and trees planted on top, we agreed to a nicely architectured main building on River Road, we talked about money for recreation in Garyville, and even helping get a community center built. And we have even formed a new company to guarantee the Diversion Canal is provided through the property, but still they continue on with this suit.”

Beaullieu made the charge that Monica was out for personal gain in the early going of the project, and now has turned against them when he didn’t get what he wanted.

“Mr. Monica wanted us to build a road all the way through the property from River Road to Airline Highway, and he wanted to buy this 300 foot wide strip of land from Rev. Oscar Nelson, all to build a small subdivision in that area. He even wanted some of our land to offer five acre home sites,” he said. “He even was willing to allow us to reduce the buffer so he could get his land for the subdivision, but that’s not something he wants the public to know.”

Monica said the only reason he wanted a road built through the property was to help with hurricane evacuation.

“Yes I discussed that,” he admitted. “But it was for better hurricane evacuation and that was all. I was never trying to build a subdivision, but I don’t want to comment on anymore of this. I will allow our attorney to comment.”

Beaullieu said that Henderson has changed her position on the tank farm, going from being a supporter in the early days, to now opposing it.

“We met with Ms. Henderson early on, right in her own living room, and talked about the whole thing. She keeps saying we never contacted her, but we went right to her home in July, 2005, and she knows that. She supported it then, and she also said she supported it at a Port of South Louisiana luncheon,” he said. “But now she is saying we have never reached out to her.”

Beaullieu said his group wants to find out at the deposition who the other members of SON really are.