By MELISSA PEACOCK

LAPLACE – Board membership changes, lack of training of employees and internal conflict in the St. John the Baptist Parish Housing Authority have gone on too long, Councilman Dale Wolfe said, and the result is unsafe living conditions in public housing.

Wolfe said he will ask Parish President Nickie Monica to take expedient action at the next scheduled Parish Council meeting in Edgard.

“The way it is now, Nickie Monica appoints the board,” Wolfe said. “It is his responsibility to make sure they perform their duties. It will be his decision if anyone is x’d off.”

Wolfe has two public housing facilities in his district – Reserve Oak and LaPlace Oak. Both developments have been the subject of police investigations and public scrutiny in recent weeks.

Drugs, weapons and stolen goods were confiscated by St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff’s Office in a raid on Reserve Oak last week. The raid came after months of violence in the housing development – including suspicious fires in housing units and reports of gunfire throughout the area. On Sunday, another Reserve Oak resident was injured when a stray bullet struck her in the leg.

On Aug. 5, a shooting in LaPlace Oaks housing development left 49-year-old Carol Hunt dead. Police believe Hunt was trying to purchase drugs in the area when she was killed.

“If you ride through the developments you see nothing positive,” Wolfe said. “I called for a meeting and no one responded. I surely would (like to see the current Housing Authority Board dismissed) if these board members are not doing their duty.”

Councilman Allen St. Pierre, District 2, also has public housing in his district. St. Pierre said more training of employees is needed in the Housing Authority.

“We have been going around in circles the last two or three years,” St. Pierre said. “We keep changing directors, keep changing commissions. We are not accomplishing anything.”

St. Pierre said he would like to see a new director appointed to turn the Housing Authority around.

“The directors, the last two in particular, don’t look like they are doing their jobs,” St. Pierre said. “You need to hire some really strong director. It is more than time to set those things in order.”

St. Pierre and Councilman Cleveland Farlough have been looking to members of the St. James Parish Housing Authority for guidance. In a recent tour of public housing in Lutcher, St. Pierre noted a significant improvement in St. James Public Housing.

St. Pierre and other Parish Council members are calling for inspections of local housing developments and evictions of those in violation of codes as paramount to correcting St. John Parish’s housing system.

Parish President Nickie Monica said he has not made a decision yet about the future of the Housing Authority.

“I hope they (Housing Authority Board members) will make a report,” Monica said. “We need to do something to get housing developments on solid ground. What those things are I am not sure.”