ERIK SANZENBACH / L’Observateur / September 13, 1999

LAPLACE – It was the meeting that never happened. The new St. JohnParish Housing Authority Board of Commissioners was stymied in its first official meeting Thursday night because of legal difficulties.

Right after the meeting was called to order by acting Chairperson Sheila Morris, Commissioner Thomas Stayton asked the Housing Authority attorney William O’Regan if the meeting would be legal.

O’Regan pointed out that for a public meeting to be legal, a notice of such meeting must either be published in the local newspaper or posted in the office of the department the meeting was scheduled for, that is, the St.

John Public Housing office on Joe Parquet Circle in LaPlace.

O’Regan said he did not see such a notice in the latest issue of L’Observateur , the parish’s official journal, and that the notice had not been posted in the Housing Authority office.

Morris responded by saying she had faxed the notice to the newspaper and to the Housing Authority office and she had posted the notice in the Percy Hebert Building.

However O’Regan said just faxing the notice and posting it in the wrong building does not make the meeting legal.

Councilman Dale Wolfe, who was sitting in the audience, got angry at O’Regan.

“Why are we giving Mr. O’Regan a break?” Wolfe asked. “If we leave O’Reganin charge, we will never have a legal meeting.”One of the agenda items for Thursdays’s meeting was the contract status of O’Regan, Housing Authority Executive Director Patrena Ester and Assistant Executive Director Clara Lewis.

Morris asked Ester why she had not posted the fax at the Housing Authority office.

Ester, who refused to come to the podium microphone, replied, “I didn’t know it was my responsibility.”Stayton said, “I don’t want to get into a legal quagmire. I can wait a week.”Stayton then made a motion to hold the meeting Monday. After a fiveminute recess it was decided that after proper notification in the newspaper, a meeting of the Board of Commissioners would be held on Monday Sept. 13, at the Percy Hebert Building.

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