Two members of a New Orleans flood protection agency’s board managed to avoid being ousted from their seats on Thursday after the board’s new leader raised allegations against them behind closed doors.
South Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East Board President Peter Vicari, whom Gov. Jeff Landry tapped to lead the board in July, called a special meeting to vote on whether to recommend that the governor remove Deborah Settoon and Randall Noel from the nine-seat board of commissioners that oversees the agency.
After a tense meeting, during which Noel and Settoon were excluded from a closed-door discussion where allegations against them were said to have been detailed, the board voted not to recommend their removal.
The recommendation to remove Settoon didn’t pass as the vote, which came in 3-3 with two abstentions, needed a majority. The recommendation to remove Noel was voted down 4-2 with two abstentions. Settoon and Noel, who were appointed by Gov. John Bel Edwards, voted against their own attempted removals.
Agency spokesperson Stacy Gilmore said she did not know why Noel and Settoon were excluded from the executive session to discuss their potential removal.
“Whenever they’re talking about an employee, they’re supposed to be in the room,” Settoon said. “(Noel) and I were not afforded the same privileges as a regular employee.”
Noel said he supported the agency’s mission of preventing another disaster of the scale of Hurricane Katrina.
Neither Vicari nor the agency’s staff attorney, Kirk Ordoyne, responded to questions about why they were excluded.
A year of turmoil
The effort to remove Settoon and Noel follows a year of turmoil on the board. Four board members resigned in March over changes Landry and his unofficial adviser Shane Guidry have pursued at the agency.
The agency oversees the system of levees and pumps that protect the east bank in Orleans, Jefferson, and St. Bernard parishes from hurricane storm surge flooding.
Settoon joined the board in 2023, and Noel joined in 2019. They are the only members of the board Landry has not appointed.
Lawmakers questioned why the agency was attempting to oust the two board members. State Sen. Kirk Talbot, R-River Ridge, said Vicari told him Wednesday that the vote would be postponed. State Rep. Stephanie Hilferty, R-New Orleans, said she would have attended Thursday’s meeting had she known the vote would proceed.
Because the meeting took place behind closed doors, the allegations against Noel and Settoon have not been released publicly.
Guidry has repeatedly made allegations of misconduct by the board, and has said that Attorney General Liz Murrill’s office has an open investigation into the agency.
“This is really about, finally, under our governor, that levee board being a clean, well-respected, well-run levee board,” Guidry said in an interview on Thursday. “It’s been a cesspool, constantly.”
Guidry also suggested that there were legislators who were putting pressure on Murrill to keep her from releasing the findings of an investigation.
Murrill said her investigation does not involve criminal allegations, and that she had not yet been briefed on its findings.
“I have not been pressured by anyone to do or not do anything,” Murrill said. “At the appropriate time — after I have reviewed any information we obtained — I will submit a report. The board can take whatever action it deems appropriate.”
Board members also voted to approve a raise for Ordoyne, and to hire Jeff Williams as the agency’s regional director, the top staff position at the agency. Williams had been serving as interim regional director since July, and his hiring ends a nearly yearlong period in which the agency has had no permanent director.
Louis “Jeff” Williams” (Courtesy of the South Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East)
The board has oversight of Ordoyne’s salary, and is supposed to approve any changes to his compensation. Ordoyne’s $28,000 raise, bringing his salary to $205,000 per year, was approved on July 7 under then — Board President Roy Carubba, whom Landry appointed last year before replacing him as board president with Vicari in late July. Ordoyne had been receiving the higher salary since then without board approval.
Guidry, meanwhile, has supported the recent changes implemented at the agency, including the expansion of its police budget. The agency maintains a 50-officer police force that is primarily tasked with protecting levees, pumps, and flood walls, and also provides general policing services to neighborhoods along the shores of Lake Pontchartrain.
In the interview, he said residents are going to be glad for the increased funding and police training when the city needs to respond to incidents like mass shootings, which he blamed on “crazy liberals,” using an expletive.
“They’re gonna save lives and everybody’s gonna be happy,” he said. “But until then, they’re going to whine about it.”
The agency plans to spend $3.7 million more on its police this year, raising the total budget from $8 million to nearly $12 million.
Some lawmakers and watchdog groups have criticized the spending, arguing that increasing spending on police is a distraction from the agency’s primary mission of preventing floods. At a meeting last week, residents in nearby residents praised the budget increase, calling it necessary to provide the police with additional training.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct the spelling of South Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East spokesperson Stacy Gilmore’s name.