A Metro Council member is facing staunch opposition to his proposal that would give the council more influence over the board that recommends professional service contracts for the city-parish’s largest and costliest construction projects.
Elected officials and a statewide body that represents engineering companies say Councilman Darryl Hurst’s legislation to create a Metro Council seat on the city-parish Engineer and Surveyor Selection Board would inject politics into a body made up of industry professionals.
Hurst argues any government board is already politicized. The addition of a council member would make the body more beholden to the residents of East Baton Rouge Parish and give the council more input in the selection process for engineers who work on multi-million dollar projects like MovEBR and upgrades to city-parish facilities, Hurst said.
“It’s not an apolitical board, and being elected to the council means taxpayers trust us to make the best decisions with their money,” Hurst said.
The board’s recommendation is required for any contract before it’s taken to the Metro Council for final approval. Engineers and surveyors have been selected by the board to work on projects under the $1 billion MovEBR program, recent multi-million dollar library improvements and an ongoing $1.8 million effort to widen part of Ward Creek in order to reduce flood risk, among others.
The proposal, which will come before the council for a public meeting Wednesday, would add a seat to the engineering board that is currently made up of seven members: a representative of the Consulting Engineers Council; a representative of the American Society of Civil Engineers; a representative of the Louisiana Society of Professional Surveyors; a representative of the Louisiana Engineering Society; a tenured member of the faculty of the School of Engineering at LSU; a tenured member of the faculty of the School of Engineering at Southern University; and city-parish Department of Public Works Chief Engineer Tom Stephens.
In a statement Monday, the head of the American Council of Engineering Companies of Louisiana noted the board won the organization’s annual award for “excellent procurement policies and practices” in 2022 and committed to working with Hurst to find ways to improve the selection process without adding a council member to the board.
“The American Council of Engineering Companies of Louisiana applauds Councilman Hurst for his efforts to identify ways to improve how the City-Parish selects qualified engineers and surveyors, however, we do not believe adding an elected official to an intentionally non-political selection board is the correct approach,” ACECL President and CEO Barker Dirmann wrote.
Hurst’s proposal is also sure to receive a “no” vote from at least one member of the council.
Councilman Dwight Hudson said it’s impossible to remove all politics from city-parish boards, but the council should strive to create as much distance as possible.
“There would be a concern that a council member could just prefer one contractor versus another,” Hudson said. “Ultimately, the job of that selection board is to pick the best contractor for the job and get the best value for the taxpayer. Anything that gets in the way of that is problematic.”
Hurst argued that Stephens' existing seat on the board and the large dollar-value of the contracts in front of its members creates an environment that is rife with politics.
Wednesday’s proposal is just one of Hurst’s moves to give the council more influence over city-parish agencies. Hurst has also submitted an item for introduction that would allow the Parish Attorney’s Office to request an opinion from the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office on if the council has the ability to add a council seat to the Library Control Board, the Baton Rouge Parks and Recreation Commission and “other city-parish boards and commissions.”
In a statement Monday, Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome declined to take a position on the proposal but said she is open to conversations about increasing the distribution of the city-parish’s public sector investments, pending an opinion from the Attorney General’s Office.
“This is the very reason I created the Office of Supplier Diversity to help small businesses owned by women, minorities and veterans compete in the marketplace, and increase competition for City-Parish contracts to the benefit of our taxpayers,” Broome wrote.
This story has been updated to correct who sits on the engineer and surveyor selection board.