Rival Stir Things Up in Senate Race

Section: Business

Times Picayune

Having wrested the Senate 2nd District seat from Jon Johnson four years ago, Ann Duplessis is determined to keep her rival from reclaiming it.

Backing education and levee district reform bills, the banker says she has won respect in the Legislature while Johnson discredited himself by trying to use state government influence for personal gain.

Johnson, a former college business professor and fast-food restaurant operator, denied that he misused his position, and said eastern New Orleans lost clout when he ceded the Senate seat he held for 18 years. He also says Duplessis' warnings about people coming back to the area too soon after Katrina demonstrate she is a poor representative.

Click to see graphic."We have lost influence, and I feel like we need experienced leadership," said Johnson, 59, a former Southern University at New Orleans instructor who quit his post to focus on a rematch with Duplessis, 46, a Liberty Bank vice president.

Such exchanges mark what promises to be a bruising campaign for a seat that represents virtually all of the city's eastern peninsula and the Lower 9th Ward.

The campaign also features a lesser-known candidate: Yolanda Dupaty-Zeigler, 35, on leave from a program manager post with the Housing Authority of New Orleans, who is making her first run for elected office. Dupaty-Zeigler said Duplessis isn't meeting area needs and she wants to become a "servant leader."

All the candidates are Democrats.

Carl Haydel, 56, a retired veteran of the New Orleans Police Department who lost a 2004 race for Orleans Parish criminal sheriff, withdrew from the race Monday citing professional and personal obligations. His name will remain on the ballot, but votes cast for Haydel will not be counted.

A landscape of destruction in the geographically vast Senate district, with spotty residential and commercial rebuilding, has produced a sense of desperation for physical recovery -- and aggressive state leadership. The area suffered wholesale flooding and many deaths during Hurricane Katrina, and less than half its pre-Katrina population of roughly 125,000 has returned to restored homes or trailers.

Four years ago, Johnson found himself caught up in a voter revolt against incumbent legislators in eastern New Orleans. While he fell just shy of an outright victory in the primary, Johnson lost to Duplessis in the runoff, collecting 47 percent of the vote to her 53 percent.

Duplessis, former chairwoman of the 7,000-acre New Orleans Business and Industrial District, made waves in the Legislature as a supporter of bills that, among other things, spell out how the state can take over a failing public school district; set in motion plans to consolidate New Orleans assessor offices and regional levee districts; and authorized a merger of New Orleans' civil and criminal court systems.

Such reforms were praised by many as overdue, and derided by others as dismissive of local officials' input.

The businesswoman touts her appointment to panels that will influence the recovery of New Orleans, such as the Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Committee and the Local and Municipal Affairs Committee. Meanwhile, she argues that Johnson's reputation is tainted.

Duplessis said Johnson is seen as one quick to use a state position to advance personal business interests. She has said, for example, that Johnson had his own interests at heart when he voted in 2002 to create a special taxing district for a proposed hotel in the World Trade Center at the foot of Canal Street. Angela Barthe, who later became Johnson's wife, is a former partner in the project. Johnson has said that such criticism is unfounded, and doubts he was even dating Barthe when she became an investor in the project.

Johnson said Duplessis, who bought a condo in Baton Rouge after Katrina, should be held accountable for statements she made after Katrina, which depicted eastern New Orleans and the Lower 9th Ward as contaminated and not ready for repopulation.

The criticism stems in part from remarks Duplessis made to a writer for The Crisis magazine in early 2006, when she said a "pause" in redevelopment of the area might be in order. "From what I've read, the types of storms we're having now and the lack of coastal protection means this (Hurricane Katrina-type storms) is going to be the norm," Duplessis said in the story. "If this is the case, why would we build back to pre-Katrina? It would make a lot of people happy, but it doesn't make sense. I cannot in good conscience bring you back to a community where you may die."

Duplessis said she always favored residents returning, but in time, and that Johnson is distorting her comments. The businesswoman concedes that she took early positions that a quick return after Katrina could be risky, a view spurred by alarming reports from environmentalists about contaminants spread by storm waters.

As for the Baton Rouge condo, Duplessis said she and her husband bought the property more than a year ago for their daughter to use while attending Louisiana State University. During an extended stay in Baton Rouge she said she lived in an apartment in the state Pentagon building, not at the condo.

Duplessis in recent months has become a strident critic of redevelopment efforts that would concentrate affordable housing in high-density apartment complexes along the Interstate 10 corridor, saying that repeats mistakes of the past. She favors lower-density complexes and initiatives that help people become homeowners.

Johnson shares her concern about high-density complexes, and says the city should develop a housing court to enforce tighter management standards. But Johnson also argues that Duplessis missed opportunities to oppose the awarding of tax credits to such projects by the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency. Duplessis concedes the point: "I did not monitor that because we had a billion other things happening."

Dupaty-Zeigler said she is alarmed at the slow pace of restoring housing, medical services, public infrastructure and businesses in the Senate district, and said she would bring a fresh agenda to Baton Rouge. She said her background in urban studies and her work in managing a $100 million redevelopment effort for HANO at the Desire public housing complex prepared her well for recovery issues.
"I'm well versed in working within budget and bringing projects in on time, and in making a difference in a major community, while having lots of moving pieces," she said.