Anita Lee at the Sun Herald sets the table as all the finest are assembled, from the elected crooks that run MDOT to Jefferson Parish garbage guy Butch Ward as well as former Hancock Bank CEO turned Gulfport Mayor George Schloegel. The issue is the undeveloped lands south of I-10 between the Canal Road and US Highway 49 exits, a large parcel of which is owned by Ward. The local citizenry, most of whom are minorities, should be grateful the plan wasn’t to open a landfill there. Rather it was to be additional retail space to compliment the Outlet Mall but that conflicted with the path of MDOT’s new North-South expressway to Wiggins and points beyond being coordinated with the improvements at the State Port. Here is a snippet:
The environmental agreement MDOT reached with federal agencies would forever end proposals for commercial development just south of I-10 between U.S. 49 and Canal Road. The agreement also would allow MDOT to go forward with construction of a state port connector road from I-10 to U.S. 90, a route crucial to the port’s plans for expansion.
The road would destroy 162 acres of wetlands. In exchange, MDOT plans to buy and place 1,638 acres in perpetual conservation easements. The state Department of Marine Resources would own the land, but about 447 acres on both sides of Turkey Creek would be managed by a nonprofit, the Land Trust for the Mississippi Coastal Plain.
Enter Mayor Schloegel who is concerned over the impact to the city’s tax rolls:
Schloegel said the Ward family, who owns about 1,000 acres of the land, had plans to open Creosote Road south of I-10 from Prime Outlets west to Canal Road. Continue reading “Cruising the coast with Butch Ward and MDOT. New Port Connector gobbles up Ward and the Turkey Creek watershed.”