Two Ascension Parish councilmen allege the parish pumping stations director was retaliated against and fired because he told administration officials that staff and management shortfalls contributed to a dangerous pump station fire in late December.
Three of the Marvin J. Braud Pumping Station pumps caught fire on Dec. 30. The fire threatened the multi-million dollar pumps that are critical cogs in the parish's east bank drainage system and revealed systemic and mechanical control shortcomings in the station built in the early 1990s.
Parish administration officials counter, though, that Arthur Schexnayder III, an assistant public works director, was fired because he made an egregious error in judgment at another, smaller pump station a month after the fire.
He left an oil spill unattended at the pump station in Sorrento on Jan. 31 and didn't tell a supervisor in a timely fashion, allowing the oil to pollute water near Bayou Conway, the officials allege.
"Despite knowing of the oil spill and being in charge of the pumping station, Mr. Schexnayder never returned to the site of the spill the entire day. He did not assist in the cleanup of the spill at all," Lucy Cason, Ascension's human resources manager, told the Parish Council this week.
The fight over Schexnayder's Feb. 13 termination has revealed enduring divisions between some council members and Parish President Clint Cointment's administration, as well as simmering concerns over the way his administration manages...
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