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Iberia Parish council boosts EDD funding after Port of Iberia engineer outlines lower‑cost repair option
Summary
The council approved an amendment increasing Economic Development District funding for a Port of Iberia road reconstruction after the port’s executive director and an engineer outlined three repair options and a procurement timeline. The chosen option reduces reconstruction scope but leaves an $800,000–$900,000 shortfall the council addressed by raising local funding.
The Iberia Parish Council on Oct. 22 approved an amended Economic Development District budget allocation to advance repairs on two industrial roads serving the Port of Iberia.
Craig Romero, executive director of the Port of Iberia, told the council the project team evaluated three repair approaches and recommended a third, less‑disruptive option that keeps much of the existing concrete base and places a new wearing surface. Romero said option 3 was the cheapest of the recommended plans and estimated its cost at $5,480,000. "This whole thing started over a year ago," Romero said in presenting the options, and he added, "We're still between 8 and 900,000 short of what we need to do it." Romero also said the state pledged $2.5 million and the parish had previously appropriated $750,000 toward the work.
The engineer on the project explained the design calls for a 24‑foot finished roadway and a paved shoulder; the recommended paved shoulder is 6 feet wide with roughly 14 inches of asphalt that the engineer said will reduce edge failures under heavy industrial loads. Council members pressed for alternate estimates if the shoulder width were reduced. The engineer said narrower shoulders reduce support and could increase future maintenance costs but agreed to produce cost comparisons for 3‑, 4‑ and 5‑foot shoulder options before final contract documents are issued.
At an Economic Development District meeting earlier in the evening, councilors moved to increase local funding to cover the shortfall. The EDD amendment added approximately $900,000 to the previously announced parish contribution; council staff noted that, together with the state funds and prior parish appropriations, the parish would provide roughly $2.25 million toward the project after the amendment. The council later carried the associated resolution to amend the 2025 EDD No. 1 fund budget at the parish council meeting.
Romero outlined a procurement timeline consistent with the council’s direction: advertise the bid package in November, award in December and begin construction in January if funding and contract selection proceed as planned. He said the selected option would reduce the need for frequent pothole patching and deliver a longer‑lived industrial roadway.
The council recorded the amendments and carried the resolution by roll‑call/machine vote. Next procedural steps noted by staff include finalizing the option and preparing bidding documents; staff and the port will return with detailed cost breakdowns if configurations (for example, narrower shoulders) are changed.
