Dana Road residents took their concerns about a proposed south loop road including Dana Road directly to Mayor George Flaggs Jr. Monday night, hoping to learn why the road was considered part of a bypass from U.S. 61 South to Halls Ferry Road or Fisher Ferry.

The group also raised questions about potential problems the city could face if it used Dana Road or some other route.

The meeting was held after a Monday morning Board of Mayor and Aldermen  meeting in which the board hired Stantec to do the engineering and design for a proposed South Loop Road that will also provide access to the sports complex. The project is estimated to cost $10 million.

Stantec has already performed a study for the city recommending a south loop road from Dana Road to Halls Ferry Road.

Several Dana Road residents and former Louisiana Attorney General James “Buddy” Caldwell, who Dana Road resident Michael Winkler said attended as an interested party, attended the Monday night meeting, to discuss the loop road and the Fisher Ferry Road site for the sports complex.

The Dana Road residents are concerned about traffic and safety if Dana Road is included in a south loop road. They say the city has a route represented by a 1996 study by Neel-Schaffer engineers, which indicated a route from U.S. 61 South at Rifle Range Road to Halls Ferry Road, and have begun a petition opposing the road. Flaggs said the group’s actions are premature.

Flaggs said the Neel-Shaffer plan was eliminated because the route was in a floodplain and too expensive.

According to maps on the city’s GIS website, U.S. 61 South between Pemberton Boulevard south to Dana Place and east almost to Halls Ferry and Fisher Ferry Roads are in a flood zone, in part because of Hatcher Bayou, which forms the northern border of the city’s Fisher Ferry Road property.

Citing the first Stantec plan and a previous drawing from the city planners indicated a loop road route from Dana Road to Halls Ferry, Winkler said, “I don’t believe that we are premature.”

Monday night, Caldwell and Travis T. Vance, a Dana Road area resident and a local lawyer, both claimed the RFP information sets the loop road’s route as starting on Dana Road, adding if the city went a different route, it could be considered in violation of a contract with Stantec because it deviated from the specified route.

Several residents also raised questions about a possible conflict of interest for city attorney Nancy Thomas, because her husband Gregory Thomas owns 42 acres off Dana Road, and could serve as a right of way for the road under the initial Stantec plan.

“I’m not advising them (the board) where to put a road, and I’ve already told them that I can’t have anything to do with that,” Thomas said. “I have contacted the ethics commission, and the city cannot contract with my husband. If they did decide where that road goes, they would have to go through eminent domain. Our ethics laws prohibit the city from contracting with an employee or the spouse of an employee.”

Gregory Thomas said no one has talked to him about the property.

“I owned that property before I got married to Nancy, which was also years before she became city attorney, and that was more than 20 years ago,” he said.

He said he understood the group’s concerns, but added, “It’s not as if I heard about this and then went out and bought property. I bought it in 1993.”

Winkler also questioned the location of the sports complex. Pointing out the Dana Road residents did not oppose the sports complex, he used The Sports Force report to indicate that part of the property is in a flood zone and the quality of soils in some areas of the site were of questionable quality.

Flaggs said the Fisher Ferry site was selected because the city owned the land, and the cost to buy and develop another site would have been too expensive. “Why go buy more land and pay $3 million for the land and then $6 million to develop it? That’s $9 million,” he said.

He said the contract with Stantec requires the engineers to develop a feasible route and design for the road.

“Right now, the focus is on building that complex so we can have it in 18 months,” he said. “Your point has been well-taken and I have considered everything you all have said here tonight.”

He told the residents to discuss their concerns with the committee he appointed to consult with the engineers on the route and design, pointing out that John Holland, the former director of the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center and a Dana Road resident was on the committee.

“I think this committee will take everything you said into consideration.”