Friday is the deadline to get a refund on your Crescent City Connection toll tag.  Until the deadline passes, the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development will be handling the refunds.  You can collect by simply going to the bridge’s office in Algiers.

If you miss the deadline, you can still get a refund, but the State Treasurer’s Office will be handling the money.  You’ll need to call 888-925-4127 for details.  You can also contact the department via email using this link: 
http://www.treasury.state.la.us/Home%20Pages/ContactForm.aspx
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So far, more than 9,000 people have received refunds totaling more than $360,000.

The DOTD has announced plans to begin demolition on the Crescent City Connection toll plaza.

The process to remove booths in lanes 1-6 began Wednesday night around 10pm.

A number of drivers have gone on recording saying this phase of decommissioning the CCC toll plaza is long overdue.

It’s been just more than a month since voters overwhelmingly rejected a 20-year toll extension, in the May 4th ‘do-over’ vot

Since then, toll tag users have been pleased to apply for refunds.

Many say they’re looking forward to the demolition of the toll plaza.

During the process several lanes leading to the plaza will have to be closed.

No word from the DOTD how long it will take before all twelve booths will be removed.

If you still haven’t gotten your Crescent City Connection toll tag refund, listen-up: a bill that would streamline the process is now sitting on Governor Bobby Jindal’s desk waiting for his signature. The bill would transfer the refund responsibility from the Department of Transportation to State Treasurer John Kennedy’s office.

If the governor signs the bill toll tag holders will have until July 2014 to claim their refund or the money will be put into a maintenance fund for the CCC.

Citizens 1, politicians zero.

It was a good day on Saturday as the righteous won out over the not-so-righteous.  Saturday’s overwhelming defeat of the Crescent City Connection toll renewal proposition was a major victory for us and a major blow to the status quo, the politicians and politics of the past.

Rarely, if ever, are we allowed a “do over” in an election, but that’s exactly what we got.  A Baton Rouge judge ruled the original election null and void and we got to do it all over again on Saturday.  And this time the vote went against the politicians and for the citizens.

The toll renewal part of the vote almost became an incidental.  What many area voters did on Saturday was indeed vote against the toll renewal, but maybe more importantly, voted against politics as usual.  The same dysfunctional so-called leaders, who have done anything but lead, desperately wanted the renewal.  It was a $20+ million a year patronage cow.  Now these dopey, politically connected, crooked contractors will have to go find their free money elsewhere.

The fear of the bridge now going into disrepair is exactly that, a fear.  And an unfounded one.  The bridge will be fine.  And so will the motorists of the city not having to pay that unnecessary toll.  A victory for the people.  Only the politicians don’t like this one.

Tuesday night, the decorative lights were once again shining bright on the Crescent City Connection bridge.  Earlier in the day, the Regional Planning Commission approved a plan and memorandum of understanding allowing the YLC to pay to keep the lights on for three months.

After the three-month period is over, the RPC says left over money from tolls will be used to keep the decorative lights on for at least another year.

But the group wants to find a way to permanently fund the use of the lights, and its members voted unanimously Monday to get the legislature to help.

Here’s what the RPC wants to do:  Push lawmakers to pass a new law that will require the state to pay for the decorative lights.  They say that’s the only way to get past an old law that is currently the subject of much debate surrounding  responsibility for the lights.

“Repeal that act that happened in 1955 I believe and have the state maintain lighting on state rights of way throughout the state of Louisiana,” said commission member and Jefferson Parish President John Young.

But getting lawmakers from other parts of the state to agree to a new law might be difficult.  They may not care if the bridge looks pretty, but they do care about the state’s checkbook.

Many members of the RPC thinks the lawmakers can be swayed to support the plan if its expanded to cover all bridges and state overpasses in the state.

But while the commission voted unanimously to urge the legislature to take action, not everyone on the commission thinks the lawmakers will agree.

“I have lighting on [La Highway] 434 and 1088 and Oak Harbor and things like that that we feel it would be a great thing for the state to take over.  But they won’t,” said St Tammany Parish Councilman Steve Stefancik.

Here’s how the group may win over lawmakers on the fence.  Many are going to stop referring to the lights as “decorative” and instead will call them “essential”.  That way, any lawmaker who votes against the idea might be maligned as being against safety.

“Because it’s additional lighting that is neccessary especially to women crossing that bridge at night alone.  More so now than ever,” said New Orleans City Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson.

Whatever the legislature decides to do, the work will have to begin quickly.  Lawmakers are already pre-filing bills for a legislative session that begins in a couple of weeks.

The Young Leaders Council says they’ve unearthed a decades old document authenticating the state’s obligation to keep the Crescent City Connection decorative lights on.

Since the Department of Transportation and Development announced more than a week ago they are turning off the decorative lights, the search was on to locate an agreement signed four years before tolls were put in place.

According to YLC President Richard Pavlick the document outlines an agreement from 1989 that if the YLC pays for the decorative lights the DOTD will pay the electric bill, “It substantiates what our position has been all along that the state needs to pay the bill. Now I’m still looking at the particulars. We’re still reviewing them.”

“Up until today we have not been able to locate a copy. We received it from Representative Jeff Arnold today,” says Pavlick.

Pavlick says State Rep. Arnold told him an attorney involved with the original decorative lighting agreement back in 1989 gave it to Arnold.

The YLC is hoping this document signed twenty four years ago proves the DOTD is still responsible for paying the electric bill, tolls or no tolls.

The DOTD responded with the following statement via email, “Although void based on the exceptions listed in the agreement, there is a 1989 Act of Donation between DOTD and Bridge Lights, Inc. related to the decorative lighting on the bridge. The Act of Donation states that the obligation is effective for the useful life of the lighting system, which was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and completely replaced using toll funds in 2006. It further states that the agreement is only permissible under applicable state and local rules and regulations. Therefore, based on the state law, which prohibits DOTD funds from being used to pay for decorative lighting, the agreement is no longer applicable.”

For clarification, the DOTD spokeswoman provided the following link:
http://www.reference.com/motif/business/state-of-louisiana-forms-act-of-donation

Pavlik says the 1989 agreement shows a positive example of how private business can partner with government.

Pavlik says he hopes the strong partnership will remain intact, “That (the agreement) changes the game in terms of what our options are moving forward since we now have a signed and executed copy.  We can show this to the state and make them live up to their obligation to keep these lights on.”

Jefferson Parish President John Young says the Regional Planning Commission has called an emergency meeting to hammer out a plan to get the lights back on, “I haven’t seen it so I don’t want to comment on a document I haven’t seen. Having said that I can tell you everyone, the YLC, local governments, the Regional Planning Commission are working with the DOTD to put those decorative lights on.”

The YLC says they have offered to pay the electric bill until the May 5th toll election.

Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser told WGNO last week a cooperative endeavor agreement needs to be drafted first.

Pavlick says the YLC raised $500,000 to pay for the decorative lights back in the 80’s.

He says the electric bill to light the bridge costs roughly $40 to $50 a day.

What a joke!   Back on Friday night the lowest of the low political hacks turned the lights out on the Crescent City Connection.

Our “good ole boy network” of career politicians turned the decorative lights out on the bridges crossing the river in downtown New Orleans.  Not because there is no money but because they wanted to make a dramatic statement to influence your toll renewal vote come May 4th.  It’s typical Louisiana sleazy politics.   But what would you expect from a bunch of lightweights?

The resume-less Alarios and Heitmeiers of the world are up to their usual: playing politics.  It’s Louisiana politics at it worst and it’s what they do best.

It costs around $47 in electricity a night to power up the decorative lights on the Mississippi River bridge in downtown New Orleans, yet on Friday night those lights went dark.   The state said the money was there if only someone from the metro area would request it.  The Young Leadership Council, the folks most responsible for the light on the bridge in the first place, had the money as well, just in case the state didn’t.  But the lowlife politicians we keep electing, that work for themselves not us, didn’t make the request.

You see,  the effect of the light being turned off helps their case in that May election.  Besides having the money to keep the lights on and choosing to not use it, these worthless politicians are now playing games with us and our bridge!  The jokers that desperately don’t want to work and want us to bail them out with a 20 year toll renewal are responsible for this and no one else.

The money is more than there for the decorative light on the Crescent City Connection.   Call your elected officials and demand that they be turned back on today!