Two representatives of the Baton Rouge Loop project are urging Iberville Parish residents to turn out for either of two-land use workshops scheduled in Addis and Gonzales on Tuesday.

Public participation from Iberville supporters of a Mississippi River bridge between Plaquemine and White Castle could sway a decision toward Iberville, Rannah Gray and Steven Wallace said in an interview at the POST/SOUTH last week promoting the workshops.

The meetings are scheduled for 6-9 p.m. Tuesday at the Addis Community Center at 7520 La. 1 and at Pecan Grove Primary School at 1712 South Pecan Grove Avenue in Gonzales. A third workshop is scheduled in Denham Springs on Monday. Iberville and East Baton Rouge parishes were left out of the meeting sites, which were scheduled to be convenient to residents of all five parishes that could be included in the loop, Gray and Wallace said.

The Iberville site is in competition with two bridge sites proposed in West Baton Rouge Parish.  Iberville Parish President J. Mitchell Ourso Jr. said he thought Iberville's exclusion from the schedule meant that the parish has been counted out.

“It's a shame to say it's a foregone conclusion because public input could make a difference,” said Gray, a partner in Marmillion/Gray, a public relations firm for the project.

 “It truly would help if people would get involved,” said Wallace, a St. Gabriel resident who is chief engineer with ABMB Engineers Inc., one of the firms organizing the massive loop project.

“You get to be a citizen planner,” he said.

Residents, using tabletop models, will get to say what kind of development they would like to see at the loop interchanges.

John Pregonese, a planner from Portland, Oregon, who conducted “Louisiana Speaks” in several communities after Hurricane Katrina, would lead the workshops, Gray said.

“The community gets the benefit of a national planner to get [their] thinking about the kind of development they would like to see,” she said. The idea is to get ahead of the project, she said, and “not have it affect communities in ways we don't want.”

Although the loop planners have not finalized the loop corridor, it does highlight the proposed interchange areas. Residents will get to “zoom in” on those areas and give their opinions about the development of them, Wallace said.

“We hope this gets translated into a document that all the parishes sign off on,” he said.

In the meantime, Wallace said, two companies are modeling the river and creating a holographic program, “a 360-degree model that actually can be piloted” so that people in the marine industry can test out potential bridge crossings.

Earlier, U. S. Coast Guard and the marine industry indicated a preference for another West Baton Rouge crossing.

Work on environmental impact statements required under the National Environmental Protection Act is continuing,

Loop planners are starting to talk to private toll road investors, some of whom have expressed an interest in the project, Gray said. Gov. Bobby Jindal favors projects with creative financing, she said, so there could be government help as well.

East Baton Rouge Parish put up $2 million to get the project started, which led to the creation of the Capital Area Expressway Authority, Gray said. The state later allocated $4.5 million for the current work.