One chapter in the Riverside Drive flooding issue has been closed after the Bogalusa City Council voted 6-0 with one abstention Tuesday night to deny the administration’s request to pursue either expropriation or purchase of a vacant lot on the street.

But while personal property rights were preserved, residents say changes in the landscape created when Olympia Construction began development of the property now occupied by Columbia Street Station Apartments have created conditions that result in flooding of their yards and homes.

Additionally, residents claim the flooding has created a breeding ground for mosquitoes and has also created a situation where water moccasins are coming to a holding tank that city public works director James Hall said was designed to either alleviate or eliminate the flooding problem.

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Now that council members have said they will not authorize the city’s acquiring of the property, which the administration said would allow for a solution to the flooding, another solution must be found.

And where that solution lies is anybody’s guess, as Hall told council members and about 60 residents in attendance that the only solution the city’s engineering firm could offer was to dig a deeper ditch across what he kept referring to as the “Ralph Galloway property.”

“There’s no other solution?” council member Michael O’Ree asked.

“Not that they (PEC of Baton Rouge) came up with,” Hall replied.

Ann Scott Mizell, whose family now owns the property the city was seeking, addressed the council after Hall finished making the city’s case as to why it was necessary to take the property in the event it could not be purchased.

Mizell produced a 1941 survey, which showed both Olympia, and the city were trespassing on Cothern’s property whenever they entered it.

“This 1941 survey shows there were 10 extra feet �- when the city went out there to dig and the police stopped them, they hit the metal stakes (property line stakes),” she said. “We don’t want water running through our property any more than the mayor don’t (sic) want it running through his race car.”

“You (Hall) keep calling it Ralph Galloway’s property,” she said. “This isn’t Ralph Galloway’s property, it’s Doy Cothern’s property. I’m tired of coming to these meetings to fight for what belongs to my family.”

In the end, the council agreed, with Randy Hodges, Wendy Perrette, Danny Stogner, Marilyn Bailey-Crews, Michael O’Ree and Andy DeLeon voting to reject the administration’s request. Paul Penton abstained.