Engineer raises eyebrows speaking his mind at City Planning Commission meeting

He says his client's project would be 'mildly obnoxious'

When the City Planning Commission held a hearing this month on a proposed temporary concrete batching plant in the Lower Garden District, it heard from two proponents: Joey Ditta, vice president of Carlo Ditta Inc., which would run the plant, and engineer Roy Carubba, who did the preliminary site and traffic plans for the proposed plans.

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Commissioner Poco Sloss said he wanted to know how noisy or obnoxious the plant would be.

"It's mildly obnoxious," Carubba replied. "I mean, it's a bunch of Italians."

This was not the first time Carubba surprised observers with his comments at a City Hall hearing.

At a CBD Historic District Landmarks Commission meeting in 2008, Carubba was speaking on behalf of controversial businessman Kishore "Mike" Motwani, long the bane of local preservationists. Carubba, who said he had done a lot of work for Motwani, was supporting his client's request to demolish a badly deteriorated Central Business District building.

"Mike Motwani is not a good person. No one is going to deny that," Carubba said, adding that he had often expressed the same sentiment directly to Motwani.

Bruce Eggler can be reached at beggler@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3320.