Grand Isle could elect all new leaders 4 years after Hurricane Ida ravaged the island

For the first time since Hurricane Ida ravaged the island, voters in the Town of Grand Isle will go to the polls on Saturday to elect a mayor, chief of police and town council.

The stakes couldn’t be higher.

As Louisiana’s only inhabited barrier island, Grand Isle is on the front lines of a rapidly changing climate, threatened by rising sea levels and increasingly intense storms.

Ida, which roared ashore in August 2021 as a Category 4 storm, leveled hundreds of homes and cut off basic utilities like electricity and water to Grand Isle for nearly four months.

Now, as out-of-towners construct multimillion-dollar camps, affordable housing on Grand Isle is virtually nonexistent, forcing many longtime islanders to relocate and rebuild further inland.

With its population dwindling, Grand Isle faces the prospect of being downgraded from a “town” to a “village” — a move that would limit the amount of state and federal resources it could tap into.

Under these conditions, many voters say they want “change.” And they’ve got plenty of options. Unlike in years past, no seat is uncontested.

New challenger in mayor's race

Topping the ballot is the race for mayor. After running unopposed four years ago, incumbent David Camardelle, a Democrat, is facing a challenge from Jim “Jimbo” Adams, a Republican.

Born and raised in Grand Isle, Camardelle has been mayor since 1997. He’s a familiar face to state and federal officials, traveling often to Baton Rouge and Washington, D.C., to argue Grand Isle’s case for more government support.

His political connections, he argues, are among his greatest assets. In conversation, he refers to Gov. Jeff Landry simply as “Jeff.”

“Me and him are tight,” he said. “Very tight.”

Adams, meanwhile, moved to Grand Isle around five years ago. With a Puka shell necklace and shoulder-length, sandy-blond hair, he fits the part of a beach town resident.

Adams platform is simple: “transparency and knowing where your tax money is going.”

If elected, he said he would livestream the Town Council meetings online — so part-time residents with properties on Grand Isle can tune in — and make it easier for the public to comment.

In 2007, Adams was charged by prosecutors in Georgia for allegedly participating in a kickback scheme during his time as vice president at the private telecommunications firm Alltel. 

A 2010 story in the Albany Herald said Adams pleaded guilty as part of a plea deal that required him to serve 10 years on probation and to pay $20,000 in restitution. But Adams, in an interview, said the case against him was ultimately dismissed. The records for the criminal case are sealed, according to the Dougherty County Clerk of Court's Office. 

Like many candidates, Adams has highlighted Grand Isle’s struggles with drainage as indicative of the town government’s failure to do its job.

When it rains, even lightly, the main artery through Grand Isle — La. 1 — floods. Camardelle said he’s working with Landry’s administration to come up with a solution.

Adams argues that Grand Isle would be better served by a mayor who relies on its state and federal lawmakers to do its bidding in Baton Rouge and Washington.

“I asked (a council member), what did you bring back from D.C., and one of them told me, 'A hangover’,” Adams said.

But Camardelle said Adams doesn’t understand the bureaucracy Grand Isle is up against.

“I’m dealing with the federal government. I’m dealing with the state. And I’m dealing with the parish,” he said. “I’m the little man that’s got to fight all the time.”

Five Town Council races

In addition to choosing a mayor and police chief, voters in Grand Isle will also select their preferred candidate in five, separate Town Council races. Each of those seats are elected at-large. 

With only 832 registered voters, elections in Grand Isle can at times become heated. 

“Down here, politics is the most unusual thing I’ve ever experienced,” Adams said. “You’ve got siblings against siblings.”

That’s the case for Leoda Bladsacker, a Grand Isle native who served 14 years on the Town Council before she was defeated in 2020.

“I had an opponent because I hit my sister,” Bladsacker said. “She went against me and did everything she could for me to lose.”

This go-around, Bladsacker, a Republican, is seeking to win back a seat on the Town Council. She said she was encouraged to run by Camardelle.

Her opponent, however, has her own ties to Grand Isle powerbrokers. Loren Gonzalez, who works in marketing for Grand Isle’s Sureway Supermarket, was urged to run by her boss, Shelly Jambon.

"It’s a small town. We all have to love one another and work with one another," Jambon said. "But the hardest part is liking one another."

Jambon said she'd like to see more checks and balances between the mayor and town council. Her daughter, Harley Landry Stelly, is running against incumbent Kelly "Pete" Besson Jr. for Seat B on the Town Council. 

"I alone have the most to lose, if you’re gonna put a number on it," Jambon said. She's currently trying to construct a new, luxury subdivision in Grand Isle called King's Cove near the existing Queen Bess subdivision she developed years ago. 

Among the candidates running in the March 23 election, most agree that Grand Isle needs to do more for its locals. 

Several candidates said they would invest in a handicap-accessible van to transport home-bound islanders to doctors appointments and grocery stores. 

And the island's population has yet to rebound from Ida.

There were 91 students enrolled at the Grand Isle School as of Oct. 1, 2023 — a significant drop from the 131 enrolled at the same time in 2020.

Bladsacker said her son wanted to build a home in Grand Isle but couldn’t afford the cost of insurance. He recently purchased a home in Vacherie.

The U.S. Census in 2020 recorded 1,006 residents in Grand Isle, just barely above the threshold for qualifying as a “town” in Louisiana.

While few candidates acknowledged head-on the existential threat that Grand Isle faces from climate change, most agreed that keeping the island livable for future generations is a top priority. 

"The people that are from here, we love it here," Gonzalez said. "We don't want to go anywhere else."

Grand Isle's 2024 election candidates