Opinion Number

Dear Mr. Long:

You have requested an opinion from this Office regarding whether the City of Donaldsonville may enter into a ninety-nine-year lease of property that it received by donation with the River Road African American Museum. For the following reasons, this Office is of the opinion that such a lease, with two caveats, is permissible.

As you noted, the City of Donaldsonville is a Home Rule Charter community. In Lake Terrace Property Owners Ass'n v. City of New Orleans,567 So.2d 69, 73 (La. 1990), the Louisiana Supreme Court noted that "a home rule charter may include the exercise of any…