The Natchitoches Parish Government held its regularly schedule meeting for the month of June tonight at the Parish Courthouse. In attendance were Council Members John Salter, A.J. Johnson, Rodney Bedgood and Ricky LaCour. Chris Paige was not in attendance.
Parish Council – June 15, 2015
When a motion was made to adopt the minutes of the previous meeting from May 2015, Ms. Debbie Miley asked that a conversation be added to the minutes. Ms. Miley read the conversation to the Council. This conversation was a recap of Mr. Chris Paige’s speech in which he was upset about a mail out and wanted it investigated. A motion was made and the Council voted to add Mr. Paige’s speech to the record of the May meeting.
The Council will consider introducing a $10 fee to be added to all guilty plea or convictions after the trial, with the exception of traffic violations. On a motion made, a second received the motion carried.
An agenda item to consider paying Charles Cloud for maintenance at the bin site on land temporary leased from him received no motion and died.
The Council adopted a resolution to authorize the Parish President to advertise for public bids for improvements to the Coco Bed Road.
The Council tabled applying for the Block Grant for one month to acquire more information.
Mike Wolff spoke on behalf of the Natchitoches Community Alliance regarding a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Parish Government and the newly formed Natchitoches Community Alliance (NCA) whereby the Parish is required to issue payment to NCA in the amount of $10,000. AJ Johnson, Ricky LaCour and Rodney Bedgood voted to approve and Mr. John Salter voted to reject.
The Council authorized the Director of Public Works to advertise for the temporary lease of additional road work equipment for the summer months.
Head Start presented next year’s calendar which was accepted – the vote was unanimous.
The Council asked the Parish President what chance we would have in receiving FEMA money for the flooded homes. FEMA wants all flooded homes to be inspected; Flood Plain Manager, Greg Lemoine stated that the current number of homes flooded is 350 and rising. Mr. Nowlin stated that we would first need a Federal Emergency Declaration before we could expect FEMA funds.
Finally, Mr. Nowlin reported that the 6 week summer interns have been selected.
There were no visitor or public comments made.
The Parish Council then voted to go into Executive Session to take up an employee matter?
I went to a meeting at the first of the month, they let 1 (one) man speek, and in the middle of him talking one of the council memebers interrupted him and said “I move that we adjurn the meeting”. I think its a bunch of bollox!!, but thats just my opinion. The roads in this parish have been bad for a long time, (the council said that themselves), it is not an easy fix, I know this and so do they-they are going to have to stop wasting the money and actually use their heads and do the job right the first time. I have lived all over the country and half of the world, these roads have been bad for 30+ years. When I was a kid I lived on a dirt road, it has horroble even from a kids point of view. They graded the road ever so often, but the next day it would rain, it never failed. The road would be so bad in spots that a normal car would have trouble going through it. I lived on that road for 17 years, and for those years it never failed, they qould grade the road and the next day it would rain, its like they waited for the forcast to say it was going to rain the next day. It’s not rocket science, yes it does take an engineer to build a road, but everyone knows that if you dont have a good foundation then nothing is going to hold up, and there lies the problem! The council is not thinking about fixing the roads, they are thinking about where the next dollar is going to come from. The money is there, it has to be, Natchitoches is one of the biggest parishes in the state, there has got to be tax money coming in, where is it going?? With this I will end my ‘rant’ and say that I enjoy getting you email updates everyday, I read just about all of them, keep up the good work!