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Washington Parish Council

Regular Meeting – 6:00 p.m.

October 24, 2005

Minutes

Item No. 1 – Call to order – Chairman Darwin Sharp called the meeting to order.

Item No. 2 – Invocation – Councilman Brown gave the invocation.

Item No. 3 – Roll call – Clerk Sylvia Forbes called the roll.  Present were Kenneth Wheat, Clinton Miley, Charles Nassauer, Rodney Brown, Relton Sumrall, Marvin Thomas and Darwin Sharp.

None were absent.

Item No. 4 – Approval of the minutes – Councilman Miley offered a motion seconded by Councilman Sumrall to approve the minutes of the October 10, 2005 meeting.  All in favor the motion carried.

Item No. 5 – Adoption of the financial report – Councilman Miley offered a motion, seconded by Councilman Wheat to adopt the financial report as presented.  All in favor, the motion carried.

Item No. 6 – Introduction of an ordinance – An ordinance to adopt the 2006 Annual Operating Budget and the Capital Outlay Budget for the Washington Parish Government was introduced by Councilman Brown and laid over for publication and a public hearing to be held on November 14, 2005.

Item No. 7 – Public hearing – Chairman Sharp opened the public hearing on an ordinance indicating the intention of the Washington Parish Council to allocate funds for the procurement of professional services for the 2006-2007 FY LCDBG Program and to give the Parish President the authority to sign all contracts, forms, applications and other necessary documents to apply for and administer the grant.

There were no comments during the public hearing.

Councilman Brown offered a motion, seconded by Councilman Miley to close the public hearing.  All in favor, the motion carried.

Councilman Nassauer offered a motion, seconded by Councilman Sumrall to adopt Ordinance No. 05-370. 

Item No. 8 – Public participation – Winford Pittman informed the council he had obtained a copy of the responses from the Reservoir Commission on the questions submitted by the council.  He said because of the WPRC’s inability to answer straightforward questions with straightforward answers, he had been forced to resubmit the questions in a different style.  He will be sending the same statement/declaration to every elected official in this parish, state capital and the nation’s capital.  It will be accompanied the same cover letter as the one submitted to the Washington Parish Reservoir Commission.  The letter read “due to the recent rumors of corruption in Louisiana politics at all levels, I have enclosed a statement/declaration about the Washington Parish reservoir. Please read carefully and return with legal signature, dated in black or blue ink via Certified Return Receipt mail to the address provided.  This statement/declaration may help in reducing the rumors that have surfaced. Thank you for your service”. Signed Winford Pittman.

Mr. Pittman said if you treat me or any member of my family like we are stupid, I will show you what stupid really is. The questions were straightforward and they deserve straightforward answers.

Item No. 9 – Parish President’s report – President Taylor said the federal and state governments had denied Washington Parish emergency food stamps for the third month.  The other five parishes in the disaster area have been approved to receive them.  The elected officials for the parish was not contacted with the information, but heard it on the street like everyone else.  Many residents have called blaming the elected officials for letting it happen.  President Taylor met with Governor Blanco and her staff on Friday and expressed concerns about the parish being denied food stamps. We met today with Mr. Wilson, an assistant secretary who was involved in the decision.  We did our best to try to convince Mr. Wilson of the need of the parish residents to be included in the November distribution.  If they decide to include the parish, residents’ cards should be credited around November 5th.

President Taylor said official notification in writing has not been received that the 60-day declaration has been extended where the federal government will reimburse the parish at 100%.  We did read in the paper that we were granted an additional 30 days at 100%. After that, it will probably be 90% reimbursed and 10% local match.

President Taylor reported on the housing situation stating that we have 187 residents that have requested assistance on housing.  Of that only 40 have been approved and 6 trailers have been delivered to a site.  FEMA said they are trying to ramp up where they can do 1000 trailers a week.  FEMA has agreed not to put any group sites in any parish without the signature of the Parish President.  Group sites are okay for our residents, but not for evacuees from other parishes when our needs are not being met. 

A 40-acre site on Highway 450 has been purchased and being developed as a contractors city for contractors working south of the parish.  This site is a private development not government.  President Taylor urged the council to call for an infrastructure committee meeting before the next meeting to move forward with the appointment of a planning commission and to finalize the legislation on the occupational license.

Congress has passed the Community Disaster Loan Program where they are willing to loan money to make up for lost revenue, but they want the parish to pay it back because of the history of corruption in Louisiana politics.  You must show lost revenue of greater than 5% to qualify and we will fall into that category.  We are being encouraged by our state senator and congressmen to take advantage of this.  We will have to have faith that the federal government will forgive the loan and we will not have to pay it back.  They have forgiven the loans after other hurricanes.

President Taylor said he has been working with the two economic development foundations and Senator Nevers and Rep. Ritchie, trying to develop a preferred future strategy for Washington Parish.  We need professional help to come in here and work with us to target the type of business industry that best suits Washington Parish.  We have been interviewing some firms to help with this and we’ll talk about the cost a bit later.  It is only in the formulating stage now.

President Taylor reported the fire ban is still in affect.  Local firefighters put out 24 fires in one weekend a couple of weeks ago.  The parish may have to consider imposing fines if residents are caught burning debris.  President Taylor urged the public to exercise patience and honor the burn ban.

Public Works Report - The report on the debris removal was as follows:  100 local monitors hired, 11 debris sites are in use, 345 certified haulers and 147 loaders in use.  There has been 464,839 cubic yards of debris hauled, 12,552 loads averaging 37 cubic yards per load and 19,368 cubic yards per day.

Construction on Cells 4 & 5 at the Choctaw Landfill has begun.  Richard Price & Co. has brought in equipment and started excavation.

Claude Hicks of IED said door hangers have been ordered and the Boy Scouts would begin putting them out on Wednesday.  IED is beginning the second pass through Bogalusa.  Crew will go back to working on Sundays because of the FEMA deadline for 100% reimbursement.

President Taylor reported no decision has been made on whether or not the parish can pick up debris on private property.  There must be a health and safety issue to qualify, but no one can give us a definition of health and safety issue.  Also, economically oppressed areas could qualify and that would include our whole parish. 

Councilman Nassauer said there are residents who cannot clean up their property and some who will not.  Large hanging limbs and leaning trees are dangerous.

President Taylor thanked the Red Cross for allowing volunteers to help put out the Red Cross funds in the parish.  This is the first time Red Cross has allowed volunteers to help and it worked well.  Over $14 million was given out in the parish that week.

President Taylor presented the proposed 2006 Operating and Capital Outlay budget to the council.  The budget reflects a 15% reduction in revenue and a 33% decrease in General Fund appropriation and depletion of the fund balance.

The Transportation Fund will be impacted with only $1,500,000 for the Capital Road Rehabilitation Improvement Program for the year.  No layoffs or a decline in services are being proposed.  President Taylor said the road crews are grossly underpaid and proposed a $3.00 an hour raise for all road crew employees.

The proposed 2006 budget will reflect no new increases with the Health Unit funding as well as the operations of the landfill because these funds are being funded with restricted, dedicated revenue.

Councilman Brown commented that the parish should find the means to give the other employees a raise.  We train these men working on the roads and then they find better paying jobs in the private sector.

President Taylor replied that the other parish employees would get the annual 2% raise.

Item No. 10 – Council discussion – Councilman Wheat said he wanted to emphasis the importance of safety for our workers and parish residents in the clean up efforts.  We need to focus on that everyday.

Councilman Nassauer reported that 2 cases of West Nile have been confirmed in the parish.  The lack of water has help keep the mosquitoes down, but we need to keep an eye on that.

Councilman Brown called for a Finance Committee meeting at 5:00 p.m. before the next meeting on November 14th.

Councilman Sumrall called for an Infrastructure Committee meeting at 4:30 p.m. before the next meeting.

Item No. 11 – Adjourn – Having no further business to come before the council, the meeting adjourned on motion by Councilman Brown, seconded by Councilman Sumrall.

________________________________                      _____________________________

Sylvia Forbes, Clerk of the Council                             Darwin Sharp, Chairma