PARISH PRESIDENT'S REPORT TRANSCRIPT - JULY 7, 2008

By invitation of Mrs. Wendy Benedetto, I attended the St. Charles Parish Networking meeting at Ormond Country Club. All of the businesses got together and they all sat down at different tables and discussed how their business can help their neighbors. It is well worth attending.

I met with Mr. Chris Weber of the Louisiana Technical College. Mr. Weber is in charge of the industrial part of the college. He informed me that he is in need of 1,500 craftsmen for the projects coming up in the River Parish region. If you know any kids that would like to be a welder, pipe fitter, electrician or instrumentation guide please send them to Louisiana Technical College.

I met with the River Parish Transit Authority. Mr. Brett Petit organizes the program involving St. John and St. Charles parishes. This program will begin in August. You can call and let them know what time you need to be picked up and they will bring you to your site and bring you back. St. Charles Parish gave $125,000 to the program. However, we will be giving an additional $50,000 due to the increasing prices of fuel. I asked them to give me a more detailed breakdown of the additional $50,000 and as soon as I get that I will let you know.

Mr. Cochran, Mr. Scholle, and myself met with the DOTD regarding the flooding situation on River Road by the library in St. Rose. The DOTD is going to put in some drainage solution and hopefully eliminate the problem by the library and Charlestowne.

I would like to thank everybody who participated in the Relay for Life Re-do. It wasn’t too well attended, but the people who were there had a great time. Thanks to Anedra Coleman, Renee Allemand and Kendall Stall for planning the event.

Since we had the RFQ sent out for the master drainage plans we have had over 21 proposals submitted. I think that message is getting out there that St. Charles Parish is open for business and that any engineer that wants a shot will get a fair one.

I would like to congratulate Charlie Oubre, who was sworn in last week for his ninth term as the Clerk of Court. His closing remarks indicated that he would be around for another four years and might even run again.

I would like to congratulate and thank Renee, Anedra, the Recreation Department and Larry and his jambalaya cooking crew, and everyone else who helped us with the Fourth of July event at the Bridge Park. We had a good crowd and few mosquitoes. Renee had the flyover timed down to 30 seconds and I think that is all we can ask for. Everyone I talked to had a great time.

This week you should have received a water quality report that Robbie Brou and the Waterworks Department sent out. It shows that we have met or exceeded all of the state and federal regulations concerning water quality. We have been awarded the title of the Best Tasting Water in the state of Louisiana.

Sam, Bobby and I have been meeting to figure out a way to deal with rising fuel costs. We are looking at changing our purchasing policies on cars and trucks. We think that the best way to deal with this is to purchase smaller size vehicles, looking at the sizes of motors, how many quarts of oil it holds, and the size tires that the vehicles require. The main thing we need to do is to cut back on the vehicles that we own.

The Department of Community Services applied and last week was awarded a $5,000 subgrant by the Louisiana Associated Partners Inc. that is an organization that manages funds for community action agencies. The grant will be used between August 2008 and July 2009 to provide programs that educate families through demonstrations and activities on energy conservation as a step to empower them to be more proactive in controlling their financial responsibilities. Because of their effectiveness in the community, the St. Charles Parish Department of Community services was chosen out of 42 agencies as one of the few to receive additional grant money to assist residents including families with children 5 and under, low income, those with disabilities and elderly with the high cost of utilities. The Department received $58,000 last week and is currently accepting appointments.

The St. Charles Parish Golden Dreamers participated in the Tri-Parish Youth Restoration Corp’s recycling drive by providing energy conservation cost saving tips to courthouse employees and residents of Paul Frederick Street in Luling.

The parish’s food service program is expected to serve 13,000 lunches by July 7, which is over double the number from 2007. Thank you for all of the work done between the Department of Community Services, the Department of Recreation and the St. Charles Parish School Board. Last year 150 meals were served, and now we have fed over 300 kids. So we have an additional 150 kids off of the streets.

Wastewater was experiencing an emergency situation due to a force main break on Union Street in Montz. The department found the leak at 9 a.m. on June 25 and declared an emergency. The leak was repaired by 2 p.m. that afternoon, and everything was back in full operation.

From 1999 to 2001 the St. Charles Parish Wastewater Department was issued eight administrative orders by the EPA for a permit of non-compliance issues. As of June 16, 2008 the last administrative order was cleared. At this point the St. Charles Parish Department of Wastewater has satisfied all administrative costs previously issued and is in compliance with our EPA and DEQ permits.

We have applied for and have been awarded a $70,000 grant from the emergency charitable foundation to purchase playground equipment and other improvements for Montz Park. Doug Rhodes is here tonight and I want to thank him for is work on making those improvements.

Concerning West Bank Hurricane Protection Levee: We had the last meeting with all of the departments, and when we walked out I was disgusted. The latest thing is that we are still trying to get the modifications on the southern alignment, and the Corps is adamant about giving us the permit for the northern alignment. We are asking them to look at this because for one, the northern alignment is putting the houses right against the levee in the back. And it will not allow us enough footprints for our burrow canal to get the water to the pumps. The reason we need them not to do this is because we would have to go back to Willowdale and Willowridge and redo all of the drainage in those subdivisions. They asked us to go back and do a drainage analysis for what it would cost us to modify all of the drainage in that area. We are talking about phase two of the three-phase project. The most discouraging thing about this is that after we come to an agreement here, the project still has to go to Washington, D.C., to the Department of Justice. He said it would probably be another 6 months before we get approval from Washington. I would like everyone in St. Charles Parish that was affected by flooding to write letters to their congressmen and representatives. Like I told the Corps, they are very smart but they lack common sense. It did not faze them when I told them that, however I still told them. We are on two different pages. We are talking about people and property and they are talking about water, lilies and trees.

For more information, contact Public Information Officer Renee C. Allemand at (985) 783-5000 or rallemand@stcharlesgov.net.