PARISH PRESIDENT'S REPORT TRANSCRIPT - AUGUST 4, 2008

It appears that the citizens of St. Charles Parish were definitely ready for the online and pay-by-phone billing from the water system. The system has been up and running for approximately three weeks now, and already we have received 120 payments in totaling about $11,000. Some of the payments are paid by credit card, some are paid by electronic check. We continue to get phone calls daily inquiring about what you need to do to get online. I think it’s a big plus for the parish and we’re looking for great things.

Two weeks ago we met with Mr. Steve Wilson with the Pontchartrain Levee District. Steve has been working very hard to secure funding for the Cross Bayou pump and the Walker Canal pump on the East Bank of the river. I think in the next couple of months, Steve, we should have some exciting announcements for the citizens of St. Charles Parish; I think they’ll be well-pleased.

Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend the RSVP banquet recognition in St. James Parish. It was a banquet that recognized St. James, St. John and St. Charles. It was decorated like a pirate ship and most of the people were dressed up like pirates. They had a great time. They recognized people who had been serving their community for 25, 30 and 35 years. It was really nice to see the elderly people have such a good time and devote so many hours of their time to helping people.

Also had the opportunity to attend the DREAM banquet in honor of Don Raymond, who is Billy’s brother. I didn’t know who Don Raymond was, but after I left there that night, he was quite a character and had a lot to do with the development of St. Charles Parish. Don Raymond was the first black student to attend Hahnville High School. His parents couldn’t go in the stadium; they had to watch him play football through a fence. And Don died in a tragic car accident, and to show you how far advanced and how much vision the Raymond family had, at his wake, there were six pallbearers, and out of the six, five of them were white. Billy, your parents had a lot of vision, and I commend you for that.

The wastewater department is being proactive in preventative maintenance. Recently wastewater employees replaced equipment due to deterioration by the H2S gasses. Our personnel worked Monday, July 14 through 17 to replace all the air diffusers in one of the aeration basins at the Destrehan Wastewater Treatment Plant. All work was started and completed in a few days, bringing it back to effective operation. The total cost of the diffusers was placed around $53,000. Additional costs were saved because all the work on this job was done in-house by wastewater employees with no hiring of outside contractors. Sam and his department and Sammy and his department are trying to do as many of these projects as they can in-house, without getting outside contractors, because once you do that, the price goes up.

We have the audience tonight John Gordon with Senator David Vitter’s office. John is the new community liaison. So if you need anything from Sen. David Vitter’s office, this is the guy you need to contact.

Saturday we attended the teen dating violence awareness event at the bridge park. I think it started off a little slow because it was very hot. Larry and Wendy were out there selling snowballs.

I’d like to congratulate the new St. Charles Parish Sugar Queen, Miss Chelsea Trosclair, who was crowned queen Saturday night at Destrehan High School.

I’d like to congratulate Ms. Jet for her many years of service to the parish and I’d like to thank all those who came out to recognize her.

We also had a meeting with Paul and our Grants Officer Holly to discuss the Des Allemands flood wall. Originally we were going to go ahead and apply for some grants, but we had to rethink that and go in another direction.

The state treasurer has issued a 2 percent fire insurance rebate to the parish in the amount of $167,039.30.

Sam Scholle met with a representative from DEQ to discuss environmental issues the parish may be facing. He also submitted a letter with our top three concerns the parish has related to environmental issues.

Last week St. Charles Parish submitted 27 Hazard Mitigation grant applications for over $27 million of crucial public works and waterworks projects as well as for the elevations of 16 of 33 eligible severe repetitive loss residential properties in the parish based on homeowner’s insurance. These are houses that constantly flood. The federal government has a lot of money to help them elevate them, and out of the 33 that were eligible, 16 said they would be interested in going forth with the process.

Sam and I also attended a stakeholder’s workshop with the Corps of Engineers concerning the West Bank Hurricane Protection Levee. When we left the meeting we were more confused than when we came in.

Dennis Nuss: Mr. St. Pierre, you mention the West Bank Levee project. What is the status of the project right now? Where are we at with things and maybe you could comment on the 100-year protection levee that’s coming out of Jefferson Parish right now and where that stands.

St. Pierre: Well, as you know, we had a meeting at Cytec last week to discuss the expansion from Jefferson Parish to the Davis Diversion Project. I think they said in October they’re going to come up with an alignment. There’s three alignments.

One north of Highway 90 from Jefferson Parish to Davis Diversion, on the north side of the borrow canal, the second alignment was south of the borrow canal through Jefferson Parish to the Davis Diversion, and another one from down Kenner Street, paralleling the railroad track all the way to Davis Diversion.

And they said sometime in October they’re going to make a decision about what alignment they’re going to take. Regardless of the alignment they’re going to take, they’re going to pay 60 percent of the original levee and then it’ll be 65, 35 on the difference between the original levee and the 100-year elevation. So that’s the bill we’d be looking at.

The other levee again, talking to the Corps of Engineers last week, they’re still looking at October to pick a final alignment for Donaldsonville to the Gulf. Two of the alignments they’re looking at are our alignments, so we’re hoping, if St. Charles Parish on the West Bank is ever going to have a levee, that’s the levee we’re going to have, the Corps levee.

As you know, we’ve cut off the contract with Sread-Kurykendall on the West Bank Hurricane Protection Levee, we’ve spent $7.3 million dollars on three miles of levee, and another $3 million for the little work we did on the levee. So we’ve got $10 million spent on 3.3 miles of levee.

Even if we went ahead with those levees and the Corps of Engineers picked our alignment, the Corps of Engineers would tear those levees down, they would tear down any pumping stations we have on those levees, they would tear down those structures we have on the Paradis Canal, so we are saying why spend all this money, and then a year or two from now, when this alignment is picked, they’re going to eventually tear all this down and start from scratch.

I think it’s a waste of taxpayer’s money, that’s my personal opinion. Sam and I had some very serious discussions about this, we’ve talked to some of you about it, and that’s where we stand at this time.

Terry Authement: I just wanted to give the administration a complement. I spent most of the day today at the Corps of Engineers in New Orleans, and while visiting their permitting department, I was told on a couple different occasions that the St. Charles Parish administration of today is doing a fantastic job, they’re going in the right direction, and the relationship and the effort they’re putting out is to be complemented.

Dennis Nuss: I would echo that but I think we do need to make sure we stay on top of this, because it hasn’t been forgotten. It’s still on the top of people’s list as far as priorities. We have to keep moving forward with some sort of progress. So let’s just keep that in mind please.

St. Pierre: And Dennis, one thing we’re doing, is we hope naturally that they pick our alignment, but once they pick our alignment we’re really pushing them to start the levee in St. Charles Parish. We’re the only parish on the West Bank of the river that doesn’t have some type of levee. And when you look at a map and a pictorial view of the map, we’re like a big funnel. Everybody else has gotten levees and if those hurricanes come in the right direction, it’s funneling right down St. Charles Parish.

So we’re saying, yes, we want you to pick our alignment, but we also want you to start construction in St. Charles Parish. So we’re pushing that very hard.

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