Council wants more speed humps

Dale Soileau is ready to install another experimental speed hump in Ward 4, and fellow City Council members would like some in their wards.
In the year ending June 30, the council appropriated $58,000 in capital outlay for speed humps, at the time saying they would like to see how effective the grade changes are at slowing speeders.
This past January the first two were installed, at opposite ends of Betty street, in Soileau’s district.
Soileau told the council at its August meeting that the humps have eased speed complaints on the short stretch they are installed in and said he was ready to test another location.
That will be Ida Street. The humps are the last purchased under the 2007-08 appropriation. There is not capital outlay funding earmarked for humps in the current fiscal year budget.
When Soileau brought speed humps up in the spring of 2007 as a possible deterrent on some streets it was decided they would be put in his ward on a trial basis.
Other council members are now ready for some in their wards and are giving City Clerk Earlene LeJeune their recommendations for an inclusion in a grant application being prepared by Police Chief Secretary Christy Faulkner.
“I’ve suggested streets with schools, nursing homes, the Southeast Center -- things like that -- as ones that will meet the grant criteria,” the LeJeune said.
Not so fast was the collective word from his cohorts, each of who expressed an interest in the next “experiment” happening in their district.
Presumably, the council members, the mayor and the street department will have to work out the next location.
The Street Department, which also takes care of grass cutting, was at the center of another council discussion.
Ward 2 alderwoman Margueritee Fruge-Simpson voiced exasperation with the pace of grass cutting on city land in her district. She said she had asked employees to cut a particular holding and had been told the mayor would have to authorize it.
Mayor Bob Morris said the city can’t keep all its holdings “cut like putting greens.”
He said he contacted mowing last year and “got slammed for it.”
The discussion broke down in an exchange between Morris and Ward 3 Alderwoman Chawana Fontenot and one between the mayor and Ward 1 Alderman Bubba Bourque.
It seemed cleared from the relevant parts of the remarks that the crews are in each ward a week at a time; that there is more grass than they can get to; that what is cut is not cut as closely as some would like; and that some sites are being sprayed with chemical killer.