Staff Report
The dissolution of a hospital board and an agreement between St. Landry and St. Martin parishes to divide the board’s assets was approved Thursday by 27th Judicial District Judge James P. Doherty.
Doherty presided over a writ of mandamus suit filed by the two parish governments.
First Hospital District of the Parishes of St. Landry and St. Martin, which operated the closed St. Luke Hospital in Arnaudville, now must give up it control of the property and the assets, which include about $1.35 million.
St. Landry Parish President Bill Fontenot said the main goal is to get the building back into commerce.
The transfer from the hospital to the parish governments should be complete by this week, he said.
“St. Martin has been a great partner in this,” he said.
According to the petition the hospital district has not collected a tax since 2008. Operation of the hospital ceased in 1990 and the building has been unoccupied since July 2009.
The site is proposed for a French immersion school and cultural center.
The St. Martin Parish voted unanimously to end the district formed in 1963 at its Feb. 7 meeting by approving an agreement with St. Landry Parish.
The St. Landry Parish Council approved the agreement on a 7-6 vote at its Jan. 18 meeting.
Fontenot noted the difficulty in pushing the agreement with St Martin Parish through the St. Landry Parish Council.
“This is the fifth time in five years that I’ve been here that I’ve been in court defending an action that originated in my office. An action that was for the good of the parish, for the well-being of the citizens and this is five times that the courts have ruled the parish president office action was legal and appropriate,” Fontenot said.
Under the partnership agreement, St. Martin and St. Landry parishes established a special taxing district and managing authority which operated the facility until it closed in the 1990s. The building has been vacant for aobut eight years and its condition has steadily declined.
An Arnaudville group led by Mavis Arnaud Frugé, director of the Jaques Arnaud French Studies Collective, and members of NuNu’s Art and Culture Collective have spent eight years seeking ways to acquire the building as a home for a French-immersion educational and cultural program.
Chad Pitre, legal counsel for the St. Landry Parish Council, had the Council that it is within its authority to dissolve the district, but council members pressed ahead to seek a judicial decision.
Pitre said, “A parish ordinance, just like a state statute, is presumed to be constitutional until it is challenged and ruled on by a court to be unconstitutional.”
Pitre said the ordinances passed by both parishes to abolish the district are valid and it would be up to an outside party to challenge the action.
The state constitution and a statute passed by the Legislature give parish governments the power to abolish districts they create.