The owners of five properties in Eunice placed on Tuesday’s Board of Aldermen meeting may end up being forced to clean up or find their properties demolished.
The properties were placed on the agenda at a meeting Thursday in the mayor’s meeting room
The city meeting is scheduled at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Eunice Municipal Complex.
Eunice Police Chief Randy Fontenot
After Eunice Police Chief Randy Fontenot aired his department’s problem hiring and retaining employees, the mayor and aldermen joined in expressing their frustration with the city’s budget.
“We had another one resign today,” the police chief said. “Currently, I’m seven employees short. Six police officers and now a jailer, but it has been a constant hiring process ...”
Fontenot pointed to pay as an issue in hiring and keeping personnel. Starting pay for an officer is $9.75 a hour and jailers start at $8.50 a hour, he said.
Eunice Mayor Scott Fontenot is seated at far end of the table on Thursday as Bill Thompson, code enforcement officer, stands and explains property issues to be placed on Tuesday’s Board of Aldermen’s agenda. Clockwise, from left, are Vernon McManus, city attorney; Jason Bertrand, alderman; Fontenot; Thompson; Fire Chief Mike Arnold; Jack Burson, alderman at-large; Connie Thibodeaux, alderwoman; and Police Chief Randy Fontenot. (Photo by Harlan Kirgan)
The Eunice Board of Aldermen will once again try to steer the state Department of Transportation and Development to overlay La. 91 — West Maple Avenue — from La. 13 to the west city limits.
Jack Burson, alderman at-large, said, “This will be about the fifth time I offer a resolution on this.”
Burson contrasted East Maple Avenue, which the city maintains, to West Maple Avenue.
“East Maple Avenue is in pretty good shape,” he said. “That part that we are talking about is in horrible shape.”
Jack Burson, alderman at-large,
The Eunice Board of Aldermen is asking city attorney Vernon McManus to give notice to the St. Landry Parish School Board about its failure to live up to an agreement for sales and use tax collections.
Jack Burson, alderman at-large, said the School Board for the past five years has failed to hire a qualified Eunice resident part-time to enforce sales tax collections in Eunice.
Burson said the School Board’s sales tax office is supposed to provide the city on a monthly basis a list of who is paying sales taxes.
A possible donation of property to the city is on the Eunice Board of Aldermen’s agenda for the Tuesday meeting at the Eunice Municipal Complex.
Bill Thompson, code enforcement officer, said Travis Wood, owner of a house at 651 East Magnolia, which has been damaged by a fire, said he would be interested in donating the property to the city.
Vernon McManus, city attorney, said if the city does not take the property than it would go through the normal process that may end in condemnation in a years-long process.
465 Aymond St.
Eunice, LA 70535
Phone: 337-457-3061
Fax: 337-457-3122