Harlan Kirgan
Eunice city officials are headed back to the drawing board on a plan for infrastructure improvements and pay raises for employees.
At an agenda-setting meeting Thursday, Mayor Scott Fontenot announced that after talking with council members, “..We are at a point where we want to look at some options.”
A special meeting, scheduled Jan. 17, will not be held. The meeting was to introduce a resolution on a new property tax and rededication of a sales tax.
Aldermen are scheduled to meet at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Eunice Municipal Complex.
At a meeting on Dec. 8, the discussion was on proposing an 11.62-mill tax, which would be added to a current 11.62-mill tax. The millage would be dedicated for street and sewer improvements.
The second resolution is to rededicate a sales tax to allow half of it to be used for pay raises. The other half would remain dedicated to capital improvements.
Cancelling the meeting should not discourage employees waiting for a raise or the public wanting street improvements, he said.
“We want to have some more discussions with some leaders in the community and make sure that it is something that we propose to the general public that is going to go through and actually pass,” he said.
“We don’t want to wait another 10 years before having something on the ballot,” he said.
There has been support expressed for the proposal, but also some doubts, he said. “But those people with doubts had some good ideas on how to increase revenue.”
The plan had been envisioned for an April election, but Fontenot said a fall election is more likely now.
After the meeting, Fontenot said one reason for making sure the city sharpens its plan is an election can cost up to $20,000.
Fontenot said the timing for presenting the decades-long plan to voters was wrong because the economy continues to struggle with an economic downturn.
In December, Jack Burson, alderman at-large, said the city’s annual general budget is about $7.2 million of which 35 percent is for the police department and 18 percent for the fire department.
“I think we have to be realistic if we want the kind of public safety that we’ve had in the past then we are going to have to somewhere or another find some more money to pay these people who put their lives on the line for our public safety every day,” Burson said.
The last raise for other city employees was 3 percent seven years ago, he said. “All of us can look back and think from seven years ago to know what happened to our personal living expenses,” he said.
The city’s street improvement program is to overlay select streets every two years with about a million dollars, he said.
“I’ve been on the council 22 years and I’m telling you when I started we could probably do double the mileage of streets with the money that we do now,” he said.
Burson said the idea for a property millage to fund a more comprehensive street improvement program came from Crowley where voters approved a 15-year bond issue.
Burson said many of Eunice’s older streets are in need of repair.
“They are not going to get any better unless we have a big capital outlay bond where we can do them all at once and it will be just a matter of keeping up after that,” he said.
Burson said grants from the state to do the work are unavailable and decision about street repairs will be made by voters.
Burson also said the city cannot raise it sales tax. “So, it is either going to be a property tax or it is going to be more potholes and bringing your car to get it aligned.”
Other items Tuesday’s agenda include:
— Rep. Philip DeVillier and St. Landry Parish Clerk of Court Charles Jagneaux are to speak on an early voting site in Eunice.
— The Eunice Community Garden director, Chris Naquin, is to speak. Naquin replaces Patricia Brown, who resigned.
— Consider for final adoption the rezoning of 121 S. 11th St. from residential to commercial. and hold a public hearing at 6:15 p.m. for the rezoning ordinance.