Harlan Kirgan
Nearly every St. Landry Parish Council meeting has citizens standing up to ask when will the road they live on get paved under the Smooth Ride Home program.
After a resident on Prayer House Road near Washington asked about the completion of a paving project on her road, Bill Fontenot, parish president, said he felt like he is wearing a statement out.
“I’m a professional engineer that’s has been in this job five years. When I came here there was no highway program. There was no hope for Prayer House every being paved,” he said at the Wednesday Parish Council meeting.
Prayer House Road is about 4.5 miles long and 1.5 miles of it has been paved at a cost of about $200,000 a mile, he said. The rest of the road will cost about $300,000 a mile to pave because it is hilly with drainage issues, he said.
Rural St. Landry Parish voters approved a 2 percent, 15-year sales tax for road improvement in 2013. Tax collections began in 2014 and road work began in 2015.
The tax fund a $66 million bond issue for road paving and related drainage work.
“We have in the neighborhood of 800 miles of road. With this bid we just bid in the last week or so we will reach 300 miles, but there will still be 200 to 300 miles that will be in need of paving,” he said.
Every road in the parish will be eventually be paved he said if voters approved another 15 years of the program, he said.
Until voters approved the road program there was no promise to pave roads, he said.
“Where before what we had was a forever no program,” he said.
On May 11, bids were opened on a project to pave about 30 miles of road, he said. The apparent low bidder out of five bidders was Coast Bridge Company, LLC, with a bid of $6,087,175. The highest bid was $7,397,808.
Also, Fontenot said a regional approach is being taken to flooding issues and targets major channels. Meetings should begin in June to discuss solutions to flooding.
Councilman Timmy Lejeune received Council approval to ask parish drainage board representatives to attend the next Public Works Committee meeting.
Other business included:
— Approved Amanda Cain as the St. Landry Parish Government director of finance. Cain was an accountant at LSUE. She is to paid $77,000 a year.
— Adopted a resolution asking that the state Department of Transportation and Developed officially name the Interstate 49, Exit 11, interchange in honor of the late state Sen. Armand Brinkhaus.
— Requested its legal counsel, Chad Pitre, to write a letter to Fire District 2 regarding the possession of alcohol on the premises during board meetings.
— Tabled a request from Fire District 2, which is in the Port Barre area, to hold a millage election.
— Approved the appointment of Marcus Majors Jr. to the Greater Krotz Springs Port Commission.