The Eunice News Staff Report
The St. Martin Parish Council voted 9-0 to agreement with St. Landry Parish to dissolve the hospital district that operated St. Luke Hospital in Arnaudville.
The vote to end the district formed in 1963 was made at the Council’s Feb. 7 meeting in St. Martinville.
The St. Landry Parish Council approved the agreement on a 7-6 vote at its Jan. 18 meeting.
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 1990. The building has been vacant and its condition has steadily declined since that time.
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.
Questions about the future of the building still exist, such as whether or not St. Landry Parish’s share of the divided tax accounts can legally be used for the costly renovations needed. St. Landry Parish authorities appear somewhat lukewarm in their enthusiasm for the building’s use as a non-medical facility.
At Wednesday’s St. Landry Parish Council meeting, Parish President Bill Fontenot was asked to give an update on Moosa Memorial Hospital in Eunice.
The former Eunice hospital has been vacant for more than 10 years.
“I have no plan,” Fontenot said of the hospital.
“I don’t have anything to add about any plans to be involved with repurposing the collapsed building in Eunice,” he said.
“My doors are open for any suggestions if they think we can assist in any way,” he said.
A hospital district and board remains in existence to govern the vacant property and work with the new hospital, Acadian Medical Center.
Fontenot said it was never his intention to suggest he had an idea as to what can be done with the vacant hospital.
“That is an issue that is to be taken up by the Moosa board,” he said.
Also at Wednesday’s meeting, the Parish Council voted to table a proposal to seek an attorney general’s opinion about the St. Luke Hospital building.