A parish-wide burn ban was put into effect until further notice during the Allen Parish Police Jury meeting held Monday, October 3.
Jacob LaCour, fire chief for District Four, told jurors the state is putting the decision on the individual parishes “since each region is different on what they have.”
Chief LaCour cited the facts that Allen Parish is made up of 90 percent volunteer firefighters and is still experiencing debris on the ground, dead grass and dry conditions. “Resources are low and the risk is very high,” he expressed.
Earlier in the meeting, the jury heard from Emily Stine, the regional representative for the newly created Governor’s Office of Rural Development. The office’s main objectives, according to Stine, are to help identify priority targets and to help find funding for those projects through a grant writer.
Areas of focus, as Stine said, are agriculture, Broadband, clean water, economic development, education, finance, healthcare, infrastructure and workforce development.
“Our goal is to increase the quality of life in our rural communities,” said Stine.
It was later reported the parish is $55,743.50 over budget for the year on inmate housing. One main reason is because there were four juveniles being housed.
District Attorney Joe Green stated, “Two of those were resolved about three weeks ago.”
He went on to say, “It’s a hard decision to make to charge a juvenile as an adult because I know there’s some cost involved. Since I became DA, it was the first time we had to charge juveniles as adults, but we’ve seen, unfortunately, some gun violence. We’ve chosen to take a hard stance on that. I do everything I can to try to push those along as quick as possible.”
In other business, the police jury:
•Approved to hire Geri Melder as accounts payable clerk/receptionist.
•Approved to hire Gerald Rawlings part-time in Solid Waste at $13.76 an hour.
•Approved Desire Lines Master Services Agreement for adjudicated property.
•Accepted the resignations of Wayne Bell and Patrick Lafargue from the Southwest Allen Parish Board and appointed Reggie Bertrand to finish Bell’s term.
