The Allen Parish Police Jury welcomed a new juror for district seven during the meeting on Monday night. Chad Sanders was appointed to be interim juror to replace Kent Fontenot who retired last month. Sanders will serve until an election can be held.
In other business a public hearing was held to reduce the speed limit on Braxton Road, Williams Road and McMahon Road to 15 mph. No one from the public requested to speak, and the juror for the roads Creig Vizena made the motion to approve the reduction. The jury adopted a resolution to make the change.
Steve Derouen was present to discuss the 2019 audit. He had overall positive remarks. The only two findings discussed were the same two that small juries like Allen Parish get often. The staff is small so there is no CPA and the duties that should be split are shared among fewer staff. He said it wouldn’t be cost effective for the jury to make the changes to fix these findings. He also stated with the clarification from Jacob Dillehay, parish engineer, that even though the parish brought in approximately $200,000 less in 2019 they completed almost $1.5 million in capital outlay. “We did more with less,” Juror Creig Vizena said.
In the July meeting Rhonda Beard was removed from the recreation board for district one due to information that she was moving out of the parish. The jury’s intent was to appoint Greg Strother to the board; however Beard has not moved and does not want to be removed from the board. Juror Ruffin George followed up after the July meeting and realized the request to be removed did not come from Beard. The jury decided to meet with the recreation board and see what steps they wanted to take to move forward.
The jury approved a resolution to approve the issuance, sale and delivery of hospital revenue bonds in an amount not exceeding $35,000,000. This is from the millage that was approved by voters earlier this year. The inmate expense report was read. The budget for the month was $17,300. Expenses for the month were $8,139.31. They were $9,160.69 under budget for the month of July and $52,291.53 under budget for the year.
As of August 3, there were 48 parish inmates, 10 department of corrections inmates and 38 federal inmates. The federal inmates are not being housed in the parish housing facility.
The finance committee made four requests all of which were approved:
•Pay CLM Equipment $7,730 rental of reclaimer for road district three.
•Pay Cotton’s Heating and Cooling $2,363 for an AC unit.
•Pay Marathon Equipment $2,718.58 to rebuild an oil wagon for road district four.
•Pay Oberlin Building Supply $1,796.38 for building materials for the Abbot House.
The road committee made two requests both of which were approved:
•A joint service agreement (JSA) with the City of Oakdale for grass cutting, pothole patching and trash pick up for the month of August 2020.
•A JSA with the Town of Kinder to clean out a ditch between Joan Street and Ezebe Street.
Also at the meeting:
•The airport was approved to purchase fuel, supplies and materials for the month of August.
•The resignation of Darryl Pitre from the Recreation District No. Five Board. Chris Davis was appointed to complete his term.
•The resignation of David Lafargue from the Allen Parish Hospital District Board was approved.
The resignation of Brandon Fontenot was approved from the Recreation District No. Six board and McKenzie “Mick” Estay.
