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Council to hold special session on road money
The St. Landry Parish Council voted to hold a special session with the aim of locating money to fix roads.
Parish council member Leon Robinson asked the council Tuesday at its monthly meeting to do something about the deteriorating road situation.
He said it was his second month in office and he didn't want to wait years before addressing the problem."Let's do something now," Robinson said.
The rest of the council agreed. They voted unanimously to have the special meeting. No date for the meeting was set, but the council said it would be in days, not weeks.
Parish President Don Menard said the special session is a good idea.
"Let's burn the midnight oil," Menard said.
He said consolidating road taxing districts would be the best move to solve the problem.
The parish has millions of dollars split up into various taxing districts that have been created over the years. The tax rates vary from district to district and the total do not cover the entire parish. Each district keeps its roads maintained at different levels, and one election to consolidate the districts failed two years ago.
If the idea were proposed again, it would have to come before the voters again.
Other ideas mentioned at the meeting to fund road work were taxes on license plates and fees on certain services. Menard said most of the ideas they talked about would not provide nearly enough money, but he said he would work with whatever money the council could find.
Once they meet, the council will use the session to come up with a proposal and then vote on it.
Henri LeJeune contributed to this story.