LEONARD GRAY

HAHNVILLE – Water rates will not be going up for the present, following a vote Monday by the St. Charles Parish Council. Approval missed by one vote, and with one member absent. To change any parish service rates, a two-third approval is required by law. Councilwoman Dee Abadie was absent from the meeting, due to illness. Voting against raising the minimum monthly water fee from $2 to $4 were Councilmen “Ram” Ramchandran, Terry Authement and Desmond Hilaire. The proposal also would have imposed separate fees for installing, deposits and minimum monthly $2 fees on second residential meters for irrigation purposes, now part of the regular fee schedule. Waterworks Director Robbie Brou pushed for the increase to go into effect July 15, and supported the additional fee on the irrigation line meter, saying, “The person asking for that service should pay for that service.” Ramchandran moved to table the matter for further committee study, but this failed in a 4-4 vote, with Barry Minnich, Clayton Faucheux, Brian Fabre and April Black voting against that idea. Brou said his cost for reading each meter is estimated at $4.51 and the proposed increase still would not cover his costs. In other action, the parish council heard a response from personnel officer Sandy Zimmer on allegations made of Parish President Albert Laque’s administration having hired an additional 100 employees since he took office. Zimmer said there were only three additional unclassified employees, three additional full-time classified employees, seven more temporary employees and fewer commodity distributors and WIA employees. Any apparent jump in staff, Zimmer continued, may have been read from summer camp, feeding and concessions, where 131 employees were added to the parish payroll, as well as people misreading additional library, district attorney and coroner employees as part of Laque’s administration. “Sometimes, it can be deceiving,” she said. Also, culvert installation to replace open swales will get a long look by the parish council, as Authement proposed allowing property owners in his district to close ditches. Quickly, other council members jumped on the bandwagon to allow their property owners to do likewise, including Fabre, Black, Hilaire and Lance Marino. An suggestion by Ramchandran to simply open it up parishwide failed, after parish attorney Bobby Raymond said to make such a drastic change to an advertised ordinance required re-advertisement. Faucheux then moved to re-advertise it with a revision to include the whole parish, and that failed. The council then approved by a 6-2 vote to allow culvert installation in Districts 1, 4, 5 and 6. “Swales are an eyesore and a maintenance pain,” commented Minnich. “I didn’t introduce this ordinance to cause controversy, but I knew it would raise interest across the parish,” Authement said, prompting a laugh from fellow council members.