Parish officials heading to Philly
Published 12:00 am Saturday, July 7, 2001
LEONARD GRAY
HAHNVILLE – The St. Charles Parish delegation to the upcoming National Association of Counties convention in Philadelphia, set July 13-17, hopes to get a lot out of the experience. “It’s a lot of good sessions and a lot of good issues will be addressed,” said parish council secretary Barbara Jacob. Parish President Albert Laque commented, besides the seminars and meetings, he might attend a Philadelphia Phillies baseball game. “If I can get the opportunity, I may go,” he said. Scheduled to join Laque and Jacob at the convention are council members G. “Ram” Ramchandran, Dee Abadie, Terry Authement, April Black, Barry Minnich and Clayton “Snookie” Faucheux; council staffers Monica Williams and Sandra Miguez; and administration members, including parish administrator Timothy Vial, purchasing director Susan Wilson, executive secretary Carolyn Louviere, assistant public works director Palmer “Poochie” Cheramie, economic development director Corey Faucheux and economic development employee Trudy Deshotels. The 16 parish representatives will pay, with parish funds, $385 for basic registration, not including various seminars offered at additional cost. They will also pay an average of $183 per night, with most staying six nights, at the Crown Plaza Hotel, assigned to them by convention organizers. Meals will be paid for at a cost averaging $40 to $55 per day, and round-trip air fares will be $195 per person. This works out to an average per-representative bill of $1,728, for a total of $27,648, not including other pay-as-you-go seminars. This is likely the first year ever for council staffers to attend the NACo convention, Laque said. Last year, public works director Steven Fall attended – this year, his assistant is going. And, with the NACo convention coming to New Orleans in 2002, Laque is sending two from the Department of Economic Development and Tourism to run a booth at the convention, with the idea of generating interest among next year’s conventioneers into visiting the parish’s attractions during their stay. The convention begins its general session July 14 with Stuart Varney of CNN’s Moneyline News Hour as featured speaker. Pre-conference seminars include such topics as “Communicating Persuasively,” “Leading with Influence: Overcoming Resistance to Change” and “Saying Yes to GIS.” Seminars during the convention will include such topics as: “How the Federal Highway Program Works,” “Become a Great Communicator,” “What To Do When Local News Goes National,” “How to Read the Wall Street Journal,” “Planning and Preparing a Campaign for Higher Office” and “Will We Have Election Reform by 2004?” A host of exhibitors will have booths at the convention, including America Online, American Kennel Club, Bank of America, Federal Emergency Management Agency, the IRS, Japan Local Government Center, Leadership to Keep Children Alcohol-Free, Microsoft, Motorola, National Association of Realtors, Oreck Vacuum, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Geological Survey. Not attending the 2001 NACo convention are parish council members Brian Fabre, Lance Marino and Desmond Hilaire. Hilaire, an account executive with Household Finance, said, “(I) have so much going on at work, the timing is just not good for me.” Hilaire recently returned from Washington D.C., where he lobbied for $2.2 million in federal funds for the parish, $2 million for waterline replacement in his district and $200,000 for a new recreational park in Killona. Fabre and Marino could not be reached for this article.