Dear editor:

Instead of rebuilding Garyville’s low-income housing project, this is where the Parish should be spending its 5.5 million (Isaac related) dollars.

Severe drainage problems, huge potholes, narrow street turns, bad railroad crossings, inadequate cross streets, badly clogged culverts — the list goes on and on.

Little attention is paid to Garyville’s greatest needs.

We have no Garyville resident on the Parish Council; therefore, it is very easy to  push things that we don’t want down our throats.

We have no one who will passionately defend our small community or enthusiastically champion its virtues.

Recently, the Council voted (by split decision) to rejuvenate the 60-year-old housing project in Garyville. This is a slap in the face to most of our citizens, especially residents, such as myself, who live near the project.

Now that the project is empty, tranquility rules and gunshots in the night are seldom heard. Not so, when the project gets rebuilt.

Very few of Garyville’s residents want this project revived because we know that outsiders will be brought in, and along with some of them, more drugs and thugs.

It is hard to believe that our so called “progressive” parish is returning to the failed experiment of the 60s and 70s.

In a news article in the recent Dec. 29 edition of the Times Picayune, a Federal Judge calls for the breaking up of areas of concentrated poverty; not promoting them.

Our parish does not adhere to that principle. This failed housing project’s location has no amenities, which are required by HUD. It is hard to believe that we are the only town to get this project even though we have the least amenities.

Our community just hosted a wonderful, successful, festival “Sings and Strings.”

Hundreds of people poured in from all over. All of them praised the festival and said how much they enjoyed it.

With our National Historic District so near the project, we only can guess the future effect on our festival, once the project is in full swing again.

It is hard to believe that Our National Historic District was not given more consideration nor respect.

We can only dream about what could have been accomplished in our community if we had the  $5.5 million to spend on our most urgent Garyville needs, instead of only the low income housing project that no other community wants.

— Carl V. Monica, Garyville