Development director: St. Mary COVID gives potential employer pause

FRANKLIN — The latest COVID-19 surge, which has hit St. Mary Parish people hard, may also be standing between the parish and a major employer.
A company considering St. Mary for a $14 million expansion, with the potential to hire 250 people, is now waiting to see how COVID-19 will run its course in St. Mary, said parish Economic Development Director Evan Boudreaux on Thursday.
The company, which Boudreaux didn’t name, hasn’t ruled out a move to St. Mary. But “they definitely made us aware that it was an area of concern,” Boudreaux said.
At Wednesday’s St. Mary Parish Council meeting, President David Hanagriff announced that he plans no additional mask mandates against the latest COVID surge, urged people to get vaccinated and said both are matters of personal choice.
Boudreaux agrees. And, eight months into the job, says he hopes people will take the parish’s economic future into account when they make their choice.
“The concern for me, one, is economic opportunity,” Boudreaux said. “One thing businesses look for is quality of life. If it looks like a community is shot through with COVID, they’re not going to go for us.”
Boudreaux’s description comes close to matching the picture painted by Office of Public Health statistics.
On July 23, Gov. John Bel Edwards said at a news conference that since the easily transmitted and highly virulent Delta COVID variant arrived, Louisiana has become the state where the disease is spreading most quickly.
One measure is the incidence rate, a seven-day average of active cases per 100,000 residents. An incidence of 100 is a source of concern, Edwards said. Louisiana’s rate was at 175.
For the week ending July 21, St. Mary’s incidence was over 500, up by half since the previous week. The percentage of St. Mary COVID tests returning positive results was at 16.2%, up by a third since the week ending July 14.
The first wave of COVID pushed parish unemployment to 14% last spring. The jobless rate was at 8.8% in June 2021.
The early COVID waves closed some small businesses here. Others are being launched as signs of recovery emerge, especially in east St. Mary. But another COVID wave threatens those businesses, Boudreaux said.
Federal COVID aid has brought tens of millions into the parish: a $300-$600 weekly unemployment enhancement, direct stimulus payments and at least $80 million in forgivable Paycheck Protection Program loans.
Boudreaux, who worked as a congressional staff member before succeeding Frank Fink at Economic Development, believes Congress is unlikely to pass another big stimulus bill.
“Instead of letting the state or federal government take control, we can take control ourselves …,” Boudreaux said.
“When people make their decisions [about vaccination] for themselves, they should think about what those choices mean.”