Matte and Cefalu receive Rotary Club honors

The Rotary Club of Morgan City bestowed honors Wednesday on two men with long ties to city government and public service.
At its annual officers installation banquet, the club gave its Citizen of the Year award to former Mayor Tim Matte. The Rotarian of the Year is William Cefalu Sr., the city’s utilities director and outgoing club president.
Matte became the Rotary’s 40th Citizen of the Year. The first was another mayor, Dr. C.R. Brownell, in 1987.
That was six years before Matte, then 37, began serving his first term as mayor after 5-1/2 years on the City Council.
Club board member Jim Firmin said Matte handled the routine matters of city government, from power outages to stray cats.
There were larger issues, too. Matte reflected on those days at the end of the 1980s oil crunch to a reporter from the Review.
“Coming into office in ’93 … in some cases it was almost easier because the answer was no for pretty much anything,” Matte said. “We just couldn’t afford to do hardly anything. City government was still adjusting to the revenues it was going to have after having had some times where the revenues were much stronger.”
He handled the job well enough to win re-election. After sitting out the required four-year term, Matte ran again and became mayor in 2005, serving for two more terms.
Some of Matte’s biggest public service challenges were ahead.
Matte became director of the St. Mary Levee District in 2013, in time to deal with major floods in 2016 and 2019. The remedy for back-flooding along Bayou Chene was time-tested and expensive: sinking a barge in the bayou.
After funding for a permanent solution became available, the Levee District oversaw the construction of the Bayou Chene Flood Control Structure, an $80 million project.
Also in the works at the time was the Bayou Teche Flood Control Structure, designed to block storm surge flooding in the Franklin-Garden City area.
Then, after Hurricane Francine pushed water into hundreds of Morgan City homes in 2024, the Levee District oversaw the beginning of an upgrade to the pump stations designed to move water outside the levee system during heavy rains.
Together, those projects represented more than $100 million in federal and state funding.
Matte stepped down from his Levee District post last year and is succeeded by Mike Brocato.
Matte found himself in good company as a Citizen of the Year.
“I’ve known many of the past Citizens of the Year,” Matte said Wednesday. “I admire all of them … Just to make it into that company, some of whom are here, is amazing, an amazing feeling.”
Cefalu was praised for stepping up to serve as Rotary president at a time when new, younger members can be hard to find for service clubs.
Both Matte, a member of the East St. Mary Kiwanis, and incoming Rotary President Dean Duplantis talked about the need to reach out to prospective members.
Drake Stansbury swore in the club’s new officers: Duplantis, Vice President Jo Anne Bergeron, Secretary Jakob Dworaczyk, Treasurer Scott Melancon, Sergeant-at-arms Tim Hebert, and directors Carrie Stansbury, Jim Firmin and Mike Brezard.