Morgan City will honor veterans July 6

Morgan City will celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday in a new and special way.
Members of the Heroes Way Commission, a group of volunteers, told the City Council on Tuesday that it’s ready to post signs on Morgan City streets to honor 10 military veterans on July 6, the Monday after Independence Day.
Also Tuesday, the council heard about other upcoming events and saw a rezoning question come to a head: Is brewing beer a general business or commercial enterprise?
The Heroes Way project’s goal is to erect signs dedicating portions of streets between the river and Amelia to veterans. Matt Dragna and Bryce Merrill told the council that 2,500 veterans live in Morgan City, and the commission hopes to dedicate portions of streets to a new group on Veterans Day each year after the initial 10 are honored.
The signs won’t change street names or addresses. They will have information about the service of those veterans, including commendations for valor, one of the criteria by which honorees are chosen.
The commission isn’t releasing the names and exploits of the first 10 honorees before the July 6 ceremonies.
But City Council members did get a look at the names and accomplishments of the first 10 inductees.
“We’ve got some serious heroes in this town,” said Mayor Lee Dragna, Matt Dragna’s brother.
The commission’s first 10 inductees are a diverse group: seven white men, three Black men and one woman.
Contributions to the project may be made through City Hall.
Other upcoming events:
•The Roux Rumble Gumbo Cookoff, a project of the Alzheimer’s Association and Ochsner Health, is set for 9:30 a.m. Oct. 24 at Lawrence Park. The Alzheimer’s fundraiser will feature competing cooking teams, with local celebrities judging their work. A wristband good for samples will cost $10.
•The Morgan City Firefighters Association will have a “Fill the Boot” fundraiser for the Muscular Dystrophy Association 4-9 p.m. Sept. 4 at the U.S. 90-La. 182 intersection, according to the association’s Patrick Haller.
•Merrill and Julana Senette told the council about plans for a monument memorializing the 1927 flood.
The monument will be erected in the Monument Park near Morgan City Municipal Auditorium.
The monument is part of the Louisiana Trust for Historic Preservation’s Great Flood Project.
The 1927 flood has historical significance beyond the destruction it caused. The flood itself and the decision to blow up levees, flooding farmland to save New Orleans, is viewed by some as having hastened the northward migration of African Americans and creating mistrust that helped bring Huey Long to power.
Brewing
Jason Pye and Brennon Foreman sought a rezoning that would allow them to open a microbrewery at 402 Fourth St., which had been zoned residential. The question was: rezoned to what?
Planning and Zoning Director Anthony Governale had decided that the project would require a commercial rezoning. An ordinance making that change awaited a council passage vote Tuesday.
But local businesswoman Deborah Price objected during the pre-vote public hearing.
Price said she had no problem with the microbrewery. But she was concerned with what would follow if the business didn’t work out.
She suggested a rezoning to general business, which would narrow the list of permissible uses for any business that might follow the microbrewery.
Council members agreed and amended the ordinance to reflect a rezoning from residential to general business.
The council then voted 4-1 for the rezoning. Voting yes were members Thomas Hutchinson, Steve Domangue, Bonnie Leonard and Tim Hymel. The Rev. Ron Bias voted no.