(Updated) Beadle, Weary in District 10 runoff; bond proposition easily passes

Gabriel Beadle, R-Berwick, and Reginald Weary, D-Patterson, will face off April 29 in a runoff for the at-large District 10 St. Mary Parish Council seat.

The district covers half of Berwick extending west to Centerville and also includes Four Corners, but all voters in the parish are eligible to vote in the race.

In Saturday’s election, Beadle received 49 percent, 2,048 votes, while Weary got 43 percent, 1,799 votes. Darryl Perry, R-Bayou Vista, had 8 percent, 352 votes, according to complete but unofficial returns.. Turnout for the council race was just 12.7 percent, according to the Louisiana Secretary of State’s website.

The special election was held to fill the vacancy left by former Councilman Steve Bierhorst, who resigned in September 2016 due to health reasons. Pam Washington has replaced Bierhorst temporarily on the council. The term will expire in January 2019.

Morgan City-area voters also overwhelmingly approved a bond proposition for St. Mary Parish Consolidated Gravity Drainage District 2 to issue $6.25 million in bonds for 20 years. Seventy-seven percent voted in favor of the proposal, and just 23 percent voted against it. Turnout for the bond proposition vote was 12.9 percent.

The bonds will allow the drainage district to build a new pump station by Lake End Park in Morgan City as part of the Morgan City Levee Improvements Project, which is designed to certify the city’s levee system for 100-year flood protection and keep insurance rates from soaring.

Morgan City residents won’t see any increase in property taxes because of the proposition, drainage district officials said.

Passing the proposition allows the district to borrow more money based on a millage that’s already in place. The new station will replace two pump stations currently located by Teche Regional Medical Center.

Beadle has already been on the parish council in the district 6 seat, which includes half of Morgan City and most of Berwick, since January 2016. Weary ran against Bierhorst for the District 10 seat in November 2015. Beadle is co-owner of Urgent Care of Morgan City, while Weary is the accountant for the city of Patterson.

Weary and Beadle expected a low turnout because of the election being a special election, but turnout was even lower than they expected.
Poor weather may have also affected turn-out on Election Day, they said.

Weary plans to examine the results and see which areas he needs to improve in to be able to win the runoff and “how to attract more people to the polls,” he said.

“The election, in general, is just about ideas,” Beadle said.

Those ideas include improving St. Mary Parish to make the parish more economically competitive with surrounding parishes, “because, at this point, we are not,” Beadle said.

Both candidates stressed the importance of making sure everyone votes in the runoff.

This council race will determine how local tax dollars are spent.

“This is what determines how we grow or how we live or how we survive,” Weary said.