Keep an eye out for the Billy Goats

Story and Photos by
CASEY COLLIER
City and town mayors of St. Mary Parish met with Keep St. Mary Beautiful chairpersons, municipal public works directors and Parish Councilman Paul Naquin Jr. at the St. Mary Parish Courthouse Monday to receive five Billy Goats from the chair and vice-chairpersons of KSMB.
At the meeting, parish and local officials signed memorandums of understanding to acknowledge acceptance and responsibility for the donated equipment.
Keep St. Mary Beautiful, the parish’s anti-litter and community organization, donated the five Billy Goats, MV multi-surface commercial vacuums, with half of the monies of a $10,000 state grant allocated to KSMB from tourist funds. The donation of the Billy Goats was touted by Patterson Mayor Rodney Grogan to have been researched and executed by Didi Battle and Oletha Hebert, the chair and vice-chairpersons of KSMB, respectively.
The machines are made by Billy Goat Industries, located outside of Kansas City, Missouri.
Each of the municipalities of St. Mary Parish received a Billy Goat with the exception of Patterson, due to lack of necessity, Grogan said. Among the remaining recipients, Franklin and Morgan City will retain single units, loaned from the parish, on a full-time basis. Baldwin and Berwick will share a unit, depending on timing and necessity. Though, it was also agreed that the Billy Goats would be accessible to all municipalities by each municipality upon request.
The meeting was officiated by Mayor Grogan, who said of the donations, “This piece of equipment here can be used to vacuum up leaves, cans, bottle tops, cigarette butts and so forth. We are signing these memorandums today, because we’ve been afforded the opportunity to provide each governing agency here, with the MV lawn and litter vacuum, designated for both hard surfaces and turf. This equipment is ideal for both large properties and commercial lots, leaf cleanup in parks, city streets, sidewalks, and municipal festivals. It is also for cans, bottles, grass clippings, litter and other debris. It gobbles it all up.”
In addition to the purchase and donation of the Billy Goats, KSMB, using the remaining funds from the $10,000 state grant, purchased and donated a large recycle bin to be placed in the community of Verdunville.