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Crowd at Wednesday's meeting of the St. Mary Parish Council

Opposition to road renaming turns fiery

A fiery confrontation between some residents of Cypremort Road, the family of former St. Mary Parish Police Juror and Parish Councilman Joseph Tooney Davis and the parish council itself played out Wednesday.
In November, an ordinance was adopted rename Cypremort Road in the Four Corners area to Joseph “Tooney” Davis Drive and Sorrell Road to Bosco Road. The late Davis was a long-serving member of the St. Mary Parish Police Jury and Parish Council; Bosco was a long-time businessman in the area.
But some residents said the move took them by surprise as they were not notified of the change until they saw it on new street signs.
An ordinance by Councilman Paul Naquin was up for adoption to rescind a portion of the original renaming action, from Big Four Corners Road to La. 83.
More than 20 people addressed the council on the matter in a two-hour public hearing before the council’s regular meeting began. A much larger crowd was on hand regarding the controversy.
Proponents pointed to the many accomplishments Davis brought to the area during his long career in public service; opponents said not only would changes to documents, bills, etc. would be a hardship, but they were not notified of the change and were not aware of it until new signage was installed.
Naquin explained that he and Councilman Craig Mathews about the change and revising the actual area that would bear Davis’ name.
He introduced the ordinance to amend the original in light of that, and “some of these people don’t want to change the name…I agree with them, it’ll be a disadvantage to do all (the official changes in personal documents.)”
Mathews took responsibility for not adequately making sure the residents in the area were notified. “By no stretch of the imagination did I or anybody else up here anticipate this type of fallout,” he said. “It was not maliciously, it was not done to offend anyone, or to draw a negative reaction from our community.”
He said he was sure no one would challenge Davis’ accomplishments from the west end of the parish to the state level.
The amendment to the original ordinance does not take into consideration all residents because it “does not fairly represent all of the constituents that live on that stretch of road,” Mathews said.
There were suggestions from the attendants that the new overpass at US 90 could be named in honor of Davis, as well as renaming the West St. Mary Civic Center, where there is already a partial facility bearing the councilman’s name.
Others said there have already been issues with mail delivery.
Trent Davis, the late councilman’s son, said shortening the named section is “an insult.” He said, “My dad worked for everybody. He worked for the blacks, he worked for the whites, he worked for the Hispanics. Everybody benefited from what he did…the people who are opposing this are benefiting because of him, they have running water in their houses, they don’t have septic tanks and outhouses anymore.
“I want to see the whole street named after him, and if it can’t as you decided, men who are supposed to have integrity, remove his name totally.”
The issue of lack of notifications was also discussed, with council members vowing to do better in similar cases.
There was also a discussion about requesting the recreation district board that oversees the West St. Mary Civic Center to consider naming the facility in honor of Davis.
“That is something that can be done,” Mathews said, noting that the council cannot make that decision, the board must.
During the regular meeting, Naquin’s ordinance to rename a portion of the road passed 8-2 with one absent. He had also presented an ordinance that would require road name change requests costs to be the responsibility of those requesting the change, but tabled it for further consideration.
Later in the meeting, Councilman J Ina requested an expansion of the agenda, which was approved, and moved to send a request to Recreation Dist. 5 to consider renaming the civic center.
Also Wednesday, the council elected Councilman Gabriel Beadle as chairman and Kevin Voisin as vice-chairman.

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