Foulcard: Water quality issues are under control

Franklin Mayor Eu-gene Foulcard appealed to Franklin citizens Tuesday not to panic over recent notices sent out concerning elevated bacteria levels in the city’s water supply.
The notices, which were sent from the mayor’s office, reportedly originated from the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals and the United States Environmental Protec-tion Agency.
Regarding the notices’ assertion that Franklin’s water station at Cayce and Main Streets is in violation of safe drinking standards, Foulcard said, “My administration and this council are on top of this. Corrective action has taken place, and continues to take place until this matter is fully resolved.
“Flushing has been minimized at the Cayce and Main Street location and we’ve undertaken monitoring of water samples at the site, and it (the maximum contaminant level for haloacetic acids) has been lower.”
Franklin Water Plant Manager Bernard Dan-iels expanded, in detail, on Foulcard’s allaying address.
Daniels explained that the EDA and LDH tests of the city’s drinking water take place on a quarterly basis, and that while it was true that the city had indeed been in violation of MCL standards in October of 2018, it had been over a year since the city was in violation, it had only been for that one month, and the violation has since been righted.
“The letter is very scary, don’t get me wrong,” Daniels said, “The Department of Health makes the letter very scary, but there are no proven facts concerning how long you have to drink it, (MCL water) at that concentration for it to be a cancer-causing agent.
“We had no input on the wording of the letter. The letter is straight from the Department of Health. Every word that was in there came directly from them. We (the mayor’s office) can’t add or take away anything.”
Foulcard concluded his address by emphasizing, “Our water system is safe.
“If any of the residents have any questions, feel free to contact Mr. Daniels, and we will explain it.”
Also at Tuesday’s meeting, a report was heard from Jeremy Meaux, a certified public accountant with Darnall Sikes & Frederick, the city’s independent auditors.
Meaux provided the mayor and council with copies of the financial report for 2019, and said the auditors awarded a “clean opinion” to Franklin, concerning that fiscal year.
The report showed the city had $20,903,626 in Total Assets, $1,507,017 in Deferred Outflows of Resources, $10,786,185 in Total Liabilities, $499,801 in Deferred Inflows of Resources, and was at a Total Net Position of $11,124,657 for fiscal year 2019, up $643,124 from last year’s net position of $10,481,533.
Meaux reported only one occurrence of non-compliance with the Louisiana Local Government Budget Act, which was occasioned through the condition of revenues of the capital outlay fund having failed to meet the city’s budgeted amount by more than five percent.
Another report deliv-ered to the mayor and council Tuesday came from Director of Finance Ed Hay.
In that report, Hay recommended two ordi-nances be introduced at a future meeting, once drawn up.
Hay said that as part of a condition for a loan the city has with the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, certain financial requirements are expected of the city.
“They require,” he said, “that we do a re-view of our rates and establish that we have covered the cost of the operation, and that we’ve provided three times the debt requirement (of the amount of the operating cost).”
Hay said the results of his review brought about two conclusions, that he recommended be introduced as ordinances, to keep the city in compliance with DEQ loan agreement requirements.
The first point to be addressed was the city’s “piggybacking” on the parish’s contract with Pelican Waste, regarding garbage collection.
Hay said the city re-ceives $563,000 annually from fees paid by its citizenry to have their garbage collected and disposed of.
But, Hay added that the cost of the disposal is $630,000, leaving a deficit of $67,000. He proposed a $2 increase in disposal fees, per household, per month.
The second of Hay’s findings to be addressed, was another shortfall.
He said citizens would need to pay $.50 more per month to make up a shortfall in utilities ne-cessities, namely, a street light fee deficit.
These two ordinances, once adopted, Hay said would keep the city in DEQ loan agreement compliance.
In other news, an or-dinance was adopted to grant all establishments selling beverages of low and high alcoholic con-tent at retail and whole-sale, permission to renew their City of Franklin liquor license for the year of 2020.
Among resolutions ap-proved, were: in support of the Office of Cultural Development Local Government Assistance Program grant application, in support of the Community Development’s Community Water en-richment Fund grant application, designating the day and time of regular council meetings for 2020, authorizing the mayor to perform his duties in dealing with the award from the Delta Regional Authority for 2019, and the authorization of a filing for a grant from the Louisiana De-partment of Transporta-tion and Development.
Announcements in-cluded:
—The Christmas Un-der the Lampposts Golf Cart Parade and lighting of Christmas on the Bayou ceremony will take place Dec. 7
—The city’s and Franklin Merchant Association’s Mingle and Jingle celebration will take place on Dec. 12
—A Lessons and Car-ols concert will take place Dec. 15 at Church of the Assumption
—The Teche Theatre of the Performing Arts will hold their Christmas Gala at the theatre on Dec 21.
—Lighthouse Missionary Baptist Church will host Christmas Carols on the Bayou Dec. 24.
—Franklin’s Bicentennial Celebration New Year’s Eve Kick-Off will take place Dec. 31 in courthouse square, downtown.
The meeting was ad-journed at a length of one hour, and all were wished by the mayor and council a safe and happy Thanksgiving.