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St. Mary Parish Council members proclaimed April 24 at Art of Respect Day at their regular meeting Wednesday. Wesley Cagle, director of South Central Louisiana Human Services Authority, said, at left, and Parish President David Hanagriff are pictured with Jacob Adams, one of three local winners in the group’s writing contest. The other two winners were Alyssa Young and Jordan Baudoin. “Art of Respect” was started by the South Central Louisiana Human Services Authority (SCLHSA) as part of the national “Spread the Word to End the Word” campaign along with several community partners, including Bayou Land Families Helping Families. Each year, SCLHSA holds an “Art of Respect” art contest for all of the residents of our seven parish catchment. The “Art of Respect” event is a day devoted to celebrating the gifts and friendships of South Louisiana citizens who live with intellectual, developmental and/or physical disabilities.

St. Mary Parish Council members approved several resolutions on operation of the Avoca Island Ferry Wednesday.
The resolutions negotiated by the administration arrange support funding shared by the St. Mary Levee District, Terrebonne Levee & Conservation District, the City of Morgan City, Cleco, Avoca LLC and the Avoca Duck club totaling some $50,000.
The aging ferry has been a point of contention for several months with operating and maintenance costs under scrutiny.
In other business. Third Ward Court Marshal David McCoy announced that the Louisiana City Marshals and City Constables Training Conference will be held in Franklin April 27-30.
Events are scheduled throughout the weekend in addition to the training sessions.
Also Wednesday, the council introduced an ordinance for a routine zoning map amendment, and adopted ordinances granting a specific use permit and another zoning map amendment.
There were also resolutions of respect for Betran Philip “Bert” Williams; proclaiming the month of May as Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month, April as Fair Housing Month, April 17-22 as national Community Development Week; congratulations to the Morgan City Fancy Dancers for capturing the National High Kick Championship; a change order to reconstruction of Chitimacha Trail from La. 326 to La. 670 to tidy up intersecting concrete driveways; a change order to the Deer Island Pass Channel Dredging project; an intergovernmental agreement with the Wax Lake East Drainage District for the interchange of equipment.
The council approved allocation of $1,500 from the Wards 1, 2, 3, 4, 7 and 10 three-tenths sales tax fund to the Town of Baldwin for their feeding program.
And Oscar “Sam” Toups was reappointed to the board of Recreation District 2 in the Siracusaville area.

Local first responders and truck industry officials prepared how to properly respond to a diesel spill Wednesday during a training exercise in Morgan City.

The St. Mary Parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness hosted a Diver Responsibility Tabletop Exercise at the Port of Morgan City’s Government Emergency Operations Center.

Officials went through a hypothetical environmentally hazardous scenario where an 18-wheeler carrying diesel overturned on La. 70 by Brownell Homes in Morgan City after the driver swerved to miss hitting a child on a bicycle.

All first-responder agencies in Morgan City, including Morgan City police and fire departments, parish 911 district, sheriff’s office, state police hazmat services, among others, participated in the training. Big businesses, such as Shell, had personnel in attendance because many of their products are hauled by trucking companies.

In Wednesday’s scenario, officials were trying to prevent diesel fuel from getting into a drainage canal and reaching Lake Palourde, said Duval Arthur, parish homeland and security and emergency preparedness director.

The pretend incident was set at 7:35 a.m. when children would have been on their way to school. First responders also had to take into account the safety of nearby residents, especially elderly people, Arthur said.

One useful emergency response feature that’s relatively new is the ability for people to text 911, if they’re unable to talk, Arthur said.

Anthony Baham, campus administrator for South Central Louisiana Technical College’s Young Memorial Campus, contacted Arthur about holding the training exercise.

Trucking company Ryder and some of its carriers also participated in the exercise.

Young Memorial has partnered with Ryder for the past few years in connection with the college’s commercial vehicle operations program.

“We’ve done some different things working in conjunction with their carriers,” Baham said.

The college decided to use the port center to do the exercise as a way to try to keep Morgan City safe, Baham said.

Ryder wanted to do a training course, so they reached out to Baham to facilitate the training, Ryder Compliance Analyst Donald Hubert said.

No particular incident sparked Ryder wanting to participate in the exercise, Hubert said.

“We really just wanted to test our process to make sure we were notifying the right people and make sure our processes were aligned with the regulatory requirements,” Hubert said.

Incidents, such as the scenario practiced Wednesday, are extremely rare, but it’s important to still prepare for what could happen, Hubert said.

United Vision Logistics and Team One Logistics were among Ryder’s carriers that took part in the event.

Arthur said preparing to follow emergency plans is a vitally important thing for members of the public and trucking companies to practice for in the event of a potentially hazardous situation.

PATTERSON — At-Large District 10 Parish Council candidates Reginald Weary and Gabriel Beadle engaged in a gentlemanly St. Mary Chamber of Commerce debate Tuesday, the most visible event before early voting begins Saturday.
The event covered about 1½ hours at the Patterson Area Civic Center. Most of the time was spent on variations of three basic questions: How do we attract and keep employers? How do we heal the east end-west end split? And should the way St. Mary govern itself be changed?
Beadle, a Republican who currently represents District 6 on the council, got 49 percent of the votes in the March 25 primary, barely missing an outright victory. Weary, a Democrat and accountant for the Patterson city government, won 43 percent of the light turnout. Darryl Perry finished out of the running with 8 percent.
Early voting for the runoff runs April 15-22, except for Easter Sunday. The runoff itself will be April 29.
Many of Tuesday’s debate questions centered on economic development. Weary and Beadle agreed that providing a sound infrastructure is vital.
Beadle pointed to the expansion of Franklin’s Metal Shark boat-builders, and to the access to river transportation and to U.S. 90. Beadle also said lower taxes would attract more business.
“If we do that, I believe we’ll see economic growth and we’ll see it tremendously,” Beadle said.
Weary focused on the population element: “We don’t have affordable housing,” he said.
He also said the parish government should treat all St. Mary residents with equality.
Both candidates said they’re willing to consider consolidation among the 44 taxing entities in the parish as a way to create efficiencies. But both also urged caution.
Weary said consolidating separate taxing districts will create winners and losers. Beadle said a feasibility study on a proposed consolidation of the Sheriff’s Office and the 911 authority showed that the merger would actually cost taxpayers more.
Both men also said they’d consider supporting a full-time parish president position. That’s a hot topic in the wake of PHI Inc.’s recent decision to halt its Amelia operations. The feeling among some in the business community is that Terrebonne Parish, which has a full-time chief executive, was able to devote more time and energy to persuading PHI to consolidate operations in Terrebonne.
St. Mary Parish President David Hanagriff serves full time and makes $12,000 a year.
The closest thing to a serious disagreement came in a discussion of the parish’s subsidy for the Atchafalaya at Idlewild golf course. Weary said he thought the parish was paying $500,000 a year for the golf course. Beadle said the amount is actually $250,000.
Otherwise, the candidates were cordial, even on a question about the perceived east-west divide in the parish. Weary jokingly passed the question on to Beadle, who in turn joked that he’d fill in the Calumet Cut to erase the boundary between east and west.