The Mamou council spent a large portion of its meeting on Thursday addressing issues concerning the council’s decision to allow out of town vendors at this year’s Mamou Mardi Gras celebration.
At the meeting, representatives from the Mamou Fire Department shared that they felt like they “were done wrong” because they were given a booth location that was behind the bandstand. They also expressed frustration over the fact that they were not allowed to have the same spot the volunteer firefighters had during last year’s celebration on Saturday, due to the fact that it had already been booked.
Shem Spears, who is a volunteer firefighter with Mamou Fire Department, also shared that he felt that the fire department was given that spot because there were too many outside vendors.
However, the council assured Spears and the other firefighters in attendance at the meeting that it was not their intention to make the fire department feel like they had been done wrong.
Council member Leisa Deshotel said, “We wish someone would have called one of the council members or the mayor when you guys were told that the spot y’all wanted was already booked, because we could have fixed that. But, no one told any of us until there was a Facebook post from you guys saying how upset you were with the council. We just wish you would have asked us about it first.”
The Facebook post Deshotel was referring to was posted on the Mamou Fire Department’s Facebook page. In the post, the fire department’s frustration with the council was expressed.
Discussion of the post led to council member Jessica Fontenot expressing her dissatisfaction with what was written.
Fontenot said, “The problem here is if you aren’t satisfied with something, you need to let us know. We would have never done that to y’all and that is what really upset me the most about all of this.”
Council member Robin Young then enlightened the fire department and the owners of Krazy Cajun Cafe in Mamou, who was also there to discuss not having outside vendors, on why the council made the decision to open the event up to outsiders.
Young said, “Leisa and I fought for years to keep outside vendors out of this event, but we kept receiving complaints that there wasn’t enough places to get food.”
Young went on to explain that on Tuesday some local non profits don’t cook, one of those being the fire department.
According to the council this was the first year that outside vendors were allowed to purchase a three day permit for the event. The council and mayor, Ricky Fontenot, also reminded the firefighters that they give special treatment to the fire department by allowing them to have one location on Saturday and a different one on Monday with the purchase of only one permit instead of two.
Fontenot said, “We have allowed the fire department to choose where they want to set up on Saturday and on Monday, but we don’t allow other vendors to do that.”
By the end of the Mardi Gras discussion, the council, volunteer firefighters and Krazy Cajun Cafe owners decided to start working on forming a Mardi Gras Committee that next month would start planning for next year’s Mardi Gras celebration.
Mardi Gras wasn’t the only topic discussed at the meeting however, as the council heard from the town’s grant writer who had some big news to share.
Shelly Gotreaux said, “We have been trying to get streets redone since 2015, and we have just been funded. We will be receiving $452,375.00 in grant money to do just that.”
According to Gotreaux, the project will consist of redoing all of Railroad Street, and portions of East, 3rd, 2nd, Ash, Pine, Hickory and Hackberry streets.
The road work project is expected to begin in July of this year.
Image
ELIZABETH WEST