A request from a mayor in the parish to replace a member of the Evangeline Parish Tourism Board led to a reshuffling of the deck when it comes to lengths of board members’ terms at the meeting of the Evangeline Parish Police Jury held Monday, February 1.
Marketing Director for Tourism Elizabeth West told the Jury that Mamou Mayor Ricky Fontenot submitted a letter requesting to replace the board member who represents the Mamou area with Derrell Thomas. “That led to a lot of questions pertaining to when does the current board member’s term expire,” West said.
Through research of Tourism records and records on file with the Police Jury, it was determined, as West said, “we really don’t have very good records to tell when several of our board members’ terms are set to expire.”
West reported she previously had a conversation with Secretary-Treasurer Donald Bergeron who suggested starting with a clean slate and reappoint all of the board members. In doing so, the board would go back to how it was done in the beginning of the organization with members having staggered terms.
“That way,” West said, “we would never be left with an entirely new board all at one time.”
Sometime after the Tourism board received the letter from Mayor Fontenot, it received notice that long time Member-at-Large Suzy Lemoine decided to resign because of personal reasons.
West suggested replacing Lemoine with Wanda Verrette, who is currently the board member from Mamou.
“If the mayor in Mamou would like to nominate someone new,” said West, “this could be an opportunity for us to make Wanda our member-at-large. She is someone we don’t want to lose. We feel like she is a great asset to our organization.”
She continued, “It would also allow us the opportunity to have someone whom we feel could also be an asset. He could also bring some diversity to our board that we don’t have which would be nice to see.”
Juror Bryan Vidrine voiced his support to the suggestions, and Juror Eric Soileau wanted an opinion from jury attorney Chris Ludeau.
Ludeau said, “My appreciation of the statute is that it is pretty clear in defining certain individuals can be appointed at certain lengths of time, so, if you’re starting from scratch and especially if everybody who’s currently a member agreeing to remain a member, I don’t see there being any issue with starting from scratch.
The board then appointed Thomas to represent Mamou for one year, Hattie Johnson to represent Pine Prairie for one year, Haley Ortego to represent Basile for two years, Jay Gielow to represent Ville Platte for two years, Paula Darbonne to represent Chataignier for three years, Opal Andrus to represent Turkey Creek for three years, and Wanda Verrette as member-at-large for three years. Whenever a member’s term expires, they will be reappointed for another three year term.
In other business, the jury:
• approved the permanent move of Precincts 1140, 1162, and 1060 to the Ville Platte Library; Precincts 1081, 1090, and 1091 to the Voting Machine Warehouse; and Precincts 2020, 2030, and 2040 to the St. Augustine CCD Building.
• adopted a resolution of support for rural Broadband.
• reppointed Kerry Fontenot and Bobby Nacio to Ward 4 Fire Protection District Board in Pine Prairie for a two-year terms.
• and hired cemetery caretakers for fiscal year 2021.
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Tony Marks
Editor