As usual during its first meeting of the year, the Evangeline Parish Police Jury Monday night appointed officers, committees, and job holders including Secretary-Treasurer Donald Bergeron.
After appointing committees for the year, Juror Daniel Arvie moved to accept the job holders. Juror Eric Soileau then asked “to hold on Mr. (Donald) Bergeron to be able to go into executive session and revisit that afterward.”
However, being that Arvie’s motion was already made, the jury could not go into executive session and voted to accept the job holders and to approve Donald Bergeron as secretary-treasurer for a two-year appointment.
After the vote, Juror Bryan Vidrine expressed the need to still go into executive session, and Williams said that he would leave that for last. When asked by Bergeron for clarity on why they would be going into executive session, Vidrine replied to discuss issues concerning personnel matters.”
Objecting to the police jury going into executive session was Arthur Sampson who felt it was illegal. The jury’s attorney Marcus Fontenot advised that the jury could go into executive session. Sampson then stated “a complaint will be filed.”
The meeting began with the stepping down as president by Ryan Ardoin. “I appreciate all of the years I had as president, and I think we did a great job,” he said. “I do still want to be very involved in the police jury, and, if y’all see fit, I would like to be vice president.”
Juror Lamar Johnson commended Ardoin on his years of service as president. Johnson said, “I served with a bunch of presidents, and I want to tell you that, for the last two years, you did the best job that I had seen done in 30 years.”
The jury then voted to name Ryan “Leday” Williams as president and Ryan Ardoin as vice president. Williams said, “I want to thank all of y’all for nominating me as president, and I plan on running it the same way Mr. Ardoin ran it for the four years that he did.”
Williams’ first main issue as president was the pay raises that were adopted at the previous meeting pending the performance evaluations. Juror Bryan Vidrine proposed a method of dividing the five percent. He proposed five-percent for excellent, three-percent for good, two-percent for average, and zero for unsatisfactory.
Questioning the method of distributing the raises was Public Works Director Chester Granger. “Everything is in the handbook except this scale that y’all are proposing tonight,” he said. “I would like to see the evaluations done according to our handbook. This would need to be put in our handbook and have all the employees notified. I have a couple foremen who graded out their employees and said, if they would have known the scale, they would have changed their grading system.”
After discussion on the issue, Bergeron offered changes to the handbook regarding the evaluations, and Juror Sidney Fontenot moved to “set the percentages as written but also have Mr. Granger to review the evaluations in case there is an error that needs to be addressed.”
The jury passed the motion, and Granger suggested to bring the issue back up in committee meetings.
In other business, the jury:
• appointed fiscal agents
• approved the holiday list
• designated the date, time, and place of police jury regular meetings
• approved attendance to Louisiana Housing Council Winter Executive Committee Meetings
• approved a cooperative endeavor agreement with Prairie Heritage, Inc., and Louisiana Folk Roots to help promote tourism during the week of April 20-26, 2018, and to allow the sale of alcohol during the festival
• reviewed the cleanup proposal for the Ville Platte Health Unit
• discussed the use of funds in Ville Platte Gravity Drainage District #10 for drainage equipment purchase
• and set a public hearing for 4:45 p.m. on February 5 to discuss the removal of four-way stop signs on Junction Road at Wilson Campbell Road.
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TONY MARKS