2007 the year of great beginnings

Ken Grissom

This was a year of broad and generally positive change for St. Martin Parish. It was a staging year, with a lot of major projects either nearing completion, begun or at least funded. Lots and lots of grant money came into the parish in 2007. Sales tax revenues soared.

It was a year of loss, too, particularly for the people who lost their homes in February.

“We were very, very blessed not to have anyone physically injured in a major way,” said Parish President Guy Cormier, one of the officials who was Johnny-on-the-spot when an F2 tornado touched down near Breaux Bridge.

“Still, that sticks out in my mind like nothing else that happened in 2007,” he said. “I think people are still putting their lives back together from the 80 or so homes that were affected. It’s good to know they are getting things back to normal, but at this time of year I’m kind of feeling sorry for those people and praying that they do fully recover.”

Cormier said the loss of Col. Jeff DeBlanc of St. Martinville, World

War II ace fighter pilot and Medal of Honor recipient, who died in November.

The loss of former Breaux Bridge Mayor Fred Mills Sr. earlier this month still weighs heavily on the current holder of that office, Jack Dale Delhomme.

“The sad part is we lost two outstanding leaders over the past two years, Mayor (Louis) Kern and Mr. Fred Mills,” Delhomme said.

Sydnie Mae Durand, a workhorse of a legislator, ended decades of public service with a narrow loss in the primary election for the state Senate seat for St. Martin and Iberia parishes. Unable to retain her house seat because of term limits, Durand has vowed to stay active in the community.

Fred Mills Jr. takes Durand’s place in the House while state Rep. Troy Hebert of Jeanerette moves into the Senate and takes his place among those leaders now looking back at the year soon to be over.

Troy Hebert

“We’re still in recovery mode from the hurricanes and obviously we’ve had some slip-ups,” said Hebert. “But I think we’ve had some successes, too. We had historical budget surpluses because of the economy that was created after the hurricanes. We’ve been able to so some things like bring teachers up to the regional average, able to put another $600 or so million in addition to what we normally do with roads.

Guy Cormier

“We had tremendous successes in the legislative session bringing money home to be able to do infrastructure projects,” said Cormier, looking on the bright side.

“Not only as far as our courthouse and our Council on Aging building, because both of those projects got extra funds, but our Atchafalaya Basin Program projects have all been set back on track. The announcement of that happening was really exciting because we can provide some infrastructure throughout the parish, not only in one particular part.”

Mike Huval

“Probably one of the most exiting things that happened to us in the latter part of the year was when we found out that the State Bond Commission approve the funding for the beginning of the I-10 frontage road, which will help a lot with economic development in this part of the parish,” said Parish Councilman Mike Huval, the council’s presiding officer.

“And then when Louisiana System Built Homes bought the old Martin Mills building, that brought encouragement to the local people, seeing that somebody was actually going to come there and open up a business and hire some people.”

Huval ticks off a laundry list of projects completed or started in ’07, from the walking track at Henderson to the community center at Cade and the selling-out of lots in of the SMEDA-sponsored industrial park on U.S. 90.

Ronny Theriot

One project of major importance finished this year was the St. Martin Parish Public Safety Complex. The storm-resistant building located at Ruth is the brainchild and might even be the crowning achievement of Sheriff Ronny Theriot, who began his second four-year term in 2007.

“It houses all of our emergency management, Homeland Security, and 911 activities,” Theriot said. “It also has all of our maintenance shops, our body shop and paint shop. We have a large shed to house our special operations equipment that we have to deploy. It’s all centrally located for search and recovery and other types of incidences that we use special equipment for and can be deployed anywhere in the parish within in minutes. And if you go inside, it’s really a state-of-the-art facility.”

The new complex, located at Ruth, is the highlight as far as his department is concerned, but Theriot denies that it is his achievement.

“We’ve come a long ways, but this has been a team concept and will always be a team concept,” he said.

Richard Lavergne

Richard Lavergne, St. Martin’s new superintendent of schools, also counted on money and teamwork in taking over from retiring superintendent Valerie Haaga.

“One of the first things I wanted to do was invest in our people,” Lavergne said. “And so we did that. We gave the largest raise that I believe ever existed in the St. Martin Parish system. Because it was important to maintain good stability to keep good people and keep them happy. Our average teacher got a 11.4 percent increase, which is strong. This enabled us to get more applicants to come to St Martin Parish and now we want to keep them. Whether you’re able to succeed or fail is due to the people you’re surrounded by.”

Then, he said, it was time to get all these people pulling in the same direction.

“It’s kind of like a teacher coming into the classroom for the first time, we wanted to set structure, how we get things done, how we wanted people to handle things — organizational charts and that sort of thing,” Lavergne said.

Jack Dale Delhomme

The legislative delegation is of prime importance to the parish and the municipalities within, said Breaux Bridge’s Mayor Delhomme.

“It took me a while but finally I realize you have to have to rely on your legislators in Baton Rouge, especially when you’re a small rural community like Breaux Bridge,” he said. “Grant money can be very, very valuable to a small town.”

Delhomme counts money for improvements to the city’s I-10 corridor, including a new water tower for businesses yet to be built, as manna from the Capitol.

He also cites the location of a Wal-Mart Super Center as a turning point for the city.

“The sales tax revenue for Breaux Bridge is the highest it’s ever been,” he said. “The year 2007 has been a great year for the City of Breaux Bridge.”

Thomas Nelson

St. Martinville fared pretty well, too, says first-term Mayor Thomas Nelson.

“We got a few grants for wastewater treatment through (state) Facility Planning and Control,” Nelson said.

The money enables the city to buy land out to an existing levee and thus overcome a permitting problem the city was having with its radical new process of using swampland to treat sewage — all under the gun of an EPA lawsuit.

“Now it looks like we have a good possibility of not getting fined,” Nelson said.

Of course Nelson and the City Council were able to pass an additional penny sales tax and used the revenue stream to bond money for road work and to improve the police department, both of which were big issues in the last municipal election.

“When I took office, I had five or six complaints (about the police department) every day. I can say in the last two months, I haven’t had three complaints. They’re doing a good job.”

He said District Attorney Phil Haney has also been helpful in improving the force.