Marksville Council still upset with Avoyelles Police Jury

With no looming crisis or disaster facing the city at this time, the Marksville City Council focused on relatively minor annoyances at its Feb. 14 meeting.

To nobody’s surprise, council members were still in no mood to send valentines to the Avoyelles Police Jury. Several verbal arrows were fired in the jurors’ direction over the still prickly issue of Ward/City Court fines.

The city received no fines from the court in January while the parish received $2,867.50.

Mayor John Lemoine once again noted it is unfair that the city pays half of the court’s expenses, as well as providing the court facilities, but gets only a pittance of fines.

He would like to see the distribution of fines split evenly.

Councilman Frank Havard said the Ward 2/Marksville City Court cost the city about $100,000 and cost the Police Jury about $30,000 last year, after the fines received were deducted from the amount paid by each local government.

Councilman Clyde Benson said the city is coming out better financially by paying half of the operating cost and receiving only a small portion of the fines than it would if it paid all of the costs and received all of the fines. That is the arrangement that was in place for many years, and the one the Police Jury wants reinstated.

GREASE IS THE WORD

Council members also made it clear there is no love lost between the city and restaurant owners who do not control the amount of grease being dumped into the sewer system.

Excessive grease can damage pumps, council members said.

Council members said restaurants who release over a certain level of grease into the sewer system should be fined. They asked City Engineer Rene Borrel to meet with City Attorney Derrick Whittington to determine what the fine will be and to develop a new ordinance if necessary.

“We can fine them, but then the fine will probably go to the Police Jury,” Havard quipped.

It was noted that in past discussions on grease traps, a previous council may have decided restaurants in existence before grease traps were required would be “grandfathered” and not have to install grease traps.

Borrel said that even if a restaurant was “grandfathered” and did not have to install a grease trap, that would not excuse them from complying with an ordinance regulating grease levels released into the sewer system.

DILAPIDATED HOUSES

Another pesky problem that came under fire was that of property owners who neglect their dilapidated structures.

The city has sent certified letters to several property owners over the past few months to start the process of condemning and removing the structures.

Whittington said once all of the procedures in the ordinance are met -- notification, public hearing and condemnation -- the city can move forward with removing the dilapidated buildings as a dangerous nuisance. However, he said, if the council decides to give a property owner a set period of time to either repair the structure to city standards or remove it themselves, the city must not take any action until that period expires.

“It is time to stop talking about this and do something about it,” Lemoine said.

PROCLAMATION

In other business, the council adopted a resolution proclaiming March as Problem Gambling Awareness Month.

Lonnie Bridges of Cottonport, a member of the Louisiana Association on Compulsive Gambling board of directors, requested the action.

“We only had seven mayors in the state participate last year,” Bridges said. “I told my other board members that I would beat that number by myself.”

As of the Feb. 14 meeting, Bridges had secured proclamations from seven of the parish’s nine municipalities this month and hopes to add the remaining two in early March.

Bridges said there is free help available to any Louisiana resident suffering from a gambling addiction. The Center of Recovery (CORE) in Shreveport provides in-patient treatment.

Most people who call CORE are family members of the problem gambler, not the gambler himself, Bridges said.

“If Daddy has a gambling problem and the electricity gets cut off, it’s not just Daddy’s problem,” he noted.