By T. Scott Boatright
Trying to help the Mt. Olive Waterworks District out of a Catch-22 type situation and approving the purchase of a Regular Cab Tandem Dump Truck were two of the orders of business facing the Lincoln Parish Police Jury during its April meeting Tuesday night at the Lincoln Parish Courthouse.
Giving the OK to purchase a dump truck was a fairly straightforward order of business as the LPPJ approved Parish Administrator Courtney Hall to move forward with buying a Mack Pinnacle at the low bid of $167.087 submitted by Bruckner Truck Sales out of Monroe.
That bid was one of four submitted to the LPPJ with the highest being $176,193.
While that order of business was quick and simple, the LPPJ faces a significantly more complicated issue in trying to upgrade drinking water for the Mt. Olive Waterworks District.
The short-term answer was easy as the Jury approved adoption of a resolution authorizing the submission of application to the Louisiana Department of Public Health’s Drinking Water Revolving Loan Fund requesting funding help to begin the process of making those improvements.
But solving the problem in the long term will be more complicated, with the project likely needing to be done in phases based on funding according to former Parish Treasurer and CPA Laura Hartt, who appeared before the Jury to discuss the situation.
Based on Joseph Heller’s book of the same name, a “Catch-22” happens when a problematic situation for which the only solution is denied by a circumstance inherent in the problem or by a rule.
In this case, the problem is there and needs to be resolved, but not bad enough to get full funding from a Community Development Block Grant.
“We’re bad, but not bad enough to get the block (LCDBG) money,” David Ponton, a resident representing others living in the area, told the LPPJ. We’re kind of stuck between a rock and hard place. We have constituents, especially a number of older individuals living in the area, and their water lines are just horrible.
“But we can’t even get any kind of (LCDBG) money until an application is made, so that’s what we’re asking at this point.”
Hartt told the LPPJ that while the application request will be for a loan, 49% of it could be forgivable should it be approved.
“It’s very often that the 49% percent is deemed forgivable, 51% would still be owed,” Hartt said. “So what’s come to our attention that could work for Mt. Olive is if we utilize this Louisiana Infrastructure and Technology Corporation, that’s a nonprofit organization set up for Gov. (John Bel) Edwards, we might be able to find matching funds to offset the nonforgivable portion of this loan.
“So we see a creative way we can layer in several different concepts and conceivably get some LCDBG funding for Mt. Olive. So the action we’re asking for tonight is just submitting that application. For all the projects Mt. Olive wants to do, the cost is $4.8 million. That’s a lot of money — a lot of loan. But we can’t give any more information back to the Jury until we make this application.”
Hartt said that submitting that application will help begin negotiations that could scale the original request down.
“Scale it down to a payment we feel Mt. Olive can afford based on their rates,” Hartt continued. “So no one is asking the Police Jury to make any kind of financial commitment at this point or even in the future. We’re going to scale those projects to see what Mt. Olive can sustain on their income. But we can’t get the information we need unless we make that application and start that process.”
When asked why Mt. Olive keeps getting “beat out” on receiving full LCDBG funding, Hartt said other water systems that have to issue multiple boil advisories every year are deemed worse off and are therefore receiving such funding.
“Mt. Olive doesn’t have that,” Hartt said. “They have issues, but those issues just aren’t as bad. Their water quality, their contaminant levels just aren’t as bad. Mt. Olive’s contaminant levels just aren’t as bad as others and that’s why it’s not receiving that competitive funding.
“So, this would be a loan, and from what we can tell right now we probably wouldn’t go for the full loan because we know that the Department of Health doesn’t cover all the issues and items Mt. Olive has. So once we make that initial application we’ll tell them about everything we want to accomplish and they’ll tell us they don’t cover ‘X, Y and Z,’ so that will scale it down some.”
Hartt said that in the end game, what needs to be done for the Mt. Olive Water District is a new water distribution system, line and elevated tank rehab and painting as well as patching on the elevated tank, and a new well.
“They might come back and tell us that they’ll loan us a certain amount of money but that your current water rates will only sustain 51% payment if we back off the well and just do the distribution,” Hartt said. “This application will probably help us split this project into phases.”
The LPPJ unanimously adopted a resolution authorizing submission of the initial loan application.
In other business, the Jury approved a proclamation making April Fair Housing Month for Lincoln Parish in 2025 and adopted a resolution authorizing LPPJ President Glenn Scriber to execute a multi-jurisdictional consortium agreement for carrying out programs and activities authorized by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act.
“Basically what this is — there’s a 10-parish consortium of which Lincoln Parish is a part,” Hall said. “One parish is the lead (parish) in receiving federal funding. We have an office in our complex and that’s how they receive their funding. Basically the resolution authorizes each (Police Jury) president of each agency to handle that. It’s nothing out of the ordinary and costs us nothing to do this. And it’s really the only mechanism to receive workforce funding.”
During Tuesday’s meeting the LPPJ also authorized a cooperative endeavor agreement between the LPPJ and the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development for donation of reclaimed asphalt and authorized Scriber to sign that agreement.
The LPPJ also authorized travel for highway department employees for diesel technician training in Dallas from May 5-9 and introduced an ordinance for sale of adjudicated property off of Igoe Inn Road in Grambling.
That ordinance will be discussed and likely voted on during the LPPJ’s May meeting.
