By T. Scott Boatright
Wrapping up year-ending amended and proposed budgets and saying goodbye to Lincoln Parish Park Director James Ramsaur were key orders of business Tuesday as the Lincoln Parish Police Jury held its December meeting inside the Lincoln Parish Courthouse.
Ramsaur will step down from his role as park director at the end of the month after serving in that position for nearly 30 years.
Over his nearly three decades of service, Ramsaur has been instrumental in the development of the park’s cross country mountain bike trails, the completion of the campground and subsequent upgrades to tent and RV campsites, the addition of a paved walking path around the lake, and most recently, the development of the world’s first MTB Waterfall Hub that features five state-of-the-art flow trails designed for riders of all skill levels and built by world-famous trail designers Rogue Trails.
Those continued enhancements to Lincoln Parish Park have made this outdoor attraction one of the top-visited destinations in the area, drawing more than 100,000 visitors to the park annually.
Parish Administrator Courtney Hall read a framed proclamation honoring Ramsaur for his term of service before presenting it to him.
Ramsaur admits he truly will not be leaving the park as much as some of the duties the role requires.
“I’ll be there,” Ramsaur said. “I told them I am going to be volunteering. But I will be 65 in a couple of months, and I told them I am ready to enjoy whatever days I have left. It just feels like the right time.”
In other business, the LPPJ passed its 2025 amended and 2026 proposed budgets, the Humanitarian Enterprises of Lincoln Parish (H.E.L.P. Agency) 2025 amended and 2026 proposed budgets, the North Louisiana Exhibition Center 2025 amended and 2026 proposed budgets as well as set 2026 meeting dates and times, keeping them at 6 p.m. on the second Tuesday of each month.
Also approved was authorization for LPPJ President Glenn Scriber to execute an intergovernmental agreement with the Lincoln Parish Coroner, an annual process to secure that position, as well as reappointments of Jan Canterbury to the Lincoln Parish Library Board of Control and John Sutton to the Greater Ward One Waterworks District.
The LPPJ also adopted a resolution deleting drainage structure from the Federal Off-System Bridge Program involving the bridge on Cedar Creek Road over Colvin Creek.
“Basically, this bridge is over the intersection of Kentucky Avenue and Cedar Creek Road,” Hall said. “It has been out of commission for a while and is more of a pedestrian bridge now. In fact, there is a lot of construction equipment around it right now and you cannot really get to it.
“The (Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development) has been very specific about bridges and they request a formal resolution deleting it from their off-system program, which is a funding source from the federal government to replace bridges.
Assistant Parish Administrator Kevin Klepzig clarified the matter even further.
“Even though it is a city bridge within the city limits of Ruston, it is not a state bridge as long as it is in the parish, so Ruston maintains it, technically, but it’s still under our jurisdiction which is why we need to make the deletion.” Klepzig said.
Also approved were 2026-2028 plans for the Capital Improvement Program as well as authorizing advertising for bids for the LCDBG (Louisiana Community Development Block Grants) Make a Difference Projects, which are competitive grants for local governments (cities/parishes, excluding big entitlement areas) to fund major community needs, especially benefiting low-to-moderate income residents, with projects like water/sewer upgrades, public facility improvements (streets, parks), and economic development, requiring significant local commitment (min $500k-$2M grants) and strong citizen input for funding consideration, aiming for tangible community impact.
Jurors also acted on bids, including awarding gasoline and diesel fuel bids to Suncoast LLC, and splitting the bids for gravel materials between Ruston Rock (for delivered materials) and Granite Mountain out of Arkansas, for picked-up supplies.
The LPPJ also awarded the bid for maintenance hot mix to Amethyst and agreed to investigate a proposal for service from Union Parish for landfill tipping fees.
Tabled was a discussion on new generator installations to provide time for additional gathering of information.
The LPPJ passed a motion to purchase portable defibrillators with opioid-settlement funding that will allow such units to be placed in all governmental buildings as well as emergency vehicles.
“That opioid lawsuit money is out there and we’ve never been able to come up with a viable way to use it,” Hall said. “Looking at what other parishes are doing, they have used the money to purchase these lifepacks, basically AEDs (automated external defibrillators) for first responders.
“With the combined money that the sheriff has now, and the Police Jury, there’s basically a way to put them into all law enforcement and fire department vehicles.”
Parish Office of Homeland Security Director Kip Franklin said other units will be stored inside governmental buildings for even faster and more widespread usage when needed.
“We’ll also put them in supervisor’s vehicles for Public Works out at the Highway Department and the landfill,” Franklin said. “Some of these will go in what we call Pelican Cases that will be in a squad car, others will be in a wall cabinet in facilities like Grambling, Simsboro, Dubach, Choudrant and Vienna Town Halls, the library, Lincoln Hall, the Expo Center, Highway Department Office and all of that.”
