By T. Scott Boatright
What was scheduled to be a monthly Lincoln Parish Police Jury meeting became a grievance concourse with no official action being held because of the lack of a quorum Tuesday night at the Lincoln Parish Courthouse.
Two smaller meetings — the LCDBG and Public Works committee meetings were held before the official full LPPJ meeting was slated to start because there were three members from each of those five member committees present to provide a quorum for those.
But with still only six LPPJ members in attendance — Glen Scriber, Greg “Big Coach” Williams, Diane Richards, Milton Melton, Karen Ludley and Dan Lord — after trying to get in touch with another jury member or two to provide a majority quorum that would have allowed the official meeting to be held with actions taken, the meeting was finally canceled.
A quorum is the minimum number of members required to conduct business at a meeting. The number of members required to constitute a quorum is determined by the assembly’s governing documents, and with no majority of the LPPJ’s members in attendance, the meeting was called to an end before it even began.
But that did not happen without any consternation.
After the 6 p.m. LCDBG meeting was held with three of its five members — Ludley, Melton, Richards — the Public Works Committee met and started with a presentation from the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development discussing the DOTD’s Right Sizing Program, a road transfer program established as the means to “right size” Louisiana’s State Highway System to achieve the national average of 19 percent state ownership
In attendance at that meeting were 25-30 residents who lived off Louisiana Hwy. 181 south of U.S. Highway 80 who were eager to express their concerns over the condition of Highway 818 along the areas they live and frequently drive.
During his presentation, LADOTD Assistant District Administrator/Engineering Matthew French told those people that while nothing could be done at this point, once the DOTD’s Right Sizing Program starts back up, said that it was very much possible that could play in their favor as far as seeing eventual road repairs, adding hopes that the program soon restart was the reason he was at the meeting to make his presentation.
And while those concerned were told it should not be discussed when the public comments section of the meeting started, things soon escalated into a lengthy “gripe session” with the residents describing the condition of the road and the adverse effects they are experiencing because of it.
And even after that, with the Public Works Committee voted on recommending actions involving improvements to Plantation Hills drained, Richards abstained on that vote before voting nay on measures to provide assistance for the City of Grambling and Village of Choudrant, voicing on frustrations that she feels she has not been able to drum up any assistance for her District 11 constituents, saying that has happened because it’s a rural district as opposed to being municipalities like the others.
Finally, the public comments ended, and committee members voted to recommend the passage of several actions, and that large group of Hwy. 818 residents left in masse only to be immediately replaced by another group of residents wishing to voice their concerns.
But as the time drifted from 7 p.m. to 7:10 p.m. and LPPJ and members of the “newer” group of residents vocally expressing their desires to at least be heard even if the meeting couldn’t officially begin and not action could be taken, Parish Administrator Courney Hall and LPPJ legal counsel Amy Miller agreed that the meeting should be canceled.
At one point Hall mentioned possibly going into executive session for discussions despite not having a quorum, Miller advised that even that couldn’t be done without a quorum.
The second group of residents packing the LPPJ meeting room Thursday night wanted to voice their concerns over the road leading to St. Peter Missionary Baptist Church being “taken away” (annexed) in 2021 to make room for expansion of the Ruston Regional Airport.
“You let the (Hwy. 818) group have their say so and you already know what we want because we have talked about it,” de facto group leader Dennis Woods told Hall and the LPPJ members in attendance. “Be respectful on it, because when you’re wrong, you’ve done wrong.”
Hall then said if he came off as being disrespectful, he apologized while admitting he was frustrated about the way events on the night happened.
Scriber, the LPPJ President, then offered Woods the normal three minutes to voice his concerns, but Woods declined, saying the earlier group voicing concerns over Hwy. 818 were allowed more than three minutes to voice their opinions.
“We have no access to our church,” Woods said. “We have to go out into Jackson Parish and circle back around to get to our church, and that’s not right. They took up a section of our road and we can’t get to our church without going down and through Jackson Parish to get there.
“When they took up that road they should have had plans for a closer alternative road in place. We have people who live down there and the ambulances cannot get to them. We do not want to be put on the backburner. They are killing our church. We just want the road to be put back in and we do not want it five years from now. We want it now. I do not mind expanding the airport. But we need our road back.”
With no quorum available to decide on a new meeting date, Hall said the date would be rescheduled for a later date.
