Installing culverts again

The Vermilion Parish Police Jury is now back in the business of installing culverts.

After voting to get out of the business three or four years ago, the Police Jury voted to get back into the business Monday night.

By a vote of 9-4, the Police Jury will now be installing culverts with tax payers’ equipment.

This Police Jury, however, voted to do it different from in years past.

When the Jury got out of the culvert installation business, it was installing culverts for free. The Police Jury furnished the culverts and used its equipment to install the culverts. The land owner got the culverts and the work for free.

No longer.

Under the new Police Jury system, the landowner will have to buy their own culverts from the Police Jury or a private business, and the Police Jury will also charge to install the culverts. The culverts can not be longer than 40 feet.

The Police Jury, in the near future, will come up with a formula to charge the customer for installing the culverts.

The police juror behind the push to get into the culvert installation business is Gueydan police juror Leon Broussard.

Broussard, a new juror, made the motion that would allow the police jury workers to install the culverts after digging the ditch.

Broussard said that residents are paying taxes to the Police Jury, so he said that is why the Police Jury should install culverts.

“We are doing taxpayers a favor,” said Broussard.

Not all jurors were in favor of installing culverts.

Mark Poché, who voted against it, said, “The jury does not have time to clean ditches and provide routine maintenance now. I don’t think we should compete against private companies that do this for a living.”

Voting against were Nathan Granger, Mark Poché, Errol Domingue and Chris Beraud.

Voting for it were Dane Hebert, Ronald Darby, Gerald Butaud, Ronald Menard, Pervis Gaspard, Cloris Boudreaux, T.J. Prejean and Leon Broussard.

Keith Meaux was absent from the meeting.