Lasalle parish Ward 8 Police Jury

Lasalle parish Ward 8 Police Jury This page is designed for the voters or Ward 8 in Lasalle parish to see improvements within our ward as well as contact your Juror representative.

I appreciate everyone's patience as I work to improve our ward.

Good Morning ward 8.Jan 13th I officially took office and begin work immediately on improving our ward. I have attempte...
02/12/2020

Good Morning ward 8.
Jan 13th I officially took office and begin work immediately on improving our ward. I have attempted to drive every road in our ward to determine which roads were the worse. I brought with me our parish superintendent and we made many miles over several days. It was like trying to find the less broken toy in the toy box. My main focus is on our main arteries in our ward and that is my commitment to you.
With the constant rain over the last month, it is impossible to catch a dry day to make any progress to repair our roads. As you can see I only have 1 load of cold patch charged to our budget. My intentions is to save as much money and maintain the roads as best as we can so we will have more money to repair the roads RIGHT once it drys up. To save our money even more, I took my personal truck and trailer and begin patching roads myself, in an attempt to have more money when it does dry up.
The road grader has not stopped and will continue to grade roads. With all the rain, grading a road right before a rain will make it much worse, however we are trying to manage the roads without causing a bigger mess.
Between rains I drove our road looking at culverts to make sure they were not clogged and was open. There were several that need further attention and I will make sure they get it once it dries up.
Trash, I have put in many days knocking on doors and explaining to as many folks as I can why we were consolidating dump sites. Please know we are looking to reduce cost on clean up by placing cameras at each site and consolidating to have fewer sites to clean as we as reduce mileage on our trucks. We actually took 8 dump sites in the southern portion of the ward and turned them into 4. We still have work to do around these sites but once we are finished you will pleasantly surprised when dumping your household garbage.
January 31st I attended a jury meeting in Monroe La with other members, to better understand the ins and outs of this job and brought a lot of good information from this meeting back home with me.
Please be patient with me as you can see I only have $104,000 to spread through out the ward for 2020. Every dollar I can save while its wet will be turned into black top once spring as sprung and we get dryer weather. It takes approximately $35,000 to black top 1 mile of parish roads. If I can manage our cost I will spread the money as thin as I can, through out the year. My plan is to take my personal tractor and one of the parish dump trucks and begin fixing the worst parts of many roads this year in an attempt to preserve what we have. Then once we have our head above water we will begin to resurface roads.
Thank you for being patient with me and please know I am trying to answer every call and visit as many people as I can when they call. One of my promises was to be a visible juror for our ward and I am working hard to do just that.
Please reach out to me at anytime if you have any questions, my cell number is 318 316 2871. I accept calls and text, but if I do not answer I will surely return your call as soon as I can.
Thank you
Steve Thomas

Last week as I drove around our ward and parish I began taking pictures of our dump sites and I know that Lasalle parish...
02/06/2020

Last week as I drove around our ward and parish I began taking pictures of our dump sites and I know that Lasalle parish citizens deserve better sites and we absolutely can do better.

We have started to consolidate our dumpsters (parish wide) to reduce the cost associated with the garbage by providing more dumpsters at one location. Additionally, in an effort to keep our dumpster areas clean and reduce the cleanup cost we will be putting cameras on these sites. Please help us help our community by placing all household trash in the dumpsters. I think everyone can agree that these dump sites are horrible and need immediate attention.

Tires: Old tires are considered hazardous waste and cannot go in the land fill. The cost for the parish to dispose of these tires is approximately $13 a tire. As you drive around you can see firsthand how many old tires we have lying around our sites and it places a financial burden on our parish. We ask all tires be turned into a local tire shop (resident will need to pay tire shop for disposal) and not placed around the dump sites. If you have old furniture etc we ask you to please transport those to the land fill at 255 Landfill Road in Jena.

Most residents are good folks that do care about our community and the appearance of it, and have been placing their trash in the appropriate dumpsters and sites. We thank you and applaud you for that. For those who refuse to help us keep our parish clean, these cameras will help identify those folks and result in littering citations.

02/01/2020

Good Morning ward 8, I wanted to give an update and what all we are doing and what the next few weeks looks like.
The 4”+ rain we had a couple of weeks ago washed out numerous roads in our parish and ward.. the past few weeks we have been recovering from that as well as trying to patch roads as the weather permits. We are so far behind that I have even taken my personal truck and trailer and began fixing pot holes in an attempt to get ahead. I have drove almost every road in our ward over the past 2 weeks and know first hand how bad our roads are. If Mother Nature would cut us a small break and give us some dry weather we could really make a honest show.. please be patient with us through this rainy weather and know we are trying our best.
On a positive note we have started consolidating our trash bins on days it is raining and I wanted to thank you for your patience and understanding while we attempt to make this system better.. We still have more work to do such as getting these sights cleaned up an very presentable to the public.
Thank you again for your patience and please know we are working hard to fill every need

This Mondays meeting agenda. I will strive to keep everyone up to date with how we are doing as a parish and ward. Tha...
01/11/2020

This Mondays meeting agenda. I will strive to keep everyone up to date with how we are doing as a parish and ward. Thanks again for your support.

******Lengthy but please read and share if you desire****On Monday January 6th I meet with the new jurors as well as som...
01/08/2020

******Lengthy but please read and share if you desire****
On Monday January 6th I meet with the new jurors as well as some of our returning jurors and our landfill attorney to discuss the trash issues we have facing us. A lot was discussed in a very lengthy meeting, but I wanted to bring everyone up to speed on what we are facing as a ward and parish to address our problems.
In September 2019 our landfill contract ran out. It was a 25-year contract that when written and had a locked in rate of $15 per ton to dispose of LaSalle Parish trash. With new EPA laws and regulations that have been passed over the past 25 years, the upkeep, monitoring, and maintenance of a landfill the price has skyrocketed. However, to our advantage we were locked in to our $15 per ton for 25 years.
In September 2019 our landfill cost increased to $39 a ton just to dispose of our trash. This amount does not include the cost of $9500 a month just to own the 2 trucks nor does it include the cost for fuel, insurance, driver’s salary, tires, maintenance on the trucks, etc. This cost is just to empty the dumpsters and haul it to the landfill. There is also a second crew that travels behind each truck (which has the worst job anyone could possibly dream up) and they are responsible for picking up the trash, animal carcasses, boards, appliances, etc. scattered around the dumpsters. This crew includes a boom truck and has the same added cost as other 2 garbage trucks plus an assistant to help with the cleanup.
Our yearly garbage millage tax usually averages around $750,000 a year. With the added cost to dispose of our trash in the landfill, it is apparent that changes will need to take place in order to not bankrupt our garbage account.
There were a couple of options available to reduce the cost. We are entertaining every avenue to better our current trash system, while keeping our residents best interest in mind. There will be changes, some will be big, some small, but at the end of the day, please know we are doing the best we can with what we have.
For example, on Highway 127 there are 7 dumpsters sites within a 16.5 mile stretch of road. That is 7 sites that need to be maintained and cleaned weekly and sometimes twice a week. To reduce our cost and to free up some of our men to repair roads, our present plan is to consolidate these sites and relocate them to an area that is not an eyesore to passing vehicles. We also plan to place cameras on these sites to pinpoint who is dumping trash and dead animals on the ground. The main intention of these sights is for household garbage only. We ask that any other waste be hauled to the landfill. This will be the first phase of improvement you will see and please know we are looking at all options to meet everyone’s needs on the placement of these sites. I know I will never please everyone, but I ask for your patience and understanding while we work to improve these sites.
The second phase is still being developed and will be based on cost and resources. Before I was elected, I had already reached out to other parishes in an attempt the see how they were handling their garbage sites. Most had several very nice compactor facilities that were monitored and gated where folks could empty their trash and not have to worry about nails in tires, dead animal remains, eyesore dumpsites, or nasty mud holes to step in while dumping your trash, etc. This will actually save the parish enormous amounts of money on the reduction of trash trucks, labor cost, fuel, etc. These sites will be limited due to cost but will be in an area that you can be proud of and not dread hauling off your trash.
We have not set in stone what phase two will actually look like but it will require change to reduce cost and ensure a clean site and we are leaning toward what our neighboring parishes are currently doing. I am available at any time for conversation and I am open for any ideas or concerns you might have, and I can be reached at 318 316 2871. Please understand our main concern is (1) to not bankrupting the parish, (2) keeping our residents’ interest in mind, and (3) finding a solution that will fit best for our parish. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve you as your juror and this will be a learning curve for all of us and please patient with me as I work to improve our ward and parish.

01/07/2020

Please share this page with anyone that may live in Ward 8.

01/07/2020

This page is designed for the voters or Ward 8 in Lasalle parish to see improvements within our ward as well as contact your Juror representative. I appreciate everyone's patience as I work to improve our ward and look forward to seeing everyone in the near future. If you would like to contact me my phone number is 318 316 2871

Address

Jena, LA
71342

Telephone

+13183162871

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