Feliciana Explorer 3-31-20 by Feliciana Explorer

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A Walk Along Main Street By Daniel Duggan

The Zachary Post and Feliciana Explorer have never been more vital to our Zachary and Feliciana community, and I wanted to update the public on what we are doing to keep our customers informed and meet the challenges of the economic slowdown. Our community needs accurate communication now more than ever, we have ramped up our digital presence with EEditions through Facebook and Issuu.com and have seen tremendous growth this past week through those platforms. LIKE the Zachary Post and Feliciana Explorer on Facebook and the paper will be shown to you prior to even being printed. We have transformed many of our work processes to allow employees to work remotely. Our newspapers are delivered by me in conjunction with an independent carrier and will continue to be until we are back up to full speed. As the Zachary Post and Feliciana Explorer have been deemed an “essential” business by Gov. Edwards, we will remain open and we have increased cleaning and sanitization at the printing press where we produce the Zachary Post and Feliciana Explorer - at the same time, the government and business closures, have impacted our advertising partners, so our ad volume has dropped off by about 75% during this pandemic crisis. As a result, we have been forced to turn to some cost savings – we are trimming the paper size we use to print the paper, this is a temporary move to prevent us from having to furlough employees during this unprecedented time. We are open to support your business and classified ad needs, feel free to call us at 225-654-0122 or email us at info@ zacharypost.com or info@felicianaexplorer.com. The coronavirus crisis is bringing out the best in our community with neighbors helping neighbors, and people using their own resources to bolster our small business operators hit hardest during this downturn. Zachary Post and Feliciana Explorer and our staff are committed as ever. Please support the small businesses that support us.

Lots of Interest in Highway 68 Parish Park By Patricia Rachal Stallman rachal2743@gmail.com Who’s on First? On Monday evening, February 17, at the East Feliciana Parish Police Jury office in Clinton, the agenda listed “Discuss lease of park on Highway 68.” Juror Richard Oliveaux, whom Jackson residents had contacted about the park, contributed the item. That same evening, during a meeting of the East Feliciana Parish Economic Development District at the Clinton Town Hall, members approved a business plan for the development of the Highway 68 park. Neither the police jury nor EFPEDD (pronounced “E-FED”) was aware of the other’s plan. The Saturday before those February 17 meetings, Tim Corcoran, a member of EFPEDD, and Jim Parker, a member of the Jackson Board of Trustees and secretary of EFPEDD, met with the president of the Great Southern Sports Association, which coordinates “travel ball all over the South…high school level, middle school, Little League. He brought along the sports director from D’Iberville, Mississippi, which has six ball parks.” Joining the Jackson group at the park were Linda Karam, president of the Jackson Tourism Committee, and Rafe Stewart, Jackson Board of Trustees, who has worked on a design for a sports park at the ball field for the past five or six years. Parker explains that he and Corcoran were “putting together a business plan for developing the park on 68, getting our ducks in a row before we presented the proposal to EFPEDD and then took it to the police jury.” He adds that the Jackson group learned from the visiting sports officials that Stewart’s design— created in concert with Landscape Architect Jessica Roberts—should reference the need for nearby hotels and restaurants to accommodate the large entourage that follows travel sports teams and tournaments. The visitors also estimated a cost of between $300,000 and $400,000 to create a park similar to what Mr. Stewart proposes. “We were going to start small,” Stewart said in Jackson during a March 10 interview, “but I had visions of something really grand for our children. They are our most precious asset. They are our future.” Parker says that his interest in the project grew from a desire “to increase revenue for the town without raising taxes…what I’ve been about all along.” But the day after EFPEDD approved his plan, members learned that the police jury had, the same evening, in a cooperative endeavor, leased the entire park to Slaughter Community Charter School, which had, over the past few years, leased the softball field from the Town of Jackson. Over 40 years ago, long-time Jackson residents say, the Dixon Correctional Institute on Highway 68, across from the state-owned

Clint Ebey, left, Slaughter Community Charter School principal, stands at the podium to address the East Feliciana Parish Police Jury March 2 in response to the concerns of Jackson Board of Trustees Member Rafe Stewart, right. The subject was the park on Highway 68 in Jackson. At the previous police jury meeting, the jury, unaware of Stewart’s plans for a sports park, had rescinded its agreement with the Town of Jackson and signed a new cooperative agreement with the school. Photograph by Patricia Stallman

park property, entered an agreement with the East Feliciana Parish police jury. The park would serve the entire parish, and the Town of Jackson would oversee it. Various businesses and individuals donated time, money and materials, and for many years, under the direction of Jackson’s Sylvester Giroir, boys’ and girls’ teams played in tournaments there. Resident Martin Macdiarmid notes that the Knights of Columbus in Jackson donated $500 every summer to help buy the players’ uniforms. When, on February 17, 2020, the police jury and EFPEDD both met in Clinton, the Town of Jackson held control of the park; when, at the end, the gavels fell, Slaughter Community Charter School was in charge. Parker says of the plan his group presented to EFPEDD, “It can still work, but it’s just not going to happen right away…and it will require communication among everyone involved.” Second That: Communicate! Juror Chris Hall, whose district includes the charter school, said on Wednesday, March 11, that because the town broke its contract with the school, the police jury voted on February 17 to “rescind its lease with the Town of Jackson and sign a new cooperative agreement with SCCS.” The arrangement would go into effect “upon the town’s approval.” The next day, February 18, Parish Manager Jody Moreau met with Jackson Mayor Charles Coleman and Board of Trustees Members Don Havard and Buddy Foreman to report the transfer. Hall says that Moreau emailed him afterward that the representatives were “‘perfectly happy to get out of this lease.’

“I sent back a thumbs up,” Hall says. Neither man knew that many in Jackson were taken by surprise. Jackson residents know that when water lines are leaking throughout the town, and the number of children who might use a park appears to dwindle year by year, an official may be reluctant to sign on for a grant to fund playground equipment. If you accept grant money, one former official notes, you must complete the project or pay back the money. “These grants are never forgiven.” In fact, at one point in the past, the East Feliciana police jury lost its eligibility for state and federal grants due to an incomplete grant-funded project. Finally, when the jury discovered it could repay the money in installments, it solved the problem. Hall says now, regarding the addition of the park item to the police jury’s agenda in February: “I do want the guys in Jackson to know I was not trying to be sketchy. I wasn’t trying to loop-de-loop anybody. If I had it to do over, though, I would have left my meeting with Clint Ebey at the park and driven straight to Jackson.” He would have updated the town leaders in real time. Principal Ebey had contacted Hall, his juror, to discuss the conditions at the park. Someone had turned off both electricity—the lights—and water. The town had signed an agreement, however, to provide both. In return, the school—with the help of volunteers including teachers, students, and their parents—would bring the softball field up to par and maintain it. Instead, for its first game this season, the school rented portable toilets due to the lack of water. In preparation for the game, the volunteers took on what Hall terms the “horrible” condition of the restrooms and cleaned them of various kinds of filth. The town had broken the contract. But who turned off the lights? And the water? Jim Parker can solve part of that mystery. A citizen, he recalls, spoke four or five months ago at a Jackson town meeting, alerting officials to a safety concern over malfunctioning electrical breakers at the park. The plan was for the mayor to turn off the electricity, call in workers to repair the problem, and turn it back on. No one knows who was supposed to do what and when. But instead of the lights coming back on, someone cut off the water. Several residents have surmised that the move was meant to save the financiallystrapped town money by cutting the costs of electricity and water when the park was not in use. Mr. Hall notes that other efforts to reclaim the ball field included Mr. Ebey’s calling the waste management company about the dumpster that was “overflowing” with trash. He learned that pickup was “on hold due to non-payment.” The town paid the bill.

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continued from page 1 Jackson residents have said that the town spent $6,000 on fencing for the dumpster and do not understand the decision to remove it. Few were speaking face to face. Rounding Third Principal Ebey attended the March 2020 meeting of the police jury, responding to the concerns of Mr. Stewart as well as several candidates for Mayor of Jackson. Mr. Stewart approached the podium carrying a large chart that detailed Ms. Roberts’ design. He had delivered the plan to Sonya Crowe, former parish manager, two years previously, he said. He had not, however, asked for a spot on the agenda to discuss it. Juror Hall said several days later that he would bet “not a single police juror ever laid their eyes on it.” The jurors, he believes, were not aware that the plan existed. One former juror, who said he had discussed the plan with Mrs. Crowe, was not present for the March meeting. The plan set up four phases, the first a playground for children, with slides and climbing towers and metal picnic tables. “We wanted to see if we could salvage the swing sets that are already there,” Stewart adds, revealing his familiarity with the “doing a lot with not much” philosophy, one born of necessity in many rural parishes in Louisiana. Phase II addresses two soccer fields and, perhaps, tennis courts; Phase III, basketball courts; and Phase IV, four baseball fields. Last year, Stewart oversaw the donation of basketball posts and their delivery to BRCC–Jackson, where the East Feliciana High School welding class, under the direction of Mr. Frank Reynolds, built the frames for the backboards. DDC Robillard Grading Services drilled the holes for the goal posts. The Town of Jackson maintenance department helped install the posts. Also contributing over the years was Diane Womack, assistant to the state representative at his office in Jackson, and her daughter, Ms. Roberts of JFRlanddesign, who, Stewart says, “spent many hours getting this plan right.” The town came together as it had decades ago when DCI first signed the cooperative endeavor with the police jury. Slaughter Charter, Mr. Hall said, had the money to improve the park and had already secured grant money as well. Its board, however, hesitated to spend money on the park

without a lease longer than three years, especially when it had no control over the town’s meeting its obligations. Now the school can move forward, and the park, Hall says, “is still a public park.” Jim Parker noted as well that as long as the Slaughter school wasn’t using the ball fields, the public can use them. Mr. Ebey has said, both during the March 2 police jury meeting and during conversations afterward, “We just want the softball field from January through May so our team can play ball.” He’d like to develop a baseball field, as well, for the boys’ team. During one interview, he mentioned that he hadn’t even realized until quite recently that the police jury had a role of authority regarding the park. He had assumed that the Town of Jackson was in charge. “When I called Entergy,” he says, to get the electricity turned back on, “I found out I needed a permit from the police jury.” At that point, he met with Juror Hall out at the park. “We have 25 years now with the parish,” he says of the new cooperative endeavor. “We’ve done a good job of building community in Slaughter, and we want to work to build community with Jackson and the rest of the parish. “We’re not trying to disparage anybody…we just want to invest some money, time and energy into this parish.” For that, he needed a commitment from the parish to a term longer than three years. Twenty-five ought to do it. Perhaps, he said, the school could work out a cooperative endeavor with those planning the park as a major source of revenue, a source that, once under way, they believe will pay for itself. “We try to do the right thing,” Ebey said, his manner matter of fact. “And our interests are with the ball fields. “The baseball field will need significant work. We need to replace the softball field fence and do the electrical work for the scoreboard. We’ll get the concession stand up and working.” Parker’s response to the new arrangement was, “I’m happy with it. Anybody in the parish can use the park as long as the charter school isn’t using it at the time.” Home Next on the agenda: Does the East Feliciana park have a name? If not, perhaps the parish could begin coming together in a cooperative endeavor to name it.

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