ST MARY PARISH COUNCIL 6/23

BREAKING NEWS:

The St. Mary Parish Council put the City of Baldwin
on hold for a request to finish paying off a new fire
engine.

The Council also postponed a reintroduction of
charter changes.

And they passed a resolution in support of the
Shrimp & Petroleum Festival, in the wake of a
travel blog and its reporter, who is slamming
the festival's organizers for continuing to hold
this year's event, in light of the oil spill and its
affect on shrimpers.

Baldwin Mayor Wayne Breaux asked the council
for $200,000 to complete the purchase of a new
fire engine for the town.

Breaux, not a frequent visitor to the council, said
he had exhausted the town's money for the firetruck,
on the recently completed Baldwin Civic Center, which is open
for parishwide use.

Councilmen Albert Foulcard, Kevin Voisin and Gary
Duhon recommened the matter to the council's finance
committee, which will meet next month.

In another matter, Duhon asked that his request to
reintroduce two ordinancs that would call for charter
changes, to be postponed until the oil rig moratorium
is finally decided.

Duhon wants to reintroduce two of the four charter
change proposals the council nixed earlier this month,
one to give the parish president job a raise
and the other, to give the parish council raises.

And in other action, the council passed a resolution of
support of the La. Shrimp and Petroleum Festival.

The resolution comes in the wake of a travel blog called
travel babel, and its reporter, Claire Walter.

On the site, whose link is available on the kbze blog,
http://travel-babel.blogspot.com/2010/06/louisiana-shrimp-and-petroleum-festival.html,
Walter says that the festival has
been going on for three-quarters of a century, and the good folks of Morgan City,
seemingly equally proud of their Cajun tradition and their stinkin' oil industry,
don't seem to be willing to let the greatest man-made environmental catastrophe in American history stop a good party -- or even drop the "Petroleum" part.
She even asks if the king and queen are going to wear black this year.
Furthermore, she can't believe the event is even still on-going, five years and a few
days after Hurricane Katrina, the epic natural disaster that still haunts the nation.
For more on the site, visit the kbze blog to read the link.