Ville Platte-  The Evangeline Parish Police Jury, Monday approved adopting a master plan for the jury’s road building process known as “chip sealing”.

      The chip sealing program began four years ago and since then, about 70 miles of parish roads have been hard surfaced. The process involves three layers of tar and limestone along with a sealer.

       The process is economical to the parish compared to asphalt. Chip sealing a mile of road costs $50,000 compared to $220,000 for a mile of asphalt road.

       The jury agreed to develop a master plan that includes a parish wide standard as far as the number of  layers of tar and limestone. The plan would also set a deadline for jurors to turn in their roads for the chip sealing program each year.

       In other business, the police jury approved a request from Evangeline Parish District Attorney Trent Brignac to reimburse his office $1000 a month for the rental of office space.

       Brignac said, because of a lack of office space in the courthouse, he is planning to rent an office building at 414 Cotton Street in Ville Platte. He asked the jury to reimburse his office $1000 a month toward the office rental and upkeep of the additional offices.

       In other action the police jury:

--approved engaging the services of the engineering firm of  Landreneau and Associates to prepare a flood study of Bayou Nezpique as mandated by the state;

--approved increasing the monthly contribution the parish makes to the Office of Veterans Affairs by $100 a month for the Veterans Services Office next year;

--approved setting a flat $50 a month cell phone allowance to police jury road supervisors and drainage crew.