VILLE PLATTE ROTARY CLUB MEETING

AUGUST 4, 2015

       The Ville Platte Rotary Club today (Tuesday) heard from Police Juror Bryan Vidrine who gave an update report on what is going parish wide.

       The primary issue facing members of the police jury is the problem of funding the growing cost of parish prisoners. He said usually the parish jail has about 5-10 prisoners over the limit. Right now, the sheriff’s department is having to deal with 60 prisoners over the jail capacity. Due to the Pine Prairie prison closing, the parish is having to send prisoners over the local jail limit to Caldwell parish where the daily cost is twice what the parish was paying at Pine Prairie.

      The police jury is reviewing several options to decrease the expenses including asking the courts to do more home arrests.

      Also, Vidrine said the parish owned Crooked Creek Park has been self sufficient for the past six years. The problem facing the jury is maintaining its electrical system inside the park. Also the jury is asking for entrepreneurs to step forward to invest in entertainment programs at the park.

     The juror said he had good news dealing with the problem of collecting overdue sewer bills. The jury now has a cooperative agreement with water systems throughout the parish . In the event, a customer of a parish owned sewer system does not pay their bill, the water system that serves that customer can cut off their water until their bills are paid. Under law, the parish cannot cut off a customer’s sewer bill.

  Vidrine was the special guest of Rotarian Robert Eastin.