Ville Platte   -   The Evangeline Parish Police Jury, Monday, took a major step forward Monday toward obtaining federal FEMA funds in the Hazard Mitigation Grant program. The jury approved engaging the services of J. Ronald Landreneau of Ville Platte for engineering  and grant management. The jury also awarded Risk and Vulnerability Solutions LLC as project manager.

                    Already, the parish is due to receive $1.33 million dollars in funds to help mitigate future hurricane losses.  The funded projects include the following:

--$920,000 to harden emergency facilities such as fire and police stations throughout the parish.  The term harden means to install impact resistant glass and stronger roofs and doors to withstand hurricane force winds;

--$80,000 to harden the Ville Platte Northside Civic Center and $330,000 for major drainage improvements near Savoy Medical Center in Mamou.

                    Engineer Ronnie Landreneau commented that that there is one more project under consideration by FEMA: $620,000 for drainage improvements along Beacon’s Gully east of Mamou.

                     In other business, Landreneau reported that the long awaited Global Information System computer project should be up and running in the next few months. The $170,000 project was funded through a $70,000 grant from the Delta Regional Authority and the rest from Evangeline Parish Tax Assessor Dirk Deville. All parish agencies will be able to merge their records with the program.

                     The computer program will merge parish maps with current data and will be accessible on the internet. Evangeline Parish is one of only three parishes in the Acadiana area that has this computer program.

                     In other business, the police jury announced that their annual all French meeting will be conducted Tuesday at 2:00pm. The French Consul General Jean Claude Brunet from New Orleans will be invited to attend the meeting.

                In other action the police jury:

--called a special meeting for December 28  at 5;30pm to adopt its fiscal year budget;

--appointed Cody Bieber to replace Peter Savoy on the Mamou Drainage Board;

--reappointed Greg Monier to another term on the Mamou Fire Protection District Board;

--approved the resignation of Acadia-Evangeline Fire District Chief Mike Arnold and appointed his replacement, Greg Savoy.