Ville Platte Rotary Club Meeting February 22, 2022 The Ville Platte Rotary Club today (Tuesday) heard from Evangeline Parish Police Jury President Bryan Vidrine discuss various projects the jury is working on. Vidrine told club members that the jury is working with Sheriff Charles Guillory in planning for the construction of a new parish prison. Current plans , he said calls for a new facility with 150-200 beds to be located at the Industrial Park on land owned by the jury and utilities owned by the jury. The sheriff will fund ten million dollars of the 16 million dollar project. The parish will use 5 million from federal dollars coming from the "American Rescue" funds. The additional one million dollars will come from surplus funds in the parish Health Unit fund. Also, the police jury is looking at getting additional funding for the new jail in operating funds from .62 mills from the Parish Library tax. The voters of Evangeline parish will have to approve rededicating the Health Unit funds and Library funds before the police jury can proceed. There will be a special election called by the police jury in March for voters to decide on the issue. Club member Brent Coreil was concerned about the location of the proposed new jail facility which is proposed to be near the Coreil Campus. Vidrine said the current parish jail in the courthouse is near a school, Ville Platte High. Vidrine said it was the consensus of the police jury to look at rededicating unused tax funds rather than calling for a new tax. In another matter, Vidrine said the police jury is expected to receive good news on Friday from federal sources on broadband funding in Evangeline Parish. He said if the parish receives full funding, Evangeline could receive up to 20 million dollars to improve broadband service. Vidrine and Secretary Treasurer Donald Bergeron were the special guests of Rotarian Bill Brunet.