By Evalin Hester
The DeQuincy City Council held the first meeting of the new year on Monday, Jan. 10.
The Council meeting was called to order by Mark Peloquin in council chambers located inside City Hall. Invocation and pledge were led by Mayor Riley Smith and Police Chief Casey Whitehead. The Dec. 13th regular meeting minutes; Dec. 13th special meeting minutes; Dec. 29th special meeting minutes and Jan. 10, 2022 agenda were all approved by the Council.
Peloquin presented a map of the redistricting plan. This was drawn up after the census was done. This is the second public hearing concerning this plan. The map of all four districts will be displayed at City Hall.
Public Hearing of mobile home ordinance amending Section 6(A)(2) to read: Districts 1, 2, 3 and 4 will no longer have mobile homes permitted except in already established mobile home parks. A vote was held and the ordinance failed.
The public hearing on ordinance addressing the feeding of feral animals inside the city limits passed. The Humane Society was present at the meeting, They discussed the procedure of catching the feral animals to spay and neuter them. This causes no harm to the animals. This procedure ensures your animal won’t reproduce and helps reduce pet overpopulation. When animals are spayed/neutered people are more likely to adopt them, The Humane Society will spay/neuter about 100 on the first visit to DeQuincy and then they plan to come once a month and set up at the Railroad Museum grounds. There will be no charge to the city. The council is in agreement with this program. What the council is trying to achieve is to get the public to stop feeding the animals on other people’s private property and in the street and city property. This is dangerous, people can get hit by vehicles if they are in the street feeding animals. The council and Humane Society will work together to solve this problem.
A bid of $1,800 for the 2015 Chevrolet Tahoe was accepted from Mr. Dan Landry.
The council voted to proceed with the condemnation of the structure at 110 Self St. The structure located on Kelly St., parcel no. 00741179 was also voted on to proceed with the condemnation, since they received no feed back from the owner.
Other Matters
Randy Woodard and Josh Neal, who are with the Calcasieu Parish Recreation Board of Ward 6 spoke of the Union Pacific Sports Complex and the plans that they have for it. Their plans or to lease the complex from the city and redo the complex with artificial turf, redo the fields, and give it a complete makeover. This long term lease should be in affect by the end of the month or when all the paperwork is completed. This will bring life back to the ball complex and the children will be able to enjoy all the improvements to make ball season the best ever.
Derek Davis President of Dixie Youth, would like to see the children start playing ball immediately. The city is not able to install lights and do all the improvements that the complex needs at this time. All funding for city improvements are prioritized with buildings and structures used daily taking top priority.
