Jack Burson, alderman at-large

Don Reber, chairman of the Eunice Economic Development Committee

City’s route to a master plan takes new turns

By Harlan Kirgan Editor

The city’s path to a master plan took some new turns Thursday with discussion by the Eunice Economic Development Committee and an announcement by Jackon Burson, alderman at-large.
Don Reber, chairman of the development committee, announced his resignation as chairman on Aug. 20.
Reber said Mayor Rusty Moody was requesting names from the committee, but on Thursday, the committee said Reber is the best person to lead its efforts.
“We still want you as the chairman of economic development,” Felcien Simon said. “We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We already have a wheel that is rolling. We need to stay strong in the way we are going.”
The committee met Thursday with Bill Rodier, executive director of St. Landry Economic Development, who delivered something of a pep talk salted with advice.
“You guys got a lot of resources and assets here,” he said of community development potential. “You actually sit in a better position than what you think.”
Rodier advised the group to position itself as politically neutral.
“You need to continue to take the high road, the progressive road, the positive road,” he said.
“You guys are in the role of building leaders for Eunice,” he said.
The committee met at 8 a.m. and at noon the mayor and aldermen met to set the agenda for Tuesday’s city council meeting.
Jack Burson, alderman at-large, who has contested the need for a master plan, announced, “I would like to go ahead and announce the members of the master plan steering plan committee and set a date for a first meeting.”
Burson said he would like for the committee to complete its work within a year of its first meeting.
Burson said he had met with Rodier and former Eunice Mayor Lynn LeJeune, who is on the parish economic development board.
“They assured me that they would be happy, willing to work with our citizen committee,” he said.
“What Rodier emphasized in conversation is we don’t want a 300-page plan that might cost $220,000 like the Sunset plan,” he said. “A lot of us read through that thing and 80 percent of it is fluff that you could print off the Internet.”
Burson said Rodier recommended that Eunice’s plan needs 10 top goals and objectives, which can be incorporated into the parish plans as well as regional plans.
At the committee meeting, Reber said the council’s master plan group is an attempt to kill developing a plan, an opinion that seemed prevalent among committee members Thursday.
Reber explained city council members say the biggest pressure on them is to repair streets and respond to immediate needs.
Celeste Gomez, a committee member, said, “I would have you take a look at who is seated and what we can do to enable them and to assist them to understand what the opportunities are for Eunice and we can do better.”

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