City Lake opening imminent

The hoped-for opening of refurbished City Lake didn’t materialize for the long Fourth of July weekend, but the Labor Day weekend is almost guaranteed.
Mayor Rusty Moody said following Tuesday night’s monthly City Council meeting that installation of signage and security surveillance equipment is pretty much complete and the remaining task is settling on a date for formal gathering of the parties involved to officially sign off on the $1 million project.
Once that happens, the lake and its facilities will be open for public participation.
It’s been about six months since the Wildlife & Fisheries Foundation handed the keys to the improved facility over to the city and going on three years since the project funded by leftover funds from the infamous derailment settlement were assigned to the reclamation.
In May 2000, a Union Pacific Railroad train derailed near City Lake, releasing hazardous chemicals and materials into the surrounding area in the resultant explosion of two of the rail cars.
Union Pacific later settled for $65 million in a class action lawsuit.
After all claimants had been paid following the incident, residual funds from the settlement with Union Pacific were left in the account. Federal Judge Richard T. Haik, the presiding judge overseeing the train derailment litigation, awarded the monies to the LWFF to fund improvement projects on the lake.
“After a catastrophe like this, there is a silver lining in this grey cloud. This is the silver lining. It is an opportunity for the judicial system to give back to the community,” Haik said.
“I think the people of Eunice deserve something like this after going through such a catastrophe,” Haik added.
A second major project continues to work toward reality.
Moving the DMV office to its new location in the renovated Guillory Developmental Center building is kind of like one of those HGTV projects -- every time the city thinks it has a handle of things that need to be done, another problem materializes.
“‘Any time you work with old buildings you run into unexpected things,” Moody said.
The surprise items are in addition to the ones that are obvious from the outset.
While he doesn’t have a firm projection on when, the mayor is confident the city is on the downhill side of the relocation project.
DMV will move to the renovated site, part of the city’s commitment in the gentlemen’s agreement reached sometime back to keep the DMV office here open.
Once that is done, the current plan is to move the Eunice Food Bank from the Northwest Community Center into the former DMV space in the American Legion Building.
Another project that’s not yet started but desperately needed is improvement to the roadway at the La. 13 South-Maple Avenue intersection.
Ward 1 City Council member Roland Miller said at Tuesday night’s meeting DOTD has agreed to get that project started shortly.
He said he and DOTD representatives inspected the field of potholes, ruts and cracks.
Miller said the DOTD official agreed improvements can’t wait for what is a sometimes-lengthy deliberation process within the department.
“He said they will be here and get started on correcting it as soon as possible,” Miller said.