Fontenot takes oath for 2nd term as parish president; Colby Clavier, new District 13 council member, takes office

As Parish President Bill Fontenot began his second term Monday, he reminded about 200 people attending inaugural ceremony that four years ago St. Landry Parish was known for its bad roads.
“In the last four years I think you have shown you have courage by passing a two-penny road tax,” he said at the Delta Grand Theatre where he and 13 Parish Council members took their oaths of office.
Fontenot stressed the need for regionalism.
“If you put yourself together as a regional structure like One Acadiana, which we are a part of now, you will carry a voice that will give more credibility to what we are requesting,” he said.
“We can’t just be silos and end up just St. Landry Parish standing on an island,” he said. “You got to work together.”
Economic development will help the parish provide more services to people and improve the lot of parish employees, he said.
“The council needs to help me translate that to their constituents,” he said
The parish road program, which Fontenot terms as “unheard of,” started with approval of a 2 percent sales tax in rural St. Landry Parish in 2013. The parish issued $66 million in bonds to fund the first 300 miles of road paving. About $100 million will be generated from the tax for road work over the course of the 15-year program, he said.
“Now, in Lafayette, they are trying to model what we did ...,” he said.
Fontenot, who retired as a district engineer from the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, said his reputation as the “Highway Man” may have helped him win his first election.
Fontenot was unopposed in his bid for a second term. He also won, from the Parish Council, a pay raise from $65,000 a year to $115000 a year.
Judge James Genovese of the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, was the keynote speaker for the inaugural.
The Opelousas native, who is soon to announce his candidacy for the state’s Supreme Court, noted a changing of the guard as six new members join the 13-member Parish Council.
“We are looking to you to try to help us maintain our status as Imperial St. Landry, to bring back the spirit of St. Landry that we once had and we can get again,” he said
Genovese said the key to St. Landry Parish’s future is education.
“Education is the key because the people that are going to come to this parish, the first thing they are going to do is — ‘Where am I going to put my kids in school?’’
There is a mass exodus of people out of Lafayette moving north into St. Landry Parish because of property values and insurance costs, he said.
“But we have got to give them an educational base to come here,” he said.
Citing economic factors such as its roads, the Walmart distribution center near Washington and Evangeline Downs Racetrack and Casino, “There is no reason on God’s green earth why we can’t get on that bandwagon and we can’t bring industry, commerce, good education to St. Landry Parish. And, we are leaning on you guys and we need you and your new voice and you as part of the changing of the guard,” he said.
“We don’t have any more excuses why we can’t get our educational program going and get some business and industry because we are losing population,” he said.
Geneovese noted the city of Opelousas lost 7,000 people in the last census.
Among the Parish Council members returning to office is Jimmie Edwards of District 12, which includes a portion of Eunice.
Edwards believes the council is going to work hard to bring St. Landry Parish “back to where it was years back.”
Colby Clavier, new District 13 member, whose district includes portions of Eunice, said, “I feel honored to be chosen by the people to do this.”
Clavier emphasized he intends to be responsive to his constituents. “I’m a big believer in returning phone calls,” he said.
“I think it is a new leaf turning over, new ways of thinking, a new attention to other things that didn’t get attention,” he said.
New council members are Clavier; Nancy Carrier, District 2; Mildred Thierry, District 4; Harold Taylor, District 5; Kenneth Marks, District 6; and Vivian Olivier, District 8.
Returning council members are Edwards; Jerry Red Jr., District 1; Fekisha Miller-Matthews, District 3; Alvin Stelly, District 7; Wayne Ardoin, District 9; Dexter Brown, District 10; and Timmy Lejeune, District 11.