The Morehouse Parish Police Jury voted to place a one cent sales tax for road repairs on the April ballot in Monday’s regular meeting.
The discussion for a sales tax for maintaining parish roads was very informative. Juror Jack Cockrell proposed a one cent sales tax, a parish tax only, for the parish road maintenance and improvements.
“If we cannot pass this tax, we will have to turn some of our blacktop roads back into gravel”, said Cockrell. “I believe that everybody driving up and down these roads should help pay for them”
“If we pass a tax, the money must be spent on the roads only”, said Juror Mark Sistrunk.
Juror Floyd Tomboli stated that last year the jury went in the red -$47,000 patching holes in roads. He said $141,000 was spent for coal mix for potholes in 2009, and what good did that do? Tomboli also said that due to all the rain and bad weather, they are so far behind in road repair.
“I get calls every day about the roads,” said Tomboli. “I just want everyone to understand that as soon as we can, we will get as much done as possible.”
Cockrell also said that it has been 51 years that the jury has been working with a 5 mil tax. He said in 1970 one mile of new road cost $17,000, now it cost $85,000 to $90,000. Cockrell said he also received a number of calls daily about road situations, he said he had 15 complaints in one day.
“We’ve got to sell this sales tax, we have got to maintain those roads”, said Matthews.
A motion was made to put the tax on the April ballot if possible, if not it will go on the August ballot. This is a one cent sales tax for roads, maintenance and upkeep.
Every juror voted yes to this motion.
Sandra Thomas, Registrar of Voters, asked the police jury to help financially in sending her and the two office employees to a required seminar in Marksville on March 2, 3, and 4. This was referred to the finance committee for consideration. Thomas also informed the jury that no one has been cleaning the registrars office on a regular basis. She stated that sometimes it was four to six weeks before anyone came to even empty garbage. There was an agreement made over the years that the jury would provide someone to clean the building. This was turned over to the employee relations committee.
Dianne Prichard of the Health Unit approached the jury requesting to hire one receptionist. The state will not allow any more employees to be hired at this time, and she stated that this Health Unit was very busy. The jury voted to allow Prichard to hire additional personnel, this money will come out of the Health Unit budget.
