St. Martinville – The St. Martin Parish Council was told about grant opportunities for the parish, particularly ones related to water improvement projects, at the council’s combined committee meetings this past Tuesday.
Kimya Cruz, a grant consultant with La Louisiane Consulting and President of the Greater St. Martinville Economic Development District, and Pamela Granger of McBade Engineers & Consultants talked with the council about getting funding for water system improvements in the parish.
Councilman Vincent Alexander had asked Parish President Pete Delcambre to look into the possibility of getting funding to have water services extended to some of his constituents from the Cecilia Water Company.
McBade does engineering work for the Cecilia Water Company, and is a consultant with the City of St. Martinville’s water system and is one of the consultants working with the parish government on the water consolidation project that is combining the St. Martinville, Water District 4 (Coteau area) and St. Martin Parish Industrial Park water systems into one water district.
Granger said that though the Cecilia water system is not a public en- tity, it is non-profit, and explained that in 2013 a similar issue had come up that was addressed through a federal Community Development Block Grant. The parish applied for the CDBG grant and through a cooperative agreement, the infrastructure was transferred to the Cecilia Water Company, which maintains and operates the system in the new area.
Such cooperative endeavor agreements are similar to intergovernmental agreements between, for instance, the parish government and a local municipal government.
Grant
Granger said that the cost for extending water services to the area Alexander asked about would be about $1.4 million, and McBade has been looking for different ways to fund the work.
Deadlines for those grant opportunities often are short, however, so she suggested the council members collect data about people calling to complain about water quality or water service.
Grants are becoming competitive, she said, but one thing that makes a grant application stand out is showing proof of businesses or residents calling, emailing or texting about water issues, or articles in the newspaper about those issues.
“That’s what makes you stand out over somebody else,” she said. “I can say, so can Kimya, the water’s bad, we have test results. What they want to know is that businesses and people in your community want the project and that they are complaining. So the best thing you can do to start positioning yourself is to just start keeping that.”
Early Childhood
The council also heard presentations from St. Martin Parish School District Early Childhood Supervisor Nicole Angelle about Early Childhood services in the parish.
Angelle said the parish’s Early Start Network is all about getting children ready for kindergarten.
“We’re a coalition of businesses, public school system, and we’re really building into getting the community and those that are wanting to see Early Childhood succeed on board with our coalition,” she said. “Our vision is really community access for all families.”
Angelle said the coalition wants to make child care assistance programs to be made well-known around the parish for families that qualify for them. She also wants to inform the public about Head Start and public pre-K programs at the schools.
