News

The decision was made to terminate a city police officer last Tuesday, Feb. 18, at the request of Chief Ricky Martin.
A special meeting of the council was called to consider the chief’s request to terminate the employment of Willie Hawkins for a number of causes, mainly his inability to produce acceptable written incident and arrest reports.
The issue was taken up in open session after Hawkins turned down the option of having the case handled in private. He requested a delay in the hearing to allow him to have an attorney present.

If all goes as planned, the city will soon purchase a new building on Refinery Street.
At the Feb. 10 city council meeting, the council approved a proposal from Mayor Ricky Calais to remedy the city’s need for additional office and record storage space by purchasing the vacant Hancock-Whitney Bank storage building on East Refinery Street at Berard Street.
The 5,000+ sq. ft. structure is reportedly in very good condition and has an appraised value of $250,000. Calais said the owner has expressed a willingness to sell it to the city for $225,000.

Mayor Kevin Kately is planning to organize a demonstration of new water meters that can be read without an employee having to actually get out of the vehicle and look at the meter.
At the Feb. 11 village council meeting, Kately announced his intention to consider technology that can make meter-reading much quicker and easier. Various systems are available, he said, some of which read meters as a vehicle passes by and others that require meter readers stop and push a button to initiate the transmission of water use information.