No salary increase for Parks mayor, police chief and clerk

The main item on the agenda at the Parks town council meeting last week was salary increases for the mayor, police chief and city clerk.
While that item was first on the agenda, it was actually the last thing the council discussed.
Mayor Kevin Kately said that there hadn’t been a raise since 2016 when a 10 percent increase was given.
Councilwoman Myra Yvonne Narcisse motioned for a five percent raise for each person.
Councilman Trae Thibodeaux suggested that a better use of the money from the sales tax fund, would be increasing the starting pay for a new police officer so that the village could end its contract with the St. Martin Parish Sheriff Department, which patrols the village at night.
“Don’t you think we can increase the starting rate to hopefully hire somebody to get rid of the Sheriff’s Department ordinance?” Thibodeaux asked.
Kately countered that the Village was saving money with the ordinance.
“We don’t pay for a vehicle, we don’t pay maintenance, we don’t pay gas,” Kately said.
The councilman and the mayor went back and forth for several minutes on the issue of the pay raise versus taking that money and using it to hire a new officer for the Village.
When the issue was finally put to a vote, the increase was denied by a 2-1 margin with Narcisse voting yes and Thibodaux and Councilwoman Kanisha Potier voting no.
Potier suggested that the issue needed more study and could be brought up again at the March council meeting.
In other council business, Kately opened the meeting with an update on road construction as he said that the Department of Transportation and Development was going to start work on Louisiana 347 but the town was going to have some expenses associated with it.
“There is the possibility that I may have to move the manhole (sewer access) ” Kately said.
Narcisse asked if the village was responsible for that and Kately answered that the Village would be responsible for many aspects of the costs of the construction project that didn’t involve the building of the road.
A large part of the meeting was an informational presentation from Meta Traffic, a company that wants to equip the police department with a couple of laser radars for traffic speed enforcement and share the revenue with the village on a 60-40 percent basis with the Village getting the 60 percent, from which they would be responsible for the expenses.
After a round of questions from the council, including city attorney
Robert Chevalier, it was decided to do more research on the issue.
“I think that it’s to generate funds for the police department,” Kately said after the meeting. “We understand that law enforcement has to be a total
package. We can’t keep dishing out without receiving anything.
“We need to protect the people, which is good, but at the same time we have people complaining about speeding in front of their houses. We don’t have the manpower to do that. So the chief brought it up to me and
I said we can look into it.”
The council also voted unanimously to donate $1,500 to the Council on Aging and received an update from the mayor on a new water well to be built for the water department.
The next council meeting is set for March 5.