Parish Prez Says Lafourche Has Bragging Rights

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Drop-offs in sales tax collection and other financial woes wouldn’t appear to make a good landscape for progress.


But Lafourche Parish President Jimmy Cantrelle says he has addressed severe challenges despite hard economic times and expresses confidence that more is in store that will positively affect years to come.

Administration of permits — a sore spot with many in Lafourche, hardware improvement thanks to the engineering department, and a portal that allows access to nearly real-time tracking of government spending are among the items Lafourche officials cite as evidence that they are moving ahead in many respects.

The permitting department — once the topic of innumerable complaints, according to Cantrelle — now shines as a paragon of positive customer service.


“They had so many complaints it is unreal,” Cantrelle said. “Now there are virtually no complaints.”

Obtaining a building permit would take three weeks to three months in the past, he said.

“When you are a contractor and time is of the essence you have to be sure you can get the permits,” Cantrelle said. “Today most are issued the same day. You can even apply for and get them online.”


A combination of the online option and the opening of two satellite offices, one in Thibodaux and one in south Lafourche, Cantrelle said, has made a big difference for customers.

The parish president is not shy about relating his personal involvement in customer service improvement, by meeting with employees to explain the level of service he expects.

“I walked in and said if you are ugly to one person I will fire you,” Cantrelle said. “We are here to help and if a person has a problem I will take it personally.”


Inspections, he said, were moved to Fridays “so there is not overtime anymore,” passing along cost savings.

Storm protection, Cantrelle said, has made for progress in two distinct ways.

“We have accomplished a tremendous amount of regained pumping capacity,” explained public works director James Barnes. “We have two completely brand new pumping stations that were engineered and bid out. There are two more that are going to be bid out within the next six months.”


Three pump stations were completely rebuilt in-house, Barnes said. Over the past two years 10 pumps have been refurbished in house.

“The pumps, the engines, the complete pump packages,” Barnes said. “We do the machine work ourselves, everything. We are diligently working on it each and every day.”

An additional form of attack on drainage, Barnes said, involves outfall canals.


“Most of these were not cleaned in 50 years,” Barnes said. “In our first year we completed 760 drainage work orders.  In our second year 854 were completed.”

As for future work — in addition to getting ahead of outfall canals — the parish plans to finish its tie-in to Terrebonne Parish’s Morganza project before the new hurricane season or, Cantrelle has allowed, soon after its start.

For those who want quick access to how all those things are costing, the parish has a portal on its website designed for instant access to financials.


They may be a day or three behind, and only reach a set level of details. But they provide a picture of what is coming in and what is going out.

“We have been working together and it was hard to break the past trends of what was done and how it was done,” Cantrelle said. “Every day I find out how little I do know about everything.”