Willie W. Bonvillain
November 20, 2013
Patterson still alive after hard-fought victory
November 27, 2013
If public officials in Terrebonne Parish appear somewhat pleased with themselves, then the measurement of several yardsticks marking progress could be the reason why.
Continued construction of flood protection projects remain a hallmark of Parish President Michel Claudet’s administration.
Although largely untested, the hurricane protection scheme for Terrebonne has reached unprecedented levels.
And this year’s lull in storms – no named tropical cyclones threatened the Louisiana coast in 2013 – means the Terrebonne Levee and Conservation District has a break that will allow continued progress in 2014.
“Continued hurricane protection progress, sales tax trends continue upward, population growth continues upward and increased quality of life (and) infrastructure,” is how Claudet succinctly describes the parish’s current state of affairs.
The biggest shot in the arm came late last year, when voters approved a half-cent sales tax to pay for local construction of the massive Morganza project.
Bonds have issued and collection on the tax to pay for them began in April.
“When we embarked on this we started moving when Gov. Bobby Jindal got elected, and started laying money on us,” State Rep. Gordon Dove said after the tax passed. “We had the capital outlay, the surplus, we all decided we would quit waiting on the federal government and move forward.”
The floodgate bearing the name of Dove’s son Gordon Jr. (Bubba) is now operational, which officials see as another milestone.
While construction continues to protect the Terrebonne economy from storm surges, sales tax collections show it is an economy worth protecting. At the completion of the third quarter of 2012, sales tax collections of more than $80 million in Terrebonne Parish posted an increase of 7 percent above the entire 2011 year’s collections of more than $75 million.
For the first 10 months ending October 31 2013, sales tax collections, excluding the levee tax assessed during the year, amounted to over $96 million in Terrebonne Parish, an additional 7 percent over the same period last year, according to information from the Terrebonne Parish Sales and Use Tax Department.
The parish, like other local communities, faces continued challenges from the specter of crippling flood insurance rates.
But Claudet and other officials say the progress made in infrastructure could help allay some of those problems.
“Expect to see major improvements in the area of flood risk reduction,” Claudet said of 2014. “Together, the levee district and the parish are poised to complete in excess of $100 million of improvements, with a cumulative excess of $400 million since 2008.”
The Bubba Dove Flood Control Structure was a major win for Terrebonne Parish and the Tri-parish area in its flood protection efforts. Officials said Terrebonne had a solid economic year.
