Parish President Candidate Q&A: Jason Bergeron

Editor’s Note: The Times of Houma-Thibodaux sent each candidate the same list of questions for our readers to learn more about their platforms and what their plans are for the highest office in Terrebonne Parish. We will be publishing their responses this week. 

Why are you running for Terrebonne Parish President?

I feel it’s time to move Terrebonne forward, and that I bring the experience to get that done. Our community has been on a downward spiral for the last 20 years. At the beginning of 2021, I felt a calling to run and steer the parish in a new direction. I felt that the skills and experience I have gathered over last couple decades can be of service to help our parish achieve more. My daughter who is a senior at LSU says she has nothing to come home for. My son who is a junior in high school says there is nothing here for him. I know, as you do, that this is an amazing place the live and we need to provide opportunities for our residents to stay or to return home.

As Parish President, what will your three top priorities be?

My three priorities which all affect the Quality of Life that I want to improve are:

1. 1. 1. 1. Infrastructure – Sound and Safe
         2. Economic Development – Opportunities for All
         3. Good Government – Transparency

Economic development: What are your plans to keep existing businesses located in Terrebonne Parish?

I will work with both the Chamber of Commerce and South Central Industrial Association to understand the issues plaguing the success of our local businesses. Being an owner of multiple businesses, I know we need to work better to set our employers up for success rather than hinder their growth. I want to offer incentive programs that give businesses a hand up. I want our parish to be less risk adverse and lead with customer service. There are ways we can teach our businesses to use technology and efficiency to allow owners and managers work on the business and not in. We can create local round tables that are industry specific and help each other grow by sharing expertise and insight. We can also have round tables with business owners on a regular basis to ensure the government is focused on growth.

What are your plans to grow and bring in new businesses?

There are lot of opportunities with technology to develop and support the new oilfiled.  We also can also be a leader in seafood production and affordable housing. Couple this with autonomous air and marine craft industries, and we can leverage our dedicated, skilled workforce to build new industry. This would include robotics and in all of these cases, we can invent, manufacture, and support.

Industry: With the current economic challenges our seafood industry is experiencing, what are your plans as Parish President to help sustain and support this particular industry?

I am already working on a two-part plan to help the seafood industry. The first part is assisting fisheries with business management, profitability, and taking products to market. This would bring in the local colleges and allow for a mentorship or internship educating students and helping those in the fisheries industry capitalize on their success. The second part of includes transitioning the conversation from eliminating the imports to getting more of the market share through some branding opportunities.

Quality of place: What do you plan to do to increase the quality of place in Terrebonne Parish?

When I look at the quality of place (life) in Terrebonne Parish, it means so many different things to the residents in different communities. One of my first projects will be to create a community outreach department. On average, each councilman is responsible for 12,000 people. The council jobs are part time. With a community outreach department, we can go into each district, understand what their needs are, and help each councilman better direct resources into each district and community. The areas that tie together with quality of place are economic development and infrastructure. By working on both of these areas and improving them, we will also create a better quality of place. We can also accomplish this using the community outreach department.

Levees: What are your plans to maintain and further develop our levee system and protection, beginning with Morganza to the Gulf?

It starts with maintaining solid relationships and dialogues with our state and federal partners in flood protection to ensure we remain top of mind for action and response. We need to ensure current holes are closed and that we are transparent with the community on the risk with these holes. We need to look at temporary and permanent solutions to close these holes and bring our levees up to the standards set by the government. We need to ensure we have protection in front of the levees by building back our barrier islands, backfilling canals in the marsh, and using sediment in the area to building back the marsh.

Flooding: What are your plans to address and improve flood protection for our citizens, in particular our pumps/pump stations and street drainage systems? 

We have to make sure that all parts of the system are properly maintained to protect homes, businesses and our infrastructure. This not only includes reactive maintenance but should also include preventive maintenance. It means cleaning out ditches and catch basins.  It means communicating with residents on where the water piles up and how it flows, including their feedback in the process. We should be able to view a map and see the status of all pump stations. From a good government perspective, we will share the data with the residents. We have to ensure that we have real-time communications with all pump stations, that we don’t run into issues like running out of fuel, and that we have a failover for the failover. When something is automated, we need have a backup and a backup for the backup.

Infrastructure/Roads: List and prioritize the parish’s infrastructure needs that you will address as parish president.

This starts with working to get our region to become its own DOTD district.  We are a subdistrict of New Orleans and we get the scraps. Since we already are in the process of taking over Main and Park from Morgan St to Grand Calliou, the next state highway I would take over is Martin Luther King Blvd and work to have a median installed. I would then like to setup a clear understanding of what the protocol for repairs and turnaround time as it relates to the type of issue. We also need to clearly identify parish and state roads on the roads themselves and maps available through the parish website, allowing residents to report issues with infrastructure no matter who the infrastructure belongs to. This portal would allow you to see where you issue falls with other issues and projects in the state.  This is part of transparency and good government.

We need to get our bridges repaired and once repaired, ensure they are setup on a maintenance schedule.

We need to evaluate if the maintenance and repair work the state is doing on roads, bridges, and grass and fill in the gaps with what is needed to keep our residents safe.  We need to make sure that all parties understand the protocols for repairs and how priorities are assigned.

Capital outlay: Do you have any specific capital outlay project requests you would like to make to the state?

I want to ensure our infrastructure is safe and sound.

Roads: Take over Martin Luther King Blvd and put a median

Bridges: Get all of our bridges up and running with repairs and then implementing a preventive maintenance schedule.  Build a fourth travel option across the Intercoastal Canal connecting Industrial Rd to Barrow St

Coastal Restoration and Hurricane Protection: Work to close the holes we have in our levee system and build levees higher. Rebuild our barrier islands. Backfill canals that are open from oil and gas. Build terraces where marsh is now open water and use sediment in the area to build back the area

Recreation: Build a double gym at the Bayou Country Sportspark. Build a covered area pavilion and at all neighborhood parks. Help all recreation districts get on level ground and look to combine these with community resources like dog parks

Community: Build community centers rated to category 5 standards in our communities with them tied to recreation and/or fire protection facilities.  These would double as safe houses to protect first responders and equipment during a disaster and allow for work to be performed after a disaster.  Supplies for a community could be stored here.

Homeowners/Business Insurance: What specific plans will you push for with our federal and state legislative delegations to keep insurance rates affordable for our residences and businesses?

Insurance rates all tie back to four things. First, they start with us having a new insurance commissioner. The insurance commissioner will be working with the legislature to implement some changes to how the state works with insurance companies. I have a regular working relationship with Commissioner-elect Tim Temple, and have had conversations with him to help move the state forward with insurance.  Second, we have started the LOMR process that we could not start until the flood maps were accepted.  This process will take work completed with levees and pumps and have it reflect on the flood maps. This process will take 6 to 18 months. The third thing that helps with insurance rates is fortified home certification to ensure the structures we build can withstand storms when a majority of property damages occur. In situations where you cannot get the certification, you can still build and remodel to that code. The final thing that affect insurance rates is not having a storm.  As we get further away from a storm, rates will go down.

Besides these items, FEMA needs to be run differently. It starts with moving from flood insurance to disaster insurance. When more people share the risk, the premiums go down. A disaster insurance program could apply to hail, wildfire, earthquake, flood, tornado, blizzard, and hurricane.

I would like to also see a suspension of the Citizens mark up when it becomes the only insurance available for 12 to 24 months after a storm.

All of these factors play into the reduction of insurance rates and allowing our residents to afford insurance.

Recreation: As Parish President, what are your plans to streamline the operation of the parish-supported recreation programs and facilities? How do you plan to attract outside recreational teams and tournaments to our area? 

We need to ensure that our council, recreation districts, residents, and TPR are all on the same page when it comes to recreation.  We have to ensure that no matter the age or location of our residents, that they all have equal opportunities for recreation. This can happen with regular recurring meetings with all stakeholders so all parties have a seat at the table.

When it comes to attracting teams and tournaments, we must have the facilities they can play on along with quality of life. The Bayou Country Sportsplex in the process of receiving $4 million from the state that will allow for the baseball fields to be finished including extending them, concession stand, and amenities to support the fields. Once these are done, we will be eligible to attract the teams and tournaments that drive economic development.

Homelessness: As Parish President, what are your plans to address the homeless issues the parish is currently facing?

This challenge can be broken down into two separate issues. One is people who are homeless and vagrant. The other is those who are not in their homes due to their home being damaged in Ida, but currently live in either the state or the FEMA housing program. Regarding the first, I’m among business owners who have restarted the Downtown Business Association.  During this process, we found that homelessness is the larger concern downtown, and we brought resources together that service this population to fully understand the gaps in needs. We learned that Start Corporation is working on hiring two part time employees to work case management for homeless people. Once the cases are created, we can determine the resources needed to address and move the needle on the homelessness issue. As it relates to the post Ida damage, we have over 1000 families still living not living in their homes. We have the opportunity to create a manufactured housing industry that can include 3d printed homes, positioning Terrebonne as a leader in providing affordable housing not just for our area, but areas with disasters in the future. This solution can also be used to skill a work force.

Ida Issues: What are your plans to address the damages caused by Hurricane Ida to parish-owned and-operated properties, including Bayou Towers and Senator Circle?

As I keep hearing after Ida, “We are waiting on FEMA.” That process is slow and has strings attached. We need to do things differently. It is either one of two processes. Either we have to spend the money and get reimbursed. If this is the case, what are we waiting for? If we can get the money upfront and faster, again, what are we waiting for? FEMA should be able to look at the history of storms and group the data with category of storm versus money paid out. Using this formula, we should be able to take an average of what was paid out for previous storms and get 75% of the money coming to get us on our feet. This coupled with the fact that that state has an $800 million dollar surplus. Money should not be a problem and we should be demolishing or repairing the items that are damaged. As it relates to Bayou Tower, it unfortunately will need to be torn down. HUD (Housing and Urban Development) is the group responsible for Bayou Towers and Senator Circle. They are no longer building those types of structures and are looking to integrate income challenged people into all communities. Similar to my answer before with homelessness, we need to rethink how we do housing and work on getting solutions faster to those who are displaced after the storm. This would include partnering with nonprofit and non-governmental organizations to help with the cause.