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Lafourche Parish Library headquarters’ workers and would-be visitors to Mandalay and Bayou Teche National Wildlife Refuges are feeling the local effects of the federal government shutdown.
“We have no idea when the refuges will reopen,” said Pon Dixson, deputy project leader for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Lacombe office. “Other deputy leaders are keeping an eye on the refuges, and we will respond to any emergency calls we may have for things like search and rescue and to ensure public safety.”
Dixson said complaint calls in regard to the closures began Tuesday morning and were constant throughout the day.
“People are upset,” he said. “Some booked trips to come here and hunt for squirrel season. We’ve received calls from people from Arkansas and other various states.
“This closure is also affecting local economies as well. People who were planning trips here will not be buying hunting gear and licenses or staying at hotels.”
Public access to the two local refuges and all other USFWS refuges in the state and other states, including for hunting, fishing or wildlife observation, is prohibited during the closures, and fish and wildlife management activities and management programs are canceled.
Over in Lafourche Parish, the 17-member staff of the parish library’s headquarters, which up until noon last Tuesday shared a building with the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve Wetlands Acadian Cultural Center, was forced to move into the Thibodaux main library branch because of the federal shutdown. All of the main office’s departments, including finance, human resources, processing, acquisition and inter-library loan, one of the system’s biggest services, are now scattered in several rooms throughout the library.
“We are inconvenienced, but our services are still on-going,” said Lafourche Parish Library director Laura Sanders. “Serving the parish is the goal of the library, and we will do everything in our power to provide services. All branches are open, and people are still checking out books. Even if our servers at headquarters shut off, it will not effect patrons.
“Basically, we are displaced and behind on work.”
For now, the uprooted library staff continues to take delivery on new books, which are stacking up because no new items will be shipped out to branches until the situation is resolved. Sanders and her coworkers do have what they need to pay the library’s bills and make payroll, but they do not have access to any of the library’s personnel records. Even though some of the main office’s computers were brought to the hopefully-temporary location, Sanders and her staff do not have enough to do their work and were discussing bringing in personal computers from their homes.
“We are remotely accessed to the work computers unless the power (at the main office) goes out,” Sanders said. “If the tropical storm hits, we can’t even prepare our materials or computers. All that is there (at the main office).”
In addition to being kicked out of their office, Sanders and her staff are also frustrated by the fact that the park service is in violation of its current contract with the library, which states that the library’s staff has “the right of ingress and egress to the library facilities including, but not limited to, designated parking areas, sidewalks, entrances and exits, restroom facilities, meeting rooms and existing or any future, elevators, stairways or any other access to the library. Said rights to ingress and egress shall remain in effect throughout the term of this lease.” The building was purchased by the Friends of Lafourche Parish Library for the library and later leased to the National Park Service.
“During the shutdown in 1992, the library staff was allowed in and out of the building by a park service employee who was not working, but that did not happen this time,” Sanders said. “We are not planning any legal action. We just want to be back in our building.
“I have reminded the park service of the contract and was told it (the reminder) had been sent up the food chain, but we have not heard anything yet.”
Lafourche Parish Library’s main office staff is relegated to a room of the Thibodaux Main Branch Library. The 17 workers were forced to relocate from the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve Wetlands Acadian Cultural Center building after the federal government shut down last week.
