James "Bald Head" Dark
March 18, 2008March 20
March 20, 2008
Parish’s major players to help fund program
By HOWARD J. CASTAY JR.
Concerned about St. Mary’s cleanliness, the parish government’s various entities agreed to a one-year, inter-governmental deal to fund a $60,000 “Keep America Beautiful Chapter.”
The St. Mary Parish Council approved the project last week, joining Baldwin, Berwick, Franklin, Patterson and Morgan City in the program.
Alice Pecoraro, a retired vice president of academic affairs at Nicholls State University, has been a strong proponent of the program.
She serves as volunteer director of the “Keep Morgan City Beautiful” program, a post she’s held since 2000.
She addressed the council last week, urging the final adoption of the program.
The brainstorm of Morgan City Mayor Tim Matte, State Sen. Butch Gautreaux and St. Mary Parish President Paul Naquin, the program is aimed at curbing the growing trash problem.
The job’s $36,000 annual salary is covered as part of the inter-governmental agreement. The director’s duties will include enforcing and supervising litter programs in St. Mary Parish. The director will also oversee litter prevention education, beautification and community improvement projects and waste reduction.
The job description also calls for the person to write grants for additional funding.
Pecoraro told the parish council last Wednesday that she mounted a personal campaign on litter prevention during her commute to and from work at Nicholl’s Thibodaux campus. Over the 23 years, she said she grew tired of the trash strewn along the highway.
Although she is not a candidate for the position, Pecaroro said she would “support this office and whoever gets the job.”
“Cleanliness and the look of St. Mary Parish became important to me as I exited and re-entered the parish all of those years,” Pecoraro said. “While it has been important to keep Morgan City clean, it’s also important to keep all exits and entry points into St. Mary Parish clean.”
Other cities have formed beautification programs after learning that it was difficult to sell the parish to businesses looking to relocate. Pecoraro recounted one such program – the “Keep Mandeville Beautiful Committee” – saying that a company head reportedly told the city’s mayor at the time that his firm would not locate there because it was dirty.
She also related a past instance of how the “Keep Mandeville Beautiful Committee,” was formed in Mandeville, saying that a company head told the Mayor of Mandeville at the time, that he could not locate there because it was dirty.
“Because I’ve looked around and I cannot take my company to a state or to a city that doesn’t care enough to keep it clean,” the department head reportedly said. “My company pays very high liability insurance and my employees have to be very safe – I have to train them to be safe. And if I have to first train them to pick up after themselves, I will never get them to the level of safety. I can’t come to Mandeville and I can’t come to Louisiana.”
Pecoraro recalled the mayor saying, “That day, ‘Keep Mandeville’ was born.”
Without change, St. Mary Parish is suffering a similar fate, she told council members.
“We want new citizens and we want new businesses in St. Mary Parish,” she said. “We want them when they drive in to make the decision to say, ‘Well, look at this clean place. I would not mind bringing my family and my company here because these people must have pride.'”
“We also need to involve all of our schools and all of our businesses [in the effort],” she said. “We know that the first thing we have to do; people have to be made aware of the problem, then they have to be educated about the problem. Then we have to enforce the laws that we have in order to keep our community clean.”
“If we all join together, in one year, we can see a significant difference,” she said.
Pecoraro told the council having a director skilled in writing grants will also benefit the parish.
“There is money out there to help us keep this community clean, but we don’t have anyone who can write grants. Whoever this director is, that person can write these grants,” she said.
Parish councilman Logan Fromenthal agreed, saying, “Only positive things can happen in this parish.”
