Toups seeks 5th term

Lafourche Councilman Lindel Toups announced last week he would seek re-election for a fifth term in the 6th District.

Toups said the parish’s top two priorities are improving drainage and working toward the construction of a new jail. He chairs the Lafourche Parish New Jail Committee.

“Without the drainage, you don’t need a jail,” the 63-year-old incumbent said. “Every year you see water getting higher and higher in certain places, and I think drainage is the top priority and after that it’s the jail. But, let’s face it, if we don’t make a jail and a federal judge comes down and shuts down the jail, we’ve still got to do something.”

In addition to quelling the parish’s drainage and jail concerns, Toups said he would work toward consolidating the parish’s multitude of water, fire, recreation, levee and tax districts as he tries to make Lafourche “one.”

“I know it’s going to be hard to do it, but somebody has got to take the ball and run with it,” he said. “Why not have that one and have one board for all of them?”

Toups conceded that consolidating the districts would make some parts of the parish susceptible to the board’s bias in determining where funds are dedicated, but he said proper council oversight would “put the money where it’s needed.”

The parish would benefit from lower insurance, auditing and supply costs by making the purchases in bulk, he said.

“Your fire districts and your recreation districts, I don’t say you’d have to put them all together right off the bat, but I think you can buy the insurance together, get them audited together and you’d save a lot of money,” he said. “I tried that before, but I think it’s time to go ahead and keep on trying, get the council behind you and vote on it.”

Toups has lobbied since last year to grant parish employees a pay raise.

On Wednesday, Toups voted in favor of an ordinance that made provisions for a 2 percent cost-of-living raise for all employees and a 2 percent merit raise for those who scored well on performance evaluations.

Under that structure, employees toward the top of the pay scale would receiver greater raises. Toups opposed a percentage increase, and said the parish should give an equal per hour raise to every employee.

“I ran a private company before, and I always did say that. When it would go to raise time, I would get the biggest raise because I was the highest paid. I went against that. I told them, ‘That’s not right,'”Toups said.

His amendment that mandated at least a 25 cents per hour raise for all employees passed, and parish administrators said they would conduct an in-house “salary study” to make the pay hikes more equitable for the next calendar year

Toups works as a salesman for Weatherford and owns a store, carwash and barroom in Gheens, where he has lived all his life.

He has been married for 40 years to Sheila and has one son, one daughter, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Toups, a Democrat, was first elected to the council in 1995 when he topped Jerry Breaux Jr. and Kenneth Matherne with 47 percent of the vote.

The 6th District is comprised mostly of Gheens and includes a portion of Mathews south of Milli Street to Bourgeois Street east of Bayou Folse Road.

Each Lafourche Council seat, as well as its parish presidency, will be on the primary election ballot, scheduled for Oct. 22. Registration is from Sept. 6-8.