BISCO director weighs in on ‘English only’ proposal
July 17, 2008Tobie Lee Bourgeois
July 21, 2008
The Bayou Cane Fire Department is holding a bond election this Saturday to raise money to build a new million-dollar fire station along Louisiana Highway 311 between Hollywood Road and Savanne Road, but at least one Bayou Cane resident is opposing its construction.
Floyd Bergeron, who was a candidate in last October’s election to represent Bayou Cane on the Terrebonne Parish Council, told the council at its May 28 meeting that the station is being built to cater to the upscale subdivisions along Little Bayou Black and that the rest of the Bayou Cane Fire Protection District will have to help pay for it.
“They have nice, big farm homes in rural areas,” he told the council. “Let them pay for their own protection.”
“They deserve as much protection as anybody else,” Bayou Cane Fire Chief Jerry Gautreaux said. “I don’t care if they’re brown, black, yellow or red. We place equipment to respond within three to five minutes.”
The fire district covers approximately 31 square miles, serving around 26,000 residents, 9,500 residential units and 1,800 commercial units. The department, which began as a volunteer unit in 1962, currently operates four fire stations and 11 emergency vehicles.
The district was created in 1997 out of an older fire protection district formed in 1975.
The bond election Saturday authorizes the district to go into debt for up to $4 million. The debt is funded through district-wide property taxes, which will increase between 2 and 2.3 mills if voters approve.
In addition to funding the fire station, the money will purchase a new $426,000 fire truck, extrication tools and a heat imaging system. The money will also pay for fire station and fire truck repairs.
Gautreaux said the location of the proposed new station was recommended by the Property Insurance Association of Louisiana.
“The Highway 311 area got away from us,” Gautreaux told the council. “We didn’t realize such large houses were being built there.”
Gautreaux said the property tax hike is needed, in part, because the fire district board had accidentally set the millage rate at 18.5 percent. The rate needed to be established at 19.5 percent. He said the tax hike will correct the wrongly-set lower rate, plus raise it a half percent.
