abolished

By JULIE FINLEY

The Natchez Democrat

VIDALIA &045; The Recreation District No. 1 is no more.

The Concordia Parish Police Jury abolished the board Monday night, saying its members were not regularly attending their meetings or being productive.

&uot;It’s been a problem lately,&uot; juror Joe Parker said. &uot;They can never get a quorum. Some of them, out of 10 meetings, they’ve missed nine.&uot;

Juror Carey Cook said he’d rather replace the members who did not regularly attend meetings instead of eliminating all members.

&uot;I don’t think you should abolish the whole board because it’s a problem to get someone to serve,&uot; Cook said. &uot;We’ve got some that are effective.&uot;

President Melvin Ferrington said he saw no reason effective members couldn’t be reappointed later.

Jurors agreed to start from scratch and will bring recommendations for appointments to the next meeting. Josephine Taylor and Johnny Woodruff were approved to serve on the new board.

Former board members included chairwoman, Delores Thomas, Jerry Harper, Rickey Raven, Diane Johnson, Bob Morales, Wilbur Washington and David Turner.

Any or all of those members will be eligible to be reappointed.

Juror Cathy Darden said she would defend her ward’s representative, Raven, because he works offshore.

&uot;I don’t think that makes him an ineffective board member,&uot; she said. &uot;He always let Ms. Thomas know when he couldn’t be there and he always knew what was going on.&uot;

In 2004 Raven missed nine meetings, Thomas missed zero, Johnson missed three, Morales missed two, Turner missed nine and Washington missed nine.

Recreation District No. 3 was recently involved in a dispute with Vidalia aldermen over raising Vidalia taxes to fund recreational facilities.

In other business the jury voted to support the Police Jury Association’s resolution opposing a police jury name change that is being discussed in the Legislature. Changing the name from the Police Jury Association to the Louisiana Parish Association has come up in year’s past within the association, but always failed. Several police juries have now taken the matter to the Legislature.