6-to-6 park hours revisited

The Parish Council will be reviewing open hours at area parks. At the April 18 council meeting, Parish President Guy Cormier said that the official 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. hours may not reflect the current requirements of residents, and an ordinance amendment will be considered.
Parks that have a walking trail, for instance, are often visited by early risers who technically violate park hours if they go before the 6 a.m. opening time. Others walk late in the afternoon, and enforcement of the 6 p.m. closing would limit a valued use of the facility, Cormier said.
On a park-by-park basis, open hours will be examined and “tweaked” as needed. Suggestions were made that a 5 a.m. to 9 or 10 p.m. schedule might be acceptable in some parks.
In the Public Works portion of the meeting, the council voted to adopt a reduced-speed school zone for Breaux Bridge High School.
Road improvements have led to an increase in speed limits, and a reduction during school hours on Doyle Melancon and Breaux Bridge High School Roads is needed, according to a traffic analysis. The actual speed to be set for the zone is still to be determined, but speed is typically reduced either 10 or 20 miles per hour from existing posted limits.
Also, the parish is seeking state “mitigation grants” to move forward with persistent drainage problems in lower St. Martin Parish. A limited number of grants have been issued to assist in raising houses. Four homeowners so far have qualified.
Other drainage projects along Levee Road and in Bayou Estates in the Stephensville area await Army Corps of Engineers action and/or lower water levels to proceed.
Residents of the small neighborhood near Breaux Bridge on Rusty Road have finally gotten their bridge replaced. Cormier said that the new steel bridge is the first one in recent memory to be built off-site and transported to the location for installation. At meeting time, only the asphalt approaches to the bridge remained to be completed.
Finally, readers may have seen a notice in the April 20 Teche News about a rezoning application to be heard at the April 5 parish council meeting. A message was received from Conni Castille of the TECHE Project that the hearing will concern an attempt to allow commercial development at Lake Martin. Castille and others who advocate for preservation fear that the future of Lake Martin as a valued natural asset may be in the balance. Interested parties are encouraged to attend.