Against protests, parish cuts Avoca Ferry budget

There was no shortage of business to attend to at the Wednesday meeting of the St. Mary Parish Council but the issue that caused the most controversy was one concerning a mode of transportation in Morgan City that could soon feel the pinch of budget cuts within the parish.
The issue on the agenda that caused the controversy, and the one that brought out most of the audience on Wednesday, was a recommendation from the parish Advisory Budget/Finance Committee to reduce the budget of the Avoca Ferry near Morgan City from $165,489 to $50,000 in the 2017 budget to keep the ferry operating until the Avoca Road construction is completed.
A few audience members took to the podium to express their concern about cutting the budget of a ferry that provides their only means to get to the island. Council members described the measure as a necessary cost-cutting action due to parish-wide budget constraints.
Councilman Gabriel Beadle led the discussion in support of reducing the budget. Beadle said cuts had to be made somewhere but added that the ferry service could be maintained if stakeholders who utilized the service would be willing to help foot the bill.
“We have to look at who uses these resources and how much money is brought into the parish through this resource,” Beadle said. “This is a common sense approach in my mind. If we have eight entities using the ferry, shouldn’t those eight entities actually pay for the ferry instead of the taxpayers of St. Mary Parish? We can keep it alive and working. But the problem is, the taxpayers are suffering for it. The taxpayers are the ones that are hit. Not the entities that are actually using it.”
The eight entities Beadle referred to that utilize the ferry service and that according to him do not contribute to paying for the service include Terrebonne Parish, Cleco and oil and gas companies that have infrastructure on Avoca Island, amongst other stakeholders.
At one point an audience member, Pat Cloutier, took to the podium and, after a brief period of pleading his case that the ferry needed to be fully funded, began speaking over council members and interrupting them in a combative tone before being approached by a law enforcement officer in the audience who instructed Cloutier to take his seat.
St. Mary Parish President David Hanagriff attempted to diffuse the situation by assuring the audience that everything would be done to try and keep the ferry service in operation while still being fiscally responsible during times when tax revenues continue to decline in the region.
“We are going to continue to try and decrease taxation on our people who are overly taxed,” Hanagriff said. “It is my intention to keep the ferry operational. But we have to try and offset some of the costs and I feel that we will be successful at that.”
The recommendation to reduce the ferry service budget to $50,000 was accepted by a unanimous vote of the council.
In other business, the council adopted an ordinance adopting the 2017 Combined Budgets of Revenues and Expenditures for the Parish of St. Mary. The council also accepted a measure to allocate $5,000 in funds from Wards 1,2,3,4,7 and 10 sales tax fund and $3,000 from the general fund to the 2017 budget of “Save Our Children Mentoring Program” for Project Connect. Project Connect is a parish-wide program designed to try and convince area youth to develop positive decision-making skills.