Berwick-Bayou Vista recreation bill signed

Gov. John Bel Edwards signed a bill into law Thursday that will prevent about 30 Berwick residents from being taxed twice for recreation services.
Senate Bill 48, authored by Sen. Bret Allain, R-Franklin, authorizes the St. Mary Parish Council, the town of Berwick and St. Mary Parish Recreation District 3 in Bayou Vista to enter into a contract assigning to the town the obligation to provide service in the area of the district annexed by the town.
In September 2015, the Berwick Town Council discussed the roughly 30 homes along Old Spanish Trail that were paying property taxes to both the town of Berwick and to St. Mary Parish Recreation District 3 in Bayou Vista.
Councilman Greg Roussel said the recreation district accepted moving the boundary line to no longer include the 30 homes that were paying Berwick and Recreation District 3 taxes.
The bill allows the residents now incorporated into Berwick, who were originally in the Bayou Vista recreation district, to no longer pay the maintenance portion of the recreation district’s property tax, Allain said. That portion of the tax is 7.3 mills.
Those residents will still have to pay the roughly 1.5 mills of debt service on the district’s bonds, Allain said. The debt service is scheduled to be paid off by March 1, 2025. The affected residents on Old Spanish Trail won’t have to pay any new millages the district passes, Recreation District 3 Chairman Stan Robison said.
Roussel thanked Allain and Robison “for making it happen and doing what’s right.”
Robison said everyone involved worked well together on the bill. Allain said “all sides got together” and “this was the compromise they all agreed upon.”
Recreation District 3 was created in July 1990 and covers all of Ward 8 of St. Mary Parish except the portion lying within the corporate boundaries of the town of Berwick.
When the district formed, its boundaries went up to the town limits of Berwick, which at the time ended at Country Club Estates, Robison said.
Berwick annexed two sections of land in 1995 and 1998 from U.S. 90 north toward La. 182 and in the Old Spanish Trail area, Berwick Mayor Louis Ratcliff said. The Old Spanish Trail property was already included in Recreation District 3, Robison said.