Town Talk Church Point
Town Talk Church Point
Town Talk Podcast: Part 1 Mayor Spanky's accomplishments since he took office
What if transforming a small town was as simple as eliminating a $27,000 monthly debt? Join us for an enlightening session with Mayor Spanky, who shares his recipe for success in Church Point, achieving an eight-year vision in just six years. Discover the secrets behind Church Point's debt-free status, allowing for pivotal infrastructure upgrades and the miraculous conversion of the old Guerin building into a bustling business hub. This episode unveils how such targeted financial decisions have birthed new job opportunities and laid a promising foundation for future growth.
Beyond financial triumphs, Mayor Spanky paints a picture of a vibrant community coming together through spirited local initiatives. From the colorful tapestry of Mardi Gras to the magic of Christmas, see how these celebrations fostered a family-friendly environment. Hear about the revitalization of Central Park, now teeming with innovative amenities funded by local generosity, and the town's journey to become the buggy capital of the world. With gratitude to the community and collaborators, this episode is a testament to the power of shared vision and community-driven transformation.
We're here again another Town Talk podcast. It is Chris and Mayor Spanky and it is a special one today. Mayor, I don't want to call it a State of the Union, your to-do list, but you got a lot done in six years and you were able to accomplish your vision and what you set out to do in eight years. Two years early, you did it all in six and that's what the podcast will be about today and a lot of those accomplishments and what we've been seeing here in the town of Church Point. So I'll say before we start congratulations in doing that, mayor.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I appreciate it. It's been a long, hard road but we made it. You know, two years before I became mayor, I sat down and made like a dream list of things to do and this, that and the other, and I knew that it would take two terms to do it. But we've done it. With this recent final one in six years, I'm very happy with that. I mean two years early. That means a lot of things. A lot of balls fell our way and we've done a great job. And it's not just me, it's the whole team at Town Hall, all the councilmen, all the engineering, every company we deal with. You know, down to every facet of this job. And it all fell together, like I said, sometimes by the hardest, but it came. So I'm very ecstatic with this podcast right here, because I didn't think I'd be sitting here at six years with it being done.
Speaker 1:Also, I guess I want to add you still have vision to do some other things.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, but you were able to get all that done. Yes.
Speaker 1:I don't want residents of Church Point to think that, oh man, he got all that done, now he's not going to do anything, you know? No, no, no.
Speaker 2:We're still working on projects right now. This is stuff that I pinned onto paper two years before I became a maker, things that I thought that we could have done, but no, there's several other things that we've done that's not on this list. That wasn't on the list before you know, because there's a long list.
Speaker 1:I think there's always going to be a list, right.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, there's no doubt.
Speaker 1:But you know, let's start out with a couple of things. One, with the town being debt free. That kind of happened early on in your first term, correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah, before I took over, the financial situation in the town wasn't the best. It went 22 days dangerously low from depleting one of the funds. But what was happening? They were paying a $27,000 a month bond and what it did is it set forth the first year to go ahead and get that paid off through the bond and stuff. And we got it done Within a year. We were 100% paid off and pretty much that right.
Speaker 2:There is what made our list happen, because when you have no bills, you can get better things and that's when we started buying all the trucks and the equipment. Like, we have all brand new trucks. We have a brand new five years old now, you know, but at the time our most recent truck was like a 2012. So we have all brand new trucks, all brand new tractors, air compressors, pumps. You know, the stuff that you really need to work on a town and that was a big part of it was not having to pay $27,000 a month on a bond. So that was a big deal to pay off the entire town in the first year and not too many towns have that luxury.
Speaker 1:So that was one of the first accomplishments, One of the others that you got early on in your first term. You had wanted to get a business in the Guerin building. You want to talk about that, the old Guerin building, I should say.
Speaker 2:The old Guerin building, which was 75,000 square foot. It was an abandoned state. They had previous things that had happened, people had stole the wires in it and it was just a shell of a building and I knew that there was some kind of need that we could have utilized because, I mean, church Point is not a big industry-based town but I knew that was the one that could be. So I had all these ideas on calling people, trying to get somebody in there, and then me and Ben Richard got to talking and that was a big battle to sell the building to him, to start this catered tradition, because to do it it had to be done, you know, on the down low, and he couldn't let all his eggs out the basket before it actually happened. So we took a lot of beatings on that but it was worth it at the end.
Speaker 2:Now we have a very prosperous sausage maker in town and he utilizes half the building. So in all honesty, there's room for another business or industry on the other half of the building that we are trying to find somebody to sue. But I mean, like I said, industry. I mean we have church born wholesale, we have the hospital, we have the nursing home. We don, like I said, the industry I mean we have church born wholesale, we have the hospital, we have the nursing home. We don't have big, big industry Like this is 30 to 40 jobs and with those jobs come all the trucks have to be gassed up. You know they buy their breakfast, they buy their lunch. You know that's what you need. So that was a big big thing. I mean it had been abandoned since probably the 90s.
Speaker 1:Huh, chris, yeah, it had been a minute. Now, for those that don't know, the town owned the Guerin building.
Speaker 2:Yes, sometimes situations like that they give it to the town, which is actually I guess it's good, but it's bad because then you have to maintain a 75,000 square foot building and you have no use for it, and if you don't put the right client in there or get it to the right situation, it becomes albatross.
Speaker 1:It just you know, and we were at the point where we were paying on resources for the town right.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and I just wanted that out of our hair and to create something that was good for Church Point. So that was a win-win, and a big win on top of that, and it was worth the fight in doing it, and I thank Ben and his family for investing in the town of Church Point.
Speaker 1:Another thing too. You know this is something that you also caught a couple of bruises on as well, and that's parks. You know that was something that you also set out early in your first term and into your first term in upgrading the parks. Mlk Park was one of the first ones that you upgraded. You had the basketball court there correct the NBA-style court that was there and updating some playground equipment, and then you moved to the baseball park and did some upgrades there. You want to talk about some of the upgrades at the parks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's where it started. I tried for probably two years, before we came here, to get bulletproof lighting at MLK Park because there was a problem with people shooting the lights out. One thing I was very proud of is within my first 14 days as mayor me and the councilman at the time, councilman Simeon got that done within 14 days of taking over, so that was a small thing but big to me.
Speaker 2:And then we started with remodeling the bathrooms, getting the park in shape, nba style, basketball goals, new playground, you know, update the equipment. And MLK Park is a very nice park right now. I mean we've got a walking trail around it, we've got a workout area, like it's a real nice park. We've put probably about $100,000 into it and I think it's a very, very nice park at MLK Park. And then we moved on to the baseball park and we did a lot of upgrades with us and Wade, with Bucks Baseball. We did a partnership with them for a while. I mean you can go see the old backstops was just fencing, now it's nets and it's a very nice park.
Speaker 2:And we redid the tennis courts, we put a basketball half court. We've redone pretty much everything at the baseball park. We even updated the community center, which the community center had was 20 years old. It was falling into dish repair so we had to spend some money into that and it was probably about the same amount. We made the parking lot to where you could fit like 200 cars. I mean you know you dj that venue many, many times and before that parking lot there was cars all the way down to Happy Street over there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now they can park in that parking lot and you know that was one thing that I always thought that was kind of risky was a lot of people in black tuxedos walking down dark roads at night and maybe having a few drinks.
Speaker 1:A little spirits. Yeah, I mean celebrating, let's just be honest.
Speaker 2:So now they all park in the parking lot and they don't go onto that public road. So those were the things that I did over there. And then the big one was Central Park. Central Park was nothing. That was a plan that I schemed up in my head.
Speaker 2:We owned a few pieces of property, the town of Church Point, and if I could have connected them together, then I thought this idea would work and ended up Evangeline Brokerage sold us a piece of property where the dog park, pickleball courts, buggy building, all that is, and then the wholesale came to the table and we bought the old, abandoned building there which they tore down and we bought the property which made all those properties come together and that was a big, big thing for me because, like I said, it came from inside between these two years and it was center of town, which I wanted that to be very, very important, to be center of town to where anybody can enjoy that park, and that has become the feature park because of all the features that it has, I mean, and everybody can walk to it, everybody can ride their bike to it.
Speaker 2:You know it's dead center of town and we've done big things like the Christmas parade, We've surrounded it around that park. That's been an extreme success and one of the big things I wanted with this Central Park is a Christmas display which, if we've built it every year since we've had it and now it's becoming a very big feature for the town of Church Point.
Speaker 2:And it brings people to the town of Church Point. That probably wouldn't be common. You know they come and they go to Pizzaville. They go, you know, get their gas, go buy a six-pack, whatever it may be, and they go drive through Six-pack of Coke. That know, get their gas, go buy a six pack, whatever it may be, and they go drive through a six pack of Coke.
Speaker 1:That is right, they would not drink and drive. Exactly, it's Coke.
Speaker 2:But the thing about it is it brings people to town where they maybe wouldn't before, and it's a positive thing.
Speaker 2:And the big thing that I love about it is look, mardi Gras brings a lot of people, and there's no doubt in that, and Church Point is known for that. But you see a lot of adult stuff going on for Mardi Gras, whereas Christmas you see the entire family, the kids, the parents, the grandparents. They're all there just in a positive Christmas spirit. You know, that's just my favorite time of year and I think we're building something pretty big right there and we're going to continue to build on it. I mean, and Central Park is the key of that I mean we built the new playground right there. We got the splash pad that was donated by Miss Evelyn Filipinas. We did the skate park that was privately funded part of it and community development part of it. We got the pickleball courts, which was an extreme success. We redid the depot, we did walking tracks on two of them. We did the fishing pond, we redid the museum racks on two of them. We did the fishing pond, we redid the museum.
Speaker 2:There's a lot that went on with that and we didn't pay nearly what you would see on a small little playground that's funded by the government, because we did it all ourselves. Just to tell you, government is what government is, but we buy, just for one instance, the playground by the buggy building. That playground cost the town $16,000. If we'd have went through the government with that same one, same features, same everything, it would have been $125,000. I mean, that's where we understand it on this podcast. No, but I'm just telling you yeah, that's how this works. Anything that you can do yourself, you're going to save a lot of money yeah.
Speaker 1:And you had a lot of help from Church Point Community Development Corporation. They put money towards the playground, they put money towards the buggy building with the Mardi Gras ball. So you had some funds from town that helped there. But also skate park donated splash pad, 100% donated buggy building. There was a lot of community help there. And again, mayor, some of the smaller towns, like you know, doosan kind of following suit in a way of a park area, a walking track, a pickleball court. You know, like you've ever passed through Kington and you notice their little park area, they're building that up to a walking track. They got pickleball courts there as well.
Speaker 1:It's one of those things that a lot of the smaller towns are getting into and are trying to build up.
Speaker 2:That's right and I mean I'm proud of that too. We were the first. We were the first with pickleball courts. I'd seen that on HGTV on Renovation Island and I decided I was like I think that will work around here. Now, every small town around here, if they don't have one, they're trying to get one. The skate park we had one before, lafayette did. Now Lafayette's opened up one.
Speaker 2:But don't think that you didn't see those Lafayette folks over here looking at what we're doing and look at the success, because you know with everything that you do like that, there's risk to reward. You know you spend that much money on a pickleball court. You know it's $30,000, that much money on a pickleball court, you know it's 30,000, which is cheap on our end because we do it ourselves a lot. But the thing about it is is you do that and nobody comes. That's a failure that most people can't handle, which. I'm a risk guy. You know like I want to be in the forefront. I want to be in the front. If fails, then it's on me. But I'm not gonna not try and everything that we've tried has been a pretty much a screaming success. Yeah, and the buggy building for one when I took over as mayor. This is the buggy capital of the world. Ok, I didn't know of one buggy around town, you know like. So we went to those people that owned them, that was in them barns and stuff and they let us use it.
Speaker 2:Now we have two in the buggy building and we have three at the town hall, you know. So that's all was in my plan. Like, if we're going to be the buggy cab of the world, then we need to have a buggy or two.
Speaker 1:Mayor, before we wrap up this edition of the podcast, I know you wanted to give a few thanks again to all the hard work and people that helped you do this through the years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the thing about it is, and we've already talked about it, mcbain Engineering was a big, big win for us. But all our town workers, I mean Mr Joe, mr Glenn, the maintenance guys, they build everything you know, and they get help from everybody. I mean we've had his son, ethan, that helped out a lot. Then we had, you know, Topopey, tommy, you know everybody down to the city hall workers that bought into this vision. And there's a lot of companies that we deal with that I'm rough to deal with sometimes because I demand this and that, but they see that I'm focused on bettering.
Speaker 1:Church.
Speaker 2:Point and it makes them fight even bigger, you know. But I can't thank all those people enough because they take whatever I give them and they take it with positivity, you know, because it's not easy to turn around a ship but you have to have a good crew and some good people on your side. And I mean have to have a good crew and some good people on your side, and I mean we got to thank the people of Church Point that you know. A lot of people donated for different projects and community development, and I mean the list goes on and on. I mean the hospital, the wholesale, the engaging traditions. I can go on for you know an hour and I'm going to still miss somebody. But it's been a community effort and I'm just glad that they bought in and I'm glad we're seeing a different church point, one that we can be proud of this is the end of our first part.
Speaker 1:We have a three-part series with Mayor Spanky talking about a lot of the accomplishments that happened in his first six years, something he set out to do in eight but was able to get a lot of it done in six. Make sure to check back. Our second part will be coming up in a couple days.