Town Talk Church Point
Town Talk Church Point
Town Talk Podcast: Part 2 Mayor Spanky's accomplishments since he took office
Unlock the secrets behind transforming a community with Mayor Spanky as we explore the remarkable revitalization of Church Point. Promising to inspire, this episode reveals how over 5% of blighted properties were removed to pave the way for future developments, especially around the promising Central Park area. Learn how these changes not only enhance aesthetics but also boost property values, contributing to a cleaner and more vibrant community. With the town earning the prestigious Cleanest City award, we discuss their ongoing commitment to maintaining Church Point’s newfound beauty.
Join us as we uncover the strategic moves Church Point made to secure $10.5 million in grants, thanks to the expert guidance of a talented engineer from Youngsville. This funding has been crucial for infrastructure enhancements, tackling flood prevention, and upgrading water and sewer systems. Despite the challenges posed by state regulations and necessary water rate adjustments, the town is poised for growth and prosperity. This episode is your gateway to understanding how strategic planning and investment can lay a solid foundation for lasting community success.
We're here again. Another Town Talk podcast. It is Chris and Mayor Spanky, you want to move into tearing down some blighted properties.
Speaker 2:I think it's still on YouTube. You can go look at a video. I think Scott LaFleur did it about two or three years before I became mayor and it showed like buildings that needed to be torn down. And that's a really a good reminder if you leave here, to go to that, because it'll show you the difference of today and what it was eight years ago. Most of them we've torn down that were in that state and the ones that weren't kind of fixed them up but we tore down like six or seven. That was big buildings. That was very bad eyesores. I mean the Churchborn Wholesale was one they had that I think it was Cat Citizen Shop. It was falling in on itself. They had that pink building Sound.
Speaker 1:Center.
Speaker 2:Sound Center. When we tore that down, there was termites to the peak of the roof. I had never seen that, you know, but those were things that were making our town look bad and we've went in and tore that down and around town we've torn down close to 90 houses that were in very bad shape and we're still working on that. We're probably going to end this year with probably about 100 to 105. But that's on a town of 1800 homes. So you're talking about a little bit over 5% of all homes abandoned and were falling in on itself, and we've torn over 5% of the homes down, which what happens is it makes people able to invest into our town because those old buildings are not all messed up.
Speaker 2:The thing about it is is like you take a road like Moss Street. I think we've torn down six, five or six down that road alone. So I mean, with that comes better property values, because you don't want to invest in a house that's next to a termite ridden. You know the roof is falling in on itself, you know, and look, other towns have those same problems. But we went like a bull, we ran at it and we figured out some ways to do it and we've been very, very successful. I can tell you. Our first year we tore down 26 and Lafayette the whole city had torn down 28. So we were two behind the city of Lafayette. So that's taking a bull by the horns and running with it you know so as of late.
Speaker 1:I mean maybe we can jump into it now on main street, the old gas station eric yeah yeah, raise mobile was there. Now that's down. I know that was also on your list as well and you were able to get that done just recently.
Speaker 2:That was the final thing on the list because not to say that was the most important thing on the list.
Speaker 2:No, it was just the last part. It had been there abandoned for a long, long time, and that was center of town. Central Park was a reality, you know, know, and it didn't look good. It wasn't the most important piece, but it was the last piece and now it's gonna let somebody come in and invest maybe in something pretty cool right there. You know, because they're gonna have all those people from the park that will utilize whatever business is right there. Mean the snow cone stand that built on Davi, yeah, on Davi Street. I mean that's an excellent location for around a children's playground, skateboard, pickleball. You know it's an excellent place and that real estate on that corner is very valuable real estate to utilize the success of that park. I mean, what do you think on that?
Speaker 1:No, I mean, it is a I'm going to call it a prime location. Obviously, we can call it the middle of Main Street, next to where the skate park is, the pickleball courts, you know all that stuff. The Central Park is right there and I think that could be a great place to put a business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I agree with that. When I wrote that down, I did a circle zone and I said you build it from within. It wasn't going to be done in a day. I said, with Central Park coming to be the center of town, the town was going to grow from the center on out and it hasn't got there yet, but it will. This is not an eight-year plan. This is probably when this is going to be super successful. It's going to be a few years from now, you know. But it starts with one. And look how I did Central Park. It started with one. We redid the museum, we built that pond, we redid the depot and we bought that piece that Evangeline Brokerage had, and then the last piece was the wholesale and we got that one. But that was a big piece and from there it takes time, but it's going to grow from there on out. So that whole area is a big success and that's going to be something that I'm going to be proud of for a long, long time.
Speaker 1:And we're going to talk about grants coming up. You know you mentioned the museum. You know there's some other little things like updating the museum. Town Dump Cleanest City.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the last time Church Point was deemed the cleanest city award was in, I think, 1992, and I decided that we were gonna go after it and we won it the first year. Now we've been on major projects since then, so we haven't really participated again. But I just one of those things where when you know you can and you just do it. You know, so we did it, you know, we cleaned up the town, we got the route looking good, you know, and the most impressive thing for the cleanest city which is odd, but I was there and that's what they said was the dump. The dump was they were very impressed by the dump right there, and if they were impressed before, they need to come back in about two weeks because we're actually working on that right now and that dump is going to be something that is going to be nice. Let me just say that we'll have the nicest dump in Louisiana.
Speaker 1:And for some people that don't know, you know the dump is right there, next to the pond, and the water department open what? Tuesday through Saturday.
Speaker 2:Tuesday through Saturday. When I took on, it was only open like maybe Wednesday and Friday for like three hours or something like that, and all they would do is just open the gate and people would just go and dump whatever. Well, that's not a good way of doing things, people. If you leave them on their own, they're going to just dump it out the back of their truck and leave it for somebody else. You know, I'm sorry, that's just how it is. So we have a man there on Tuesday to Saturday and it was very important for me to open it on Saturday because we are a bedroom community to Lafayette, so a lot of people live in Church Point but work outside of Church Point, so that day they have off.
Speaker 1:I wanted to have something to where they could you know, use it, yeah, not just have it during the week, yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's been very successful. We have it closed right now for two weeks, but we're doing some expansion on it. I think everybody's going to like what we're doing with it and that was a big thing. The other thing was the museum was only open on Saturdays, from like 10 to 2 or something like that, and it's still open on Saturdays from 10 to 2, but we have Ms Dolores that does a fine job over there. She works every day, monday through Friday, for four hours a day and what that does is people traveling to the area that are looking for something to see. They pull in. I mean, we've had pictures, chris. You've posted many pictures of people from outside the country, you know, all over the place that come in in those days and just come visit our town, you know, and that's something for them to do. It's free and I think it's a good thing. It's not ever going to be a moneymaker, but it's something. I think that's a necessity, you know.
Speaker 1:It tells the history of our town. And if no one's been there since you redid it, what has been a couple of years now, three or four? Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Many, many nights in there. You spent a long time working over there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but, man, an excellent job from you. Know some of the background on the churches and businesses here and musicians here and sports athletes from Church Point. I mean it's great and you can see a lot of Church Point history there. Great job on that. That's really a little treasure that we have here in town for sure. What about jumping into grants, Mayor? I know that was another thing on your list as well, Something that you got to work on. Let's talk about how many grants we received and how much money that we got here in the town of Church Point.
Speaker 2:Well, when I started well, actually, before I even won I decided to break away from the old and get something new. Look, let's just be honest. Youngsville is the shining diamond to Louisiana. It's the fastest growing city in Louisiana and it's bustling.
Speaker 2:So what I do is I don't mind being number two sometimes but I went and got the engineer that was doing all those good things in Youngsville, ms Pam, with McBade is a very talented engineering organization that was dominating the Youngsville area and you know, with being number two we get a lot of information that Youngsville maybe tried or didn't try or didn't succeed or succeeded that what worked for them. We went after it too and we were averaging a capital outlay grant maybe of three $400,000 a year In six years. I sent the list to you. It's almost 10.5 million over six years. So we average in over $2 million a year.
Speaker 2:Right now we're going through the depths of it because some of these projects that we're Right now we're going through the depths of it because some of these projects that we're doing right now we've been working on for five years. We just secured the land for the detention pond, coming by corporation. That's going to be probably started in about May so there'll be no more flooding for the Marie Street area or it won't be flooding houses. We hope our studies show that it should. But that part of town, about 33% of our town, drains to the Corporation Canal. So everything from shoot you're talking North Street, all of District 5, all that North Street, all of District 5, all that that all drains there. So that's going to be a big, big to-do on that. And then we have another detention bond that we're working on. We haven't secured the land on it yet but we are.
Speaker 2:And that's down Minnick's Alley and that's going to help the District 1 area with flooding. I mean that was a $3 million project right there. We're working on the water sector, which was $4.3 million. We're working on that right now. And we're working on a sewer grant right now which I think is going to be around $5 million area. But that one's not secured. So I don't call it as a win until it's a win, you know. But I felt it was very important to go get that talented engineer from Youngsville. I wanted somebody more aggressive, that we could follow the successes of Youngsville.
Speaker 1:Not saying we are.
Speaker 2:Youngsville.
Speaker 1:No, but obviously they were pretty aggressive in trying to grow their area and you follow suit in trying to make Church Point better and I think McBae just helped you out in trying to grow their area and you follow suit in trying to make Church Point better and I think McVeigh just helped you out in trying to get that done and she had battled all those floods of Youngsville in 2016.
Speaker 2:I mean, she had did all this. It was all done before. We just had to go hire her to come do it for us. So I mean many of those successes. Is that decision right there that? Ms Pound, she's a beast when it comes to grants.
Speaker 1:And you know, not any knock to any prior administrations or anything like that in town, but grants to the tune of what is it exactly? $2.475, $10,475,924. Has there ever been that much grant money brought into the town of Church Point?
Speaker 2:I don't think so.
Speaker 1:That's huge.
Speaker 2:I mean, I don't know to the penny, you know, but I would say that that's the biggest number in the past and a lot of that going to water and sewer right.
Speaker 1:That infrastructure is where there was a really huge need and we've talked about it on podcasts before. Man, A lot of that equipment in the water department, sewer department, very, very old and just was always repaired, repaired, got by, got by, got by.
Speaker 2:And now we're at a point of okay, we really have to do something.
Speaker 1:And now that're at a point of, okay, we really have to do something, and now that's getting done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the thing about it is a lot of situations which were unavoidable before me before that one sales tax to fund the police was successful. The general fund supplied the police department, which was money from the water system, which unfortunately and look that had to be done. I'm not knocking it, you got to pay for police somehow. But all that money that was spent on the police department was supposed to be spent into the water and sewer and was not so. When we took over, we took over a sewer plant from 1992 and a water plant from 2002. And since 2002, that's 22 years ago, 23 now the Jackson Mississippi chaos and the Flint Michigan chaos has happened.
Speaker 2:So water departments aren't forgotten about like they used to be. It used to be you just ran it and did what you had to do, and as long as the water came out the pipes, it's no big deal. Now the state has got themselves involved and if you don't raise your rates when they want you to, they will disqualify you from grants. If you do not do the necessary work that you need for grants, then they will penalize you with all the inspectors. So they're not saying you know, you don't have to go up on your water. But if you don't, we're going to bully you and we're not going to give you the money that you need to fix it. So it's where we're at, you know, and we're not going to give you the money that you need to fix it. So it's where we're at, you know, and we're doing, we're making great strides in that we're getting the grants we need, we're getting the things updated that we need and we're getting the water department. Water should be aces.
Speaker 2:And look there's one thing that people do not understand, because look, when you go into your kitchen and you turn on the water, water department's doing fine, but there's places not far from us very not far from us. That are D-rated water systems and we are A-rated water system, and that's because we're putting money into the place and making it into 2025 standards. You know, water is not a fun subject. It's not a fun business by any means, but it's a necessary one.
Speaker 1:You also brought up talking about police, something else that was done. Y'all were able to do an addition to the police department also.
Speaker 2:Yes, that was in my plan before I became mayor. They had built the police station in 2008, something like that, and, to be honest with you, it was small, but that's what they had to do. I understand it, you know. And in 2016, the police station flooded. It wasn't a big, it went in, you know, about an inch or so, but nonetheless, there was a lot of issues with that. So, I mean, our police chief was basically I hate to say it his office was in a closet, and that's just.
Speaker 2:We worked together, me and the chief, which we always do. We work hand in hand on everything and we were able to build the same type of building right next to it, I mean down to the same size, you know, and now he has five offices, a kitchen area, you know. It's a much better existence. And again, what I told you earlier about government to private the building the jail in 2008 cost 600, I think, $66,000. Okay, and we built the same square foot building five feet from it and we have about 100,000 into it. I mean, that's just the difference of doing it ourself. I mean, mr Joe Carrier and Mr Glenn, the two-man crew had help from others too, but they worked their buns off and got it for us. But that's how we got a brand new police station office area. For how much we did, you know. So I mean, those are the successes of the past six years.
Speaker 2:Right now we're working on some little projects, some benches, with a cooperation of community development. We have the benches already bought, we're putting them, some in MLK Park, some pavilions by the splash pad, small pavilions, 10 by 10s. The dump is a big one. Right now we're redoing the water yard. We're working on some processes. Right there we're trying to fine tune all the water sewer the inner. What we do, you know, we're trying to make it more attainable all kind of stuff like that.
Speaker 2:But big projects? I have a few up my sleeve, but again, I don't like to talk about them until they're there.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to part two of our three-part series. With Mayor Spanky Coming up in a couple days, we'll release our third and final part. We hope you check it out.