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Governor delivers check; cites local man's new job
Gov. Bobby Jindal delivered a check totaling $1.272 million to Concordia Parish Thursday at a luncheon at the Bryant O. Hammett Vidalia Conference and Convention Center.
The governor also recognized a Vidalia man -- Bryan Parker -- who lost his job offshore but found a new one at home.
The check Jindal delivered represented five grants, including a Community Development Block Grant of $470,414, a Hazard Mitigation Grant Program amounting to $491,915 and a Community Water Enrichment Fund grant totaling $250,000 for Ferriday's water system. Also included were two Local Government Assistance Program grants totaling $60,000 -- the City of Vidalia receiving $35,000 for repairs to an electrical transformer and the Town of Ridgecrest $25,000 to purchase equipment for sewer repairs.
Jindal said Bryan Parker of Vidalia once drove "nearly five hours to Cameron Parish for work, be gone for a few weeks, then come back onshore and drive five hours back to Vidalia to see his family. When his company began laying off employees, Bryan was one of the unlucky ones. He remained unemployed for around five months. Even though he wasn't a licensed barber, he started cutting people's hair for tips."
Jindal said Parker, who, along with his wife was sitting at Jindal's table, learned of Louisiana Elastomer coming into Vidalia.
"Bryan is now employed by Louisiana Elastomer and loves being near his family again, and being able to go home to them each night," said Jindal. "These new jobs and billions of dollars in business investment in our state are not a coincidence. This is the product of a strategy geared at positioning Louisiana to be one of the best places in the world for business investment, expansion and job creation."
Before the meeting, Jindal said although he know it was not enough, he was glad to help Ferriday as it seeks to build a new water plant.
"We support the local authorities as they await engineering plans and seek USDA funding and grants," Jindal said. "Every community needs safe drinking water, there is no way you can grow without it or have a good quality of life. We have the National Guard mobilized in delivering safe drinking water. We are doing everything we can to help Ferriday to get to the next step."
Jindal is visiting all 64 parishes within the next several months as part of his "Louisiana Working Tour" to highlight the state's top priority of job creation.
Jindal said reforms around the state moved Louisiana from the bottom five to the top five on the Better Government Association's BGA-Alper Integrity Index rankings. The Center for Public Integrity recently announced that Louisiana's legislative disclosure requirement went up from No. 44 to No. 1 in the nation. |
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