Next week I will be joining a delegation of St. Tammany business and local government representatives in Washington, D.C.  where we will meet with numerous elected and appointed officials.  This is our opportunity to place our concerns directly in front of national decision makers.

I will be especially concerned with Economic Development and its related issues such as transportation, energy, and banking.  Many decisions made in Washington have a direct effect on us, from interstate and railroad improvements to the availability of financing for small businesses.

We are Louisiana’s fifth most populated parish.  When policy and funding issues are being discussed, it is imperative that St. Tammany’s concerns be considered.  We will be there to represent your interests.

I will give you a report when I return.

Pat

Please join me in congratulating the St. Tammany Parish legislative delegation to the State of Louisiana for their diligence and hard work.  In partnership with other north shore parishes that share our concerns, we have been making progress in making our voices heard in Baton Rouge.

When this year’s list of committee assignments was released, it demonstrated the hard work of our delegation.  Some highlights include:

Senator A.G. Crowe, Chair, Labor & Industrial Relations Committee
Senator Jack Donahue, Chair, Senate Finance Committee
Senator Ben Nevers, Chair, Judiciary A Committee

Representative Tim Burns, Chair, House & Governmental Affairs Committee
Representative Greg Cromer, Chair, Insurance Committee
Representative Kevin Pearson, Chair, Retirement Committee
Representative Harold Ritchie, Vice-Chair, Insurance Committee
Representative John Schroder, member, Appropriations Committee
Representative Scott Simon, Chair, Health & Welfare Committee

The leadership roles entrusted to our Legislative Delegation are a source of pride for all of St. Tammany Parish.

Pat

 

I want to congratulate the Parish Department of Finance for receiving their eighth Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting from the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada (GOFA).  This is the highest form of recognition in the area of governmental accounting and financial reporting. 

The award is being presented based upon the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for 2010 (CAFR) available on the parish website.  This report is unique as it presents, in a single document, both the financial statements of parish government and the financial statements of the 35 independent special districts, such as fire and recreation. 

The full report is then posted on the St. Tammany Parish website so that citizens interested in government finances can easily access the document.

The CAFR is a product of the entire finance team.  However, the GFOA gave special recognition to Leslie Long, the Director of Finance and to Laura Reine, the Accounting Manager with Awards for Financial Reporting Achievement.

Several weeks ago I wrote that Customer Service, Transparency, Accountability and Cooperation were to be the four tenets of my administration.  Products such as the CAFR support this effort.

The Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for 2011 will be available by June 30, 2012.

Pat

January 10, 2012

The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development is doing a lot of construction in St. Tammany right now with more planned in the immediate future.  All numbered roads, for example Highway 190, are State of Louisiana roads.

From the complete closure of the Highway 11 Bridge for four months to interstate construction, it seems as if work is everywhere.  In addition, daily lane closures are expected on the Twin Spans at least through January 14th.

To assist you in keeping up to date with the construction updates, we are posting LaDOTD notices on our website as news items as well as posting them on the St. Tammany Parish Facebook page.  If you want to receive these notices via email, you can register at http://www.stpgov.org/register.php .  Click on the ‘news’ button.  To receive notices via Facebook, you must ‘like’ the St. Tammany Parish facebook page.

I also encourage you to share this construction information with your friends and neighbors.

While construction means temporary inconvenience for drivers, the results mean better traffic flow and increased vehicle safety for residents.  Just this morning, the cables placed in the Interstate 12 median prevented another vehicle from crossing the interstate into on-coming traffic.

For all of these improvements, I want to thank LaDOTD for its investment in St. Tammany Parish and acknowledge the great relationship the Parish has with local DOTD officials.  For a complete list of state projects in our parish, click http://www.dotd.la.gov/construction/hammond.asp#ST.-TAMMANY

Please keep the safety of road workers in mind as you drive through construction zones.

Pat

 

The Inaugural Ceremony for the Parish President and Parish Council will be held at noon, Monday, January 9th on the north steps of the St. Tammany Parish Justice Center.   There we will take our Oaths of Office for the 2012-2016 term. 

The oath I will take reads:

 
"I, Pat Brister, do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution and laws of the United States and the constitution, laws of this state and the charter of this Parish and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as Parish President, according to the best of my ability and understanding, so help me God."

In addition to the oath, I want to give you the promise that I will administer an open and transparent government that is accountable to you, the citizens of St. Tammany Parish.

The Inaugural Ceremony is open to all.  I hope you are able to join us.

 

As I was thinking about the coming year, my first thought was a prayer for an uneventful storm season in 2012.  As that is out of our hands, I want to assure you that parish government continues to train and improve emergency response in the hopes that it will never be used. 

I also want to combine high expectations with hard work to bring more jobs to St. Tammany, to progress swiftly on parish projects, and to make the workings of this government more transparent to citizens.  We are here to serve you.

This cannot be done alone.  I look forward to working with the Parish Council and every city, town and village to move St. Tammany forward.  As the national economy turns upward, St. Tammany Parish is in a good position to bring economic development projects to our community and further expand our workforce.  As a team, we are formidable.

Speaking of teams, I also believe that 2012 is a great year for the Saints to once again bring home the Lombardi Trophy.  I’m sure you all agree.

Happy New Year,
Pat

 

I’d like to give you a short update on my first week in office.  My first staff  meeting with all the parish department heads was Monday morning.  There I shared what the four tenets of this new administration will be:  Customer Service, Transparency, Accountability and Cooperation.

Chief Administrative Officer Bill Oiler and I went to Washington D.C. to meet with Admiral Zukunft of the U.S. Coast Guard to discuss the BP oil spill response, long term monitoring and other items.  Other Parish Presidents from the region were at the table and the discussions were lively.

The remainder of the week was spent meeting with members of the Parish Council and reviewing key projects with staff.

I am confident that we are up and running smoothly despite the shortened transition time.

If you have any questions or concerns, please press the “Ask Pat” button, and send me an email.

Pat

 

As we approach a new year, I want to thank the people of St. Tammany Parish for demonstrating their confidence in me. I look forward to serving you as Parish President. One of my goals is to continue to build on the transparent nature of our government and provide citizens with as much information as possible.

In this spirit, we have added some features to allow better communication between government and the public, including an "Ask Pat" button below this message. You can email me directly, and I will answer you. Each week, I will post one of the questions received as a 'question of the week' on the website, along with the answer.

One of my most important missions as Parish President will be to continue to promote the economic development of our parish. Given the current economic condition in much of our country, we need to keep quality jobs available in St. Tammany, and fill them with well qualified, local citizens. Every citizen who desires to work in St. Tammany should have the opportunity to do so.

As we move forward together into an exciting new era for St. Tammany, please join me in maintaining and building your government: St. Tammany Parish – Government that Works.

Thank you,
Pat

These last few weeks the theme to "Jaws" has been playing  in my head.  You know, that haunting music that tells you the shark is coming but you don't know where or when.  In this case, instead of a great white shark, the music foretold the arrival of tar balls in Lake Pontchartrain. 

Like the "Jaws" Shark, tar balls travel underwater and you don't know they are there until they strike. 

We first found them in the Rigolets on Sunday, where 680 pounds of oily waste was collected.  Monday, July 5th, we found them in the eastern end of the Lake.  That day responders collected another 1,000 pounds of oily waste.

The winds and tides are working against us for the next day or so. Response crews are working shorelines and docks when they cannot safely travel over water.

In the past two months, we had the time to get assets in place to fight the oil and more are being gathered as we speak.   We must be pro-active.  We cannot wait to fight. 

If you see evidence of tar balls or endangered wildlife, call 1-866-448-5816.  Your information will be taken and entered into the response database for the Slidell mini-command center.

The parish's Crisis Action Team is meeting this afternoon to recommend our next steps.

Kevin