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St. Bernard Parish
July, 2009
Fourth & Forward
Parish President Craig Taffaro reflects
on the recovery progress made in St.
Bernard, as the fourth anniversary of
Hurricane Katrina approaches.
To tell you the truth, 18 months ago
when we started this, the focus was to
do several things. One was to build
teams that were going to create successes
for our recovery. That's probably the
biggest accomplishment we've made.
Project-wise Val Reiss is probably one of
our milestone and landmark developments
that will be ultimately about a 20
million dollar project. It'll be a
real engine for us both economically for
our recreation department, as well as
for our social development quality
of life.
Val Reiss will include, when all is said
and done, 8 new baseball fields, 2 new
concession stands, one with a lounge on
the top of the third floor so it overlooks
the entire complex, as well as a
mini-convention center that will probably
be in the neighborhood of somewhere
about 45,000 square feet.
We have 3 fire stations open and the other
7 are under construction. Basically
everything is in motion at this point,
even any challenges we've made, we've
been able to overcome. We still are on
target to complete all 10 fire stations
by the beginning of 2010.
Road work has been a real success. We've
been able to partner with FEMA and GOHSEP
to increase the eligibility of the number
of roads and what roadwork will be eligible
for reimbursement.
Our complex grounds have been something we
thought were important for us to symbolize
that our recovery is moving forward. That
included the government complex where our
operations take place, our ballroom to the
civic center so there could be social
gatherings and functions, and the Council
on Aging was something that was
tremendously important because our senior
population has struggled to return. And we
felt like it was important to give that
population a building, an area, and a
program where they could get together, and
be comfortable, and feel like they could
return to their community.
As I've talked with them several times,
the message is that Council on Aging
building basically gives people a reason
to grow old in St. Bernard.
All the achievements and the milestones
we've reached are because of the
partnerships we've been able to create.
At the local level with residents,
businesses, at the state level, with GOHSEP,
and obviously, at the federal level,
with FEMA.
We're excited because we said 2009 was
the corner for us and we were going to
turn towards more growth and out of the
disaster recovery mode.
Basically what that means to us is, we can
build on the foundation that has been
created over the first five years, and
that's what we're looking forward to.