Avoyelles Police Jury stops, then restarts work on private bridge

Repairs near Old River are part of longstanding agreement

{Editor's Note: This article is an updated version of an article printed in this week's Marksville Weekly News.}

Concerns that the Avoyelles Police Jury was “building a new bridge” on private property were misplaced, but resulted in the parish stopping the work last week. However, after getting a legal opinion from the district attorney Tuesday, the Police Jury instructed the bridge crew to continue with the project next week.

At the jury's Oct. 3 committee meeting, Police Jury President Charles Jones said he and property owner Pete Oliver would each pay half of any cost the parish incurred for the project prior to the parish employees being pulled off the job. At the jury's regular monthly meeting Tuesday, the decision was made to go forward with the original promise to repair the bridge as a final gesture to complete the parish's promise to maintain the bridge in exchange for a right-of-way through the property for a Ward 3 Water District line serving Spring Bayou residents.

The bridge on the Oliver’s property near Old River Road is a private bridge that has been maintained by the parish under a longstanding agreement with the property owner. Work should restart next week, using "as much salvage material as we can," Civil Works Director Kevin Bordelon said.

District Attorney Charles Riddle told the newspaper last Thursday (Oct. 3) that based on his understanding of the facts of the case, the repair project was legal “because the Police Jury had an agreement with the property owner that went way back to allow the Ward 3 Water System to have right-of-way through the property. For many years, the water line was attached to the bridge.

“In exchange, the Police Jury agreed to maintain the bridge,” he said.

Riddle said the Oliver family “never collected any money for granting a right-of-way.” The maintenance agreement was the family’s compensation for that right-of-way.

At the Oct. 3 Police Jury committee meeting, which Riddle did not attend, Jones told jurors Riddle told him earlier in the week that there could be a question about the legality of the project because there is apparently no documentation of the agreement.

A few years ago Ward 3 Water District received a state grant that allowed it to move that line off of the bridge. The agreement was never canceled.

The bridge was damaged in the 2016 flood.

“Pete Oliver asked if we would repair the bridge to make it usable and, after that, he would take over maintenance of the bridge,” Jones said. “After this repair, the agreement with the family will be over.”

Oliver made his request to the Police Jury’s Road & Bridge Committee in early 2017. He was told the work could not be done until the parish bridge crews had finished a large number of other parish bridge projects.

The list of repair and maintenance projects got “caught up” earlier this year, so the repair order was issued, Jones noted.

CREW WORKED 8-10 HRS.

Bordelon said a three-man parish crew worked two half-days on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 to prepare the site and drive some pilings for the project. He said the parish used “scrap material” for the three-span bridge project.

After complaints were filed about the project, “we were told to cease all work on this bridge,” Bordelon said last week.

The Oliver bridge work would have involved repairing an abutment that had washed away and replacing decking on the bridge.

The parish had spent about $200 on materials before the project was canceled. The three-man crew and equipment had worked about 8-10 hours at the site over the two-day period.

The waterway under the bridge begins near Cocoville Road and flows into Old River.

After the controversy, the Olivers said they would hire someone to build a bridge on their property, “but made it clear the Police Jury will no longer be welcome on their property,” Bordelon said. He said the family had been cooperative in the past, but “now if we need to do drainage work on that stream, we probably will not be granted access to this property.” It is hoped those hard feelings will be eased by the latest decision.

Jones said the bridge was on the routine bridge maintenance schedule due to the water line right-of-way agreement.

“If the bridge had collapsed, it would have shut off water to Spring Bayou,” Jones said.

There were also allegations that the work was “done in secret” without Police Jury approval.

The work was not presented to the full jury for approval “because every maintenance work order does not come to the jury for approval.” Jones said. “New construction projects do.”

‘FUSS OVER NOTHING’

“The parish had an agreement with this family for 25 to 30 years,” Bordelon said last week. “They asked if we could make one more repair on the bridge and then we’d be done with it. They agreed that we could use scrap material to make the repairs.

“Now, because of this fuss over nothing, we have probably lost the cooperation of this property owner in the future,” he continued. “I know the people who depended on that water line for so many years appreciated the agreement the Police Jury had with that family.”

At the committee meeting, several jurors were upset the project was shut down, noting the jurors had been told the project was legal because of the decades-old agreement for the right-of-way.
Juror Glenn McKinley said the Oliver family entered into an agreement in good faith many years ago and kept their part of the agreement. He said it isn’t right that a few individuals, whom he said “were playing politics to try to get votes,” would cause the Police Jury to renege on its part of that agreement with the family.

Juror Marsha Wiley said the matter needs to be examined and “we need to do the right thing, whatever it is.”

She and other jurors said neither Jones nor Oliver should pay anything for the work that was done before the project was shut down.

Jones said at the committee meeting that both he and Oliver “want to put this behind us. Neither of us is broke. If paying for the cost ends the issue, so be it. If there’s anybody out there that thinks I ought to pay more, I’ll pay that too.”

Road & Bridge Committee Chairman John Earles and Juror Henry Moreau said the bridge should be repaired as promised.

Jones said at that meeting he believes that option is off the table because Oliver does not want the Police Jury on his property.

The jurors asked that Riddle attend the Oct. 8 Police Jury meeting to discuss the issue.

Juror Trent Clark said he would make a motion to request an attorney general’s opinion on the issue.

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