Mayor Hiram Evans Announces His Bid for Re-election

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

I want to take this means to announce my candidacy for re-election for Mayor of Jonesville in the October 2nd 2010 primary election.  On Wednesday, July 6th, I officially qualified and I now want to let you know just why I am seeking the office again. 

Frankly speaking, I have been very involved.  Weekly, and often daily, I am working on new problems that pop up, while at the same time, checking into new programs and projects to bring Jonesville into the 21 Century. 

Therefore, I would like to see much of the work that we have already started come into being and continue to work on behalf of the town.  As I am seeking your support for re-election, I now want to share with you just a little of what we have done since January 2007. 

When I ran in 2006, I did not run just to get elected to have a title nor have I sat on my behind over the last 3 ½ years since being in office. Being seriously concerned about the future of the Town, and wanting to see Growth, Progress and Prosperity, I set out to get some things done and have been very busy since then.

After I came into office in 2007, I had our engineer and some other professional agencies to look into problems with our streets, our water, sewer,  gas and electrical systems, our ditches and drainage systems  and tell me where our problems were, what work needed to be done and how our priorities should be set.  They came back to me with the following information:

1. Our water and sewer lines were found to be in terrible shape and needed serious attention.   Because of the seriousness of that problem, that became our priority and we developed a Master Plan to tackle the problem. We have already gotten preliminary approval for funding of $ 20 Million to repair, and improve our systems. We are waiting an official letter from USDA which should arrive in a matter of days.
2. Our drainage canals and major ditches needed dredge work.  We got the assistance of the Tensas Basin Levee District and they dredged some of our canals and major ditches in 2007, 2008, and 2009. We also got help from the Catahoula Parish Police Jury and also spent money ourselves to do dredge work in 2009.  There are still more plans in
   place for drainage work but on a larger scale.
3. We were losing a heavy amount of our natural gas. Some leaks went back as far as 2005. Corrective steps were taken and in some cases it only meant placing locks on meters to prevent theft. In other cases it meant doing repairs on lines to stop leaks.  Although we have not completely eliminated all leaks, as some are underground and very difficult to locate, we have substantially reduced leaks. 
4. We were loosing electricity in our electric system before it got to your homes. In this case, we did not need professionals to tell us what some of the problems were.  Driving around town, you could see it yourself. There were just too many street lights constantly burning during the day.  We cut out a lot of waste and line lost by turning off many street lights that were burning unnecessarily,  we trimmed limbs and carried out a program to check our meters at businesses that have large electrical usage. We found many errors and we corrected them.
5. We all knew that we were losing our streets and that they needed to be overlaid. But the problem there is that we are daily repairing water leaks and sewer lines problems and have new leaks popping up on a regular basis. Both water and sewer lines are located under our street beds and to overlay the streets now would be a grave misuse of your town’s money as we constantly have to tear up streets to repair our broken lines. We will be making street improvement in the near future.

Since being in office, there are many grants and funding that we have gotten to do other projects, but I want to touch upon other things which we have done.

We started Employees in- Service Training Program and Made System Updates. 

1. We instituted an employee safety training program for our employees to help make them aware of potential dangers on the job and safety steps to take.
2. We instituted training on Identity theft awareness so that our office, utility employees and our police department can be aware of tricks people can play just to defraud our citizens, and especially our senior citizens.  Employee safety and Identity Theft are two very serious concerns that I personally have.
3. We are getting the town more modernized and have instituted a Credit Card payment program. We now accept payments by credit cards as a convenience for people who want to use them to pay fines, taxes and utility bills.  When people are a distance away, this can really be helpful.  And the neat thing is that this system does not cost the town a penny. There are more improvements coming as well.
4. We have greatly improved the police department with more certified officers and have a developed a new computer software system in place that has greatly improved the departments efficiency. This system was obtained by Chief Roy and officer Tommy Mayo and is called the AlEIR System and the File-Pro System. It allows officers and dispatchers to have instant access to reports, warrants, traffic citations and other information needed on a daily basis.  It also allows the police department to better track crimes in our town, and for officers to target problem areas.  When there is a traffic stop, and officers call, the system allows for quick access of data which will help dispatchers and officers to check background of persons of interest. Until a few weeks ago, officers and dispatchers always had to go to files to check for warrants and data, if they could find it.  An official with the Louisiana Law Enforcement Commission who visited the Police Department stated that the system that we now have in place meets the criteria that the Federal Government wants to put in place to obtain Uniform Crime Reports from other departments. This actually puts us in the lead over many other departments that do not have this system. In most cases, this system alone would have cost the town over $30,000, but thanks to Officer Mayo it has been developed and installed for under $1,200.
5. Prior to our coming into office, Town Hall had been closed during the noon hour.  One other simple thing we did was to re-open town hall during the noon hour so citizens can come in to take care of their business. Town Hall should never be closed during the working hours as some people have no other time to come to town hall, except during noon.  
   

There is much more which I can say regarding things that we have done, but much of that will be discussed later.  

Unfortunately, in midst of the successes, I must say that I have also had some painful moments and heartaches to deal with.

It was painful, but it was very necessary, to have an increase in electric rates. It had to be done just to save our system and the town. And yes, although it is all related to the electric fees and rates, I know that it is difficult for most people to understand the Fuel Adjustment charges.  However, very shortly, we expect to have a reduction in our electrical rates as we have a contract that is up for renewal and we expect some better rates. And in 2012, we expect to see another reduction in rates as well.

Another painful moment was having a flood to take place (Gustav) while I was mayor. As mayor I was out at 2 AM during the morning of Hurricane Gustav rains and I saw the flooding and many of our citizens under water. That was a real heartache and a very painful sight.  We thought that our canals and ditches could handle the water, but 23 1/5 inches of water in a short time frame was just too much for our system.  What I am thankful for and proud of is that our employees, including our police department, and men and women of our volunteer fire department were out helping citizens  as much as could be done.  Some of these people were helping others even when their homes were under water or in danger of becoming flooded.

I still have a vision for Jonesville and many more plans for the future for town improvements. I want better housing and have had discussions with developers; I want to see more business growth and more and better job opportunities and have worked to re-establish the Catahoula Economic Development Board and even now I am working with some new businesses that are seriously interested in Jonesville; I want to have better recreational activities for youth and adults and have plans in that area as well; I also want to eliminate crime and I would like to have a good Community Civic Center. But most of all, I want to see oneness of the town’s citizens who also have ideas, and that we all, together with the council, work for improvements of the town.

I believe that I have been dedicated and I put in a lot of time for the town every week. I have been here for you.  I actually love the work that I do, and although I often have emergencies to deal with, and often I am called by citizens late at night or early in the morning, and often see problems that causes headaches, working with the council, we get through it all.  In spite of the issues, personally I still answer telephone calls and I return calls if I am not in at the time.

There is much more that I could share with you, but now, I would like to thank you for allowing me to serve you over these last 3 ½ years.  I am seeking re-election to the position of Mayor of Jonesville and not only am I seeking your vote, but, if you feel that you can support me, I am asking you to share your opinions with others where you can.

I also want to thank you for your time and patience over the years and especially for your prayers for our town as a whole, the council and for me. Thank you and May God bless us all now and our future.

Hiram Evans

Incumbent Jonesville Mayor Hiram Evans announces his bid for re-election.