New Roads News

A resident of Port Allen and a native of New Roads, Melvin Green died Thursday, May 15, 2008. He was 55.

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A retired cafeteria worker for Catholic High School of Pointe Coupee, Rita Jarreau Guidroz died Thursday, May 15, 2008, at Pointe Coupee Healthcare Nursing Home, New Roads. She fought a long, hard battle with asthma and COPD. She was 78, a native of Frisco and a resident of New Roads.

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The normally sedate meeting of the state’s top school board erupted into controversy Thursday when the appearance of security guards triggered charges of racism. The dispute flared amid controversy over the state takeover of troubled Pointe Coupee Central High School in Morganza. A large contingent of school backers, which organizers put at 150 students, parents and others, was on hand for the board meeting, which included discussions of takeover plans.

Louella Givens of New Orleans, a member of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, suddenly asked why two security guards were in the back of the meeting room. Weegie Peabody, executive director of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, replied that she requested the guards for crowd control. That angered Givens.

As Pointe Coupee Central backers began leaving the meeting room, board president Linda Johnson of Plaquemine tried to soothe hurt feelings.

Johnson and Givens are the only black members of the board. Most students at Pointe Coupee Central are black.

Joetta Hunter-Joseph of New Roads, an administrator at the school and one of the leaders of the group, blasted the presence of security guards as she left the state education building. Hunter-Joseph said the security officials were a “slap in the face” at students and a suggestion that they did not know how to act, which she called racist.

Sate Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek said the two security guards came from the check-in desk at the Claiborne Building, where the state Education Board meets. He said he understood why their presence angered school supporters.

“Of course the symbolism was such that it offended the folks from Pointe Coupee and they felt like it was a racial slight,” Pastorek said. “I understand why they felt like that.”

The board Thursday approved plans for a group called Advance Baton Rouge to take charge of the school as a charter operation for the 2008-09 school year. Charters are public schools that are supposed to offer innovative teaching methods without much of the red tape seen in traditional public schools.

State officials said Advance Baton Rouge spelled out detailed plans on how to improve academic and other problems at the school. Critics said Pointe Coupee Central needs individual attention, which they said Advance Baton Rouge cannot provide with two other schools to oversee as well.

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Born in 1900 and a longtime resident of uptown New Orleans, Germaine Weed was transferred during Hurricane Katrina from a nursing home in Jefferson Parish to the New Roads nursing home she now calls home.

“My hands are cold. They are cold all the time,” Weed said when asked what it feels like to be 108. “I’m alone in this world. Isn’t that terrible,” Weed said. “I don’t do much of anything. I sit around all day. I’m too old to have friends.”

Her hearing is not what it used to be. People have to yell to be heard. And, although past the century mark, she takes no medicine, her nurses said. None.

Weed lived alone until she was 101, when she fell and broke her hip. When she was 93, she walked alone from her Burdette Street home to a Mardi Gras parade on St. Charles Avenue. She was mugged on the way to the parade.

“They took her purse and knocked her down. She was OK, though,” LeVan said.

Weed and her husband, Frank Weed, who died at 75 about 30 years ago, never had children.

LeVan said her aunt loved to get up early, drink lots of coffee and read the newspaper from front to back each day.

She said Weed loved to watch the New Orleans Saints win and lose football games on Sundays as well as shop in the French Quarter and listen to symphonies performed by the city’s orchestra.

Weed is “unique,” Pointe Coupee Healthcare Activity Director Karen LeBlanc said.

“She does whatever she wants. Today, we tried to do her hair and you would have thought we were trying to kill her,” LeBlanc said, smiling.

Frances Lawson lives across the hall from Weed. “We are friends. She is a very independent woman and she doesn’t ask anybody for anything,” Lawson, 88, said.

Lawson, also from New Orleans, used to live at Jefferson Health Care in Jefferson Parish with Weed before both were transferred to Pointe Coupee Healthcare during the storm.

Weed also loves sweets. During her birthday party, she devoured two large slices of birthday cake — eating the white icing first — and then nibbled on chocolate candy.

When asked how she’s managed to live so long, Weed didn’t answer. No matter how loud and how often the question was asked, she just couldn’t hear it.

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Martha Eustatia Scarborough Grimmer, 93, of Houston, passed away on Tuesday, May 6, 2008, at a Houston hospital. On Friday, May 16, we will gather with her friends and family to celebrate her life beginning at 10 a.m. in the church hall of St. Paul's Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in New Roads, followed by a memorial service in the church beginning at noon.

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A Pointe Coupee Parish sheriff's deputy reported golf ball sized hail in Livonia. There have also been several reports of high winds in many areas. A tree was reported to have been blown down in front of Livonia High School.

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An investigation into a homemade bomb planted in front of a supermarket led to the arrest of a Livonia man, the Livionia Police Department reported Wednesday.

David Clemons, 46, was arrested Monday afternoon and booked at the Pointe Coupee Detention Center with manufacture and possession of a bomb, Police Chief Brad Joffrion said.

A Livonia police officer discovered the device in front of Soprano’s Supermarket at 3 a.m. Monday. The State Police bomb squad, and officers from the Livonia Police Department and Pointe Coupee Parish Sheriff’s Office, dismantled the device, which had a burned-out wick. Joffrion said Clemons gave no indication why the bomb as placed at the store.

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The Pointe Coupee Parish Police Jury and the city of New Roads administration on Tuesday night called for reaching an agreement on dividing up solid waste tax revenue generated by part of a parishwide sales tax.

New Roads Mayor Tommy Nelson said the city, which contracts for its own trash collection service, has been “shorted” more than $101,000 under the current arrangement. The city at this time receives as its share about $4,300 a month from the dedicated tax revenue the parish collects. Nelson said he is willing to ignore any past shortfall if the Police Jury agrees to adjust its payments to the city upward. But he threatened to file suit in federal court seeking retroactive payments if the matter is not settled.

The city had been served by parishwide solid waste collection services at the time voters approved a parishwide sales tax dedicating 20 percent of the revenue to funding solid waste disposal services in all areas of the parish.

Later, former Mayor Sylvester Muckelroy asked for and received Police Jury approval to allow the city to run its own solid waste operation and jurors voted to pay the city $2.35 per customer per month from the 20 percent sales tax revenues dedicated to solid waste disposal parishwide. Part of the problem now is the inability of parish and city governments to find a signed copy of a resolution establishing and defining the agreement, and the existence of multiple drafts of the agreement.

City officials said an unsigned copy of the agreement they have calls for the city to receive about 18 percent of the monthly sales tax income, more than twice what the city now receives. Police Jury President Melanie Bueche said the parish may decide to seek a state attorney general’s opinion as to whether it would be legal to give the city any of the tax money at all, since the ballot proposition said nothing about funding a city-run trash pickup service. After extended discussion, city and parish officials agreed to further negotiation on the matter.

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Police say that traffic along Hwy. 190 in Livonia is now back open. The roadway was closed because an explosive device was found at an area grocery store. Livonia Police Chief Brad Joffiron says the device was found at Soprano's grocery store around 3:00 a.m. and was safely removed. Hwy. 190 was closed just after 7:00 Tuesday morning for about 15 minutes while authorities secured the scene. Hazardous materials crews worked closely with Livonia police. According to Chief Joffrion, they were able to X-ray the device to determine how to secure the situation. Chief Joffrion confirms they do have a suspect in the case. If you have any information, call Crime Stoppers at 344-STOP.

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A funeral Mass will be celebrated at St. Mary's Catholic Church, New Roads, at noon on Tuesday, May 13, for Penelope B. "Penny" Hebert, 67, who died after a brief illness on Friday, May 9, 2008, at Rosewood Retirement Community in Lafayette.

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