ST. MARTIN PARISH — Following a recent Parish Council meeting, a key topic of discussion was the potential annexation of a portion of Lower St. Martin Parish into St. Mary Parish.
To read our first story on this topic click here
St. Martin Parish President Pete Delcambre provided clarification on the ongoing discussions. During the St. Mary Parish Council meeting last Wednesday, St. Mary Parish President Sam Jones shared that he had been approached by President Delcambre regarding the idea of annexing Lower St. Martin Parish. A meeting was held on Tuesday to further explore this proposal. Delcambre noted that the discussion was still in its early stages, stating, “I said last night in this meeting that this was just exploratory, getting information.”
for more than 150 years upper st. martin parish and lower st.martin parish have been separated due to a surveying error meaning, when areas such as stevensville or belle river in lower st. martin parish need local services, workers have to travel up to an hour to reach them, while st. mary parish is only minutes away.
“It’s driven by Stevensville and Belle River residents and Stevensville and Belle River business associates, and so forth. They would be the ones in the event that they would want to continue the progression or even continue, and without them, if the answer is no, it’s no,” Delcambre stated.
Delcambre made it clear that he will only revisit the annexation idea if the residents of Stevensville and Belle River express interest. He emphasized, “I will only revisit this if the people of Stevensville and Belle River want to revisit this. If they do not revisit, all things holding same, this will not be revisited by me.”
The idea of annexation gained traction for Delcambre after witnessing the damage caused by Hurricane Francine to Lower St. Martin Parish. Since Upper St. Martin Parish did not experience significant damage, the parish was unable to secure FEMA funding. Delcambre explained that the idea of annexation however would involve many moving parts, “This is an unprecedented event. You know, you have school districts, you have business, you have tax rolls...this is unprecedented in its magnitude and nowhere near even coming to the people or anywhere along those lines.”
Delcambre remains firm that any action will only occur if the people of Lower St. Martin Parish express a desire for annexation. “It is the people in Lower St. Martin Parish who will ultimately dictate if we even look into the annexation as a possibility,” he added.
Delcambre also clarified his approach to the idea, explaining that community feedback would be the most important step. “If the people of Stevensville and Belle River would want to approach this,my vision was that in the event that there was a legal ability to do it, I would have reached out to these people. I would have had town meetings. I have very good rapport with a number of businesspersons down there, a number of residents down there, individually going to the people and asking, ‘What do y’all think?’ And it had not even gotten to that point.”
In reference to his conversations with Sam Jones, Delcambre added, “In fact, I made mention to Mr. Jones the day after all of this went down, that there are three entities involved in this: St. Mary Parish, the Parish of St. Martin, and myself as the Parish President/my council. But I said the main participant that had not been involved was the people of Stevensville and Belle River.”
For now, the future of annexation rests with the residents of Lower St. Martin Parish. Delcambre stressed that their voices will be the deciding factor in whether or not the annexation discussion moves forward.
To see the full St.Martin Parish Council meeting click here
