Concordia Parish Health Unit receiving $200K in upgrades

Published 12:02 am Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Vidalia — The Concordia Parish Police Jury approved a resolution to enter into an agreement with the State of Louisiana to accept nearly $200,000 for improvements to the Concordia Parish Health Unit.

The health unit is located on Mickey Gilley Drive in Ferriday and provides basic health services, such as family planning, immunization and sexually transmitted disease testing.

Renovations were completed earlier this year to close reception areas in the health unit in order to be in compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

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Further renovations include overlaying the parking lot and fixing general maintenance issues, jury president Melvin Ferrington said.

The board also approved a proposal with Jordan, Kaiser & Sessions for oversight of the work, which Ferrington said would be bid out according to state law in the coming months.

“They do a lot of good work out there, and we have some money from the state we can use to do some more work out there,” Ferrington said.

In other news from the meeting:

• Concordia Parish’s registrar of voters Golda Ensminger presented the board with information regarding a state mandated relocation of precinct voting locations.

Ensminger told the board the state requires voting locations to be consolidated when fewer than 300 voters cast ballots there.

Ensminger said the parish has two locations — District 5-2 and 5-2B — that meet that criteria and need to be relocated.

Ferrington said he planned to contact Oliver Schulz of Oliver Schulz and Associates and engineering services, which the parish has contracted with to make its reapportionment plan, today to begin the process of relocating the locations.

The parish has until May 14 — 60 days from when they received notice from the state — to have a plan in place ahead of a Nov. 4 open primary and congressional election.

• The jury will host a public hearing regarding an ordinance to post no parking signs on all public roads inside of subdivisions throughout the parish.

The public hearing will be hosted at the jury’s next meeting April 28.

• The jury voted to change its second monthly meeting in May from May 26, which is Memorial Day, to May 27.