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photo by Ben Hillyer
Residents crowd the board room of the Jonesville Town Hall Monday afternoon to listen to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. Jindal was in town to present a check for $2.8 million as part of his Louisiana working tour.
Governor comes bearing gifts
Published Tuesday, August 18, 2009
JONESVILLE — Gov. Bobby Jindal presented at $2.8 million check for disaster recovery and hazard mitigation during a Town Hall meeting in Jonesville Monday.
The meeting in Jonesville was a part of the governor’s larger Louisiana working tour, and part of his reason for stopping in Jonesville was to present the check for $2,277,264 in community development block grant funds and $569,423 in hazard mitigation funds to Catahoula Parish officials.
The CDBG funds were for recovery efforts from Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, and Jindal said his goal was to avoid creating the bureaucratic nightmare that followed Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
“You know how to best rebuild your communities,” he said.
The state is preparing for future major storms by doing things like equipping hospitals with generators, and Jindal said the hazard mitigation funds are for similar projects at a local level.
“We want to ensure you have those dollars as well,” he said.
The governor also addressed efforts the state has made to help foster job creation in an effort to keep graduating students from leaving Louisiana.
“We have to stop exporting our greatest assets,” Jindal said. “Our greatest exports for years have been our sons and daughters.”
To do that, he said his administration has worked to push through ethics reforms and remove certain taxes.
“Louisiana was one of the few states that would tax businesses when they bought new equipment,” he said. “Do you know how crazy that is?
“It was our greatest gift to our neighboring states.”
He also spoke of improving customized training programs, funding community and technical colleges and creating the high school career diploma as part of the solution.
“If we are honest, we will admit every student will not go to a four-year school,” he said.
“Every student needs to be exposed to technical education or job skills.”
Louisiana has an abundance of resources, from rivers to highways and more railroads than most states, but Jindal said on their own those resources aren’t good enough anymore.
“We used to compete based on our resources, now we must compete based on having the most skilled workforce,” he said. “Seventy percent of employers considering expanding or relocating to Louisiana tell us that finding skilled workers (are) their top one or two concerns.”
The ultimate goal of all workforce development is to make Louisiana a place where a family can settle and earn a living without having to leave, he said.
“My dream is to have the governors of Texas and Mississippi calling me crying about losing children to Louisiana,” he said.
After the governor’s speech, he met with constituents, and the Rev. Dave Mays said he was glad to have a chance to be able to meet the governor and ask him a question.
“I think it makes a lot of difference when someone like the governor comes,” said Violet Holly, who was also present. “We need these people to come, because a lot of them don’t even know where (Catahoula Parish) is.”
Jonesville Mayor Hiram Evans said that is exactly the point of having town hall meetings.
“The reason you have public meetings is to have public input in the government and to tell the government what we need,” he said.
Comments
Posted by juju (anonymous) on August 18, 2009 at 12:35 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Jindal for President, 2012!
Posted by DuncanPark (anonymous) on August 18, 2009 at 12:37 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Gee! You don't suppose that money is part of the evil/socialist stimulus package, do you? Couldn't be. Gov Loony Tunes turned that down. Right? Oh, I see. Now he's gonna take credit for it! That figures.
Posted by mrbobo (anonymous) on August 18, 2009 at 1:03 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I'd vote for jindal if he ran against obama. O'course i'd vote for elmer fudd if he ran against obama.
Posted by gerandall58 (Greg Randall) on August 18, 2009 at 6:54 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Jindal is a very intelligent man , you can tell that when he speaks , I had the opportunity to talk to him at church once and he was very concerned for La. as well as our country. And not ashamed to pray for others , I saw him take the hand of a very distraught lady and pray with her as she cried , and publicly proclaim from the pulpit " as for me and my house we will serve the Lord " yea I would vote for him over Barak Hussein Obama
Posted by natchezsouthside (anonymous) on August 18, 2009 at 7:55 a.m. (Suggest removal)
He's just another Republican't spend-a-holic. Handing out the taxpayer's money with abandon.
So much for fiscal conservatism!
How about cutting social welfare spending Piyush? Where is the cutting off of public housing and welfare Piyush?
Just like he did in Congress, Piyush loves to waste tax dollars.
Oh, and how about another Rebuttle there Piyush? You're nothing but an empty suit. (The country is STILL laughing at you!)
Posted by Nationwide (anonymous) on August 18, 2009 at 8:36 a.m. (Suggest removal)
LOL, I still remember when Jindal and the Republican Party made a chump of themselves responding to Obama’s State of the Union speech. Obama will eat Jindal alive in a live debate. Obama has been president for 8 months and things have already started to shape. The unchanged people that voted Bush in for 2 terms are the same people that want Obama out already. GO Figure!!!
Posted by readingthepaper (anonymous) on August 18, 2009 at 8:42 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Things are starting to shape up? I voted for Obama but see no shaping up in my part of the world,or in my pocketbook, or in my town.
Posted by time4change (anonymous) on August 18, 2009 at 9:22 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Gee and I remember when yall were calling Jindal a foreigner, lol, and now you want to elect him presidente. hmmm, I wonder how you would feel about him if he were a democrat? Neither Obama nor Jindal have had enough time to do much in the way of change. Give them both a couple of years.
Posted by Yeahuhuh (anonymous) on August 18, 2009 at 10:06 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Serving the Ol' Fashioned Way -- passing out money. And telling people that they can best spend it for themselves.
The Republican blend of spending like Democrats and lying like Republicans is designed to appeal to a slice of America that is not very good learners.
They target good people whose worldview is simple and self-shifted. The sort of folks who are so in love with simple wisdoms they forget to notice what happens every time a Republican is elected -- hard times -- and had rather listen to simple wisdoms.
Jindal's failure at public speaking probably doomed him nationally. 90% of what a president does involves speaking in order to motivate folks. The 30% of folks who didn't notice that about Jindal so far are probably the same 30% that would never vote for anything but a Republican and could never learn their way out of their position no matter what happened.
Posted by DuncanPark (anonymous) on August 18, 2009 at 10:15 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Sarah & Bobby in 2012! Perfect.
Posted by Nationwide (anonymous) on August 18, 2009 at 10:39 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Obama’s supporters display many great traits such as temperament and perseverance.
Posted by tenzing (anonymous) on August 18, 2009 at 11:55 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Truly, the dread Socialism has finally come to Jonesville.
Posted by Teach4Peace (anonymous) on August 18, 2009 at 5:18 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Man DuncanPark, you beat me to it. I sure hope that money wasn't from an evil government entity. Must receive pure, clean, non-government funds.
Posted by judy9205 (anonymous) on August 19, 2009 at 4:01 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Well I like Governor Bobby Jindal and I like Elmer Fudd. That was funny Mr. BoBo but Elmer Fudd would not make a good president. Governor Bobby Jindal would be good for the United States of America. I've been to the Baton Rouge Capitol down in the basement where they get WILD & wooly and it's standing room only and TEMPERS are hot, hot, hot!
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