FERRIDAY — It won’t be long before Ferriday has a neighborhood watch program.

At Tuesday night’s aldermen meeting, the aldermen asked Police Chief Kenneth Hedrick to find out what the sheriff’s office does for neighborhood watches in the parish and try to model something after that.

The request came after Alderman Johnny Brown said that there needs to be some kind of crime prevention or reporting program to curtail things like fired shots and juveniles standing in the street and refusing to get out of the way for traffic.

“There are just too many things that are happening,” Brown said.

The program won’t cost anything, but citizens need to be mobilized for it, Board Attorney Anna Ferguson said.

“All they would have to do is pick up their telephone and call,” she said. “All it would take is a little organization.”

The board also asked Ferguson to look into what the town can do about taking emergency action against abandoned properties that might represent health risks.

Alderman Gloria Lloyd was especially concerned about a property on 10th Street.

“I can sit in my kitchen and look out and I can see rats running out of (the house),” she said. “I came home one night from work and there was the biggest rat sitting under my porch. No one on this board would want that in their neighborhood.”

Neighbors have also complained to her about snakes coming off of the property, Lloyd said.

The 10th Street property is an especially tricky case because it is currently under a legal succession because the owner died, Ferguson said.

Under normal circumstances, a municipality cannot tear down a property that is being reviewed by the courts.

In other business, the board voted to set the fee for tapping into a town sewage line to be whatever the regional average for similar fees is.

The current fee for tapping into the line is $350.

“In the Woodland area, we are fixing to tie in three houses (to the sewage line).But since there weren’t any outlets put in it is going to cost us $11,000, but we are only going to get $1,050,” Mayor Glen McGlothin said.

Once the new fee is enacted, the cost will be passed on to the homeowners in their initial costs from contactors, McGlothin said.

In other news:

4The board opened and took under advisement bids for waste removal, an aerator for the oxidation pond and for repair of the levee of the oxidation pond.

4The board voted to open bidding for either the sale or lease of the town’s abandoned oxidation pond and for a new backhoe.

4The board voted to accept a donation of the former Sevier Hotel, located in the downtown area, from George Comer.

The building does have some environmental issues — it has asbestos inside — but the town will pursue grants to have that removed, McGlothin said.

Lloyd voted against accepting the property.

4The board passed a resolution supporting the town’s application to the Preserve America program, through which the town would be able to apply for certain grants.