Town hall delayed until June 28
Published 7:13 am Wednesday, June 15, 2016
The third informal town hall meeting to discuss code violations has been moved from this week to Tuesday, June 28.
As the first two were, this meeting will be held at Bogalusa City Hall and kick off at 5:30 p.m.
Bogalusa attorney Bill Arata, who has been organizing the meetings, said he hopes residents will come with some suggestions about how to better cleanup the neighborhoods in Bogalusa.
Arata said he expects the city to better enforce existing ordinances pertaining to home and lawn conditions, but he said he’d also like residents to come with ideas that could inspire pride in the community.
Specifically, he said he didn’t plan on targeting homes that were a bit shabby, but rather homes that were abandoned.
“Or, if someone is living there, they probably live with cats and dogs up the wazoo,” he said.
However, Arata said he expects the issue will require more than a single town meeting to correct.
“Quite honestly, I don’t know how you fix what’s going on here overnight,” he said.
Arata said a cleaner, better-kept city with well-kept homes and businesses could lead to greater happiness, pride and growth.
“Right now in Bogalusa, need to start having a little pride,” he said. “I have heard that Bogalusa could potentially be a retirement community one day.
“Well OK, great, but you go to any retirement community on earth and one do you see? You see clean neighborhoods. You see people who, if they see trash, they pick it up. They certainly don’t drop it.”