Allen Parish - Community Involvement

Executive Summary
The Allen Parish Long-Term Recovery Planning team’s role is to provide technical assistance to and act as a scribe for the community in writing its Recovery Plan. A council of 95 people was established and elected William Chaumont of the Louisiana Rural Water Association as Chair, Lyndon Livingston of the Allen Action Agency as Co-Chair and Adagria Haddock of the Allen Parish Tourist Commission as the Secretary. The council includes a wide range of people from government, business and non-profit organizations from all parts of the parish. The Council is divided into eight topical work groups which are developing the plan. Team members have also interviewed more than a 100 people who are not on the planning teams.

During the Governmental Workshop, one of the key issues identified as hindering the parish’s ability to respond to the disaster was a lack of communication and coordination. Regular opportunities did not exist for officials at all levels from various jurisdictions to meet, discuss common issues and share best practices. The extensive work group organization of the parish recovery planning process, in addition to producing quality results with broad support, has provided opportunities for this type of interaction. Implementation of the specific projects will make this parish less vulnerable to storm damage, better prepared to assist future storm evacuees from the east, west and south, and better able to effectively respond during and in the days following a major storm. The improved communication and cooperation may have even more far reaching impacts.

Stakeholders: To date, team members have had discussions with more than 200 stakeholders throughout the parish, including:

• 15 local elected officials (parish president, mayors, police chiefs, assessor, etc.)
• 30 local government staff (fire chiefs, maintenance directors, emergency operations director, etc.)
• Five Louisiana Planning and Development District staff (IMCAL, etc.)
• 10 local planning groups and recovery groups
• 30 state and local non-profits and community groups (including housing organizations, service organizations, hospitals, ambulance services, etc.)
• 10 Chamber of Commerce and other business organization representatives
• 25 leaders of local businesses that help drive the economy
• 10 lead providers of education and health and human services
• Many members of the general public

Local Committee / Task Force A Council was established on Jan.12, 2006. The Council is divided into eight work groups and each is assigned an LTCR staff person who serves as technical adviser and secretary. The capacity work group is responsible for the parish vision, review and comment on material produced by the other work groups, and assessment of the capacity to implement proposed projects. The other work groups are responsible for developing the issues, goals and projects in their topical area. All work groups meet weekly for a minimum of one hour.

• Government and Organization Capacity Work Group: 10 members including four mayors and one mayor’s representative, a Police Juror, a Sheriff’s representative, two Chamber of Commerce Presidents and the Allen Action Executive Director. Meetings are chaired by the Mayor of Oberlin.
• Economic Development: 17 members, primarily local business owners and state and local economic development officials. LTCR team member facilitates the meetings with assistance of two local citizens.
• Housing and Community Design: 11 members, primarily housing authority and non-profit organization representatives, and elected officials. Meetings are chaired by a local realtor.
• Transportation and Buildings: Eight members, primarily local government maintenance department staff. Meetings are chaired by a contracted town engineer.
• Utilities: 19 members, primarily town and district employees, and utility company employees. Meetings are chaired by the representative from the East Allen Water District.
• Public Health and Safety: 13 members, primarily police chiefs, fire chiefs, and ambulance and medical representatives. Meetings are chaired by the Reeves Fire Chief.
• Education and Family Services: Seven members, primarily educators and non-profit organization staff. Meetings are chaired by a school principal.

Input Events

• Governmental Workshop (Dec. 14, 2005) at the Allen Parish Civic Center. The 13 community officials and government leaders who attended brainstormed issues in each of the five areas of recovery, barriers to recovery, showstoppers, community treasures and partnerships. Many comments in each area were collected and tabulated for use in developing the recovery plan.
• Louisiana Recovery Planning Day (LRPD) Open House (Jan. 21, 2006) was held at the Storefront in Oberlin. Eighty people, mainly from the Oberlin area, expressed opinions in many of the same areas covered at the Governmental Workshop event.
• Community Input Meetings were held to receive information, similar to that collected during the open house, from people in other parts of the parish. On Feb. 7, ten people attended a meeting in Reeves and four attended a meeting in Oakdale. On Feb. 9, five people attended a meeting in Elizabeth and 32 attended a meeting in Kinder.

Day-to-day interaction with local decision-makers, general public
Presentations have been made at two Police Jury meetings and at a council meeting in each of the communities. Staff typically attend most Police Jury and council meetings. In addition, staff regularly attend Chamber of Commerce and service organization meetings, providing updates and receiving input on the LTCR planning program. The storefront is located at a highly visible and easily accessible location on the main street of the parish seat. Elected officials from throughout the parish frequently drop in to the storefront as do many members of the general public. First-time visitors are always asked to sign our guest book and fill out a questionnaire similar to that used for the Government workshop meetings. Through the Capacity Work Group meetings, the LTCR parish lead meets with parish elected administrators at least once per week.

Local leadership of implementation All phases of the process to-date have had local leadership. The work groups are currently identifying implementation lead organizations and champions for their projects. At a full council meeting the first week in March, individuals will be selected to lead the process during implementation and to be stewards of the planning team’s material.

View the Parish Summary Page from Louisiana Planning Day (PDF)