The Andouille Festival is remaining a St. John the Baptist Parish organized and operated event, with no plans to cancel the fun before the 2019 extravaganza gets cranked up in late October.

Nearly an hour of passionate commentary this week by our elected leaders led to a near consensus among Parish Council members and administrators that the parish namesake event should remain in local government hands.

Larry Sorapuru Jr., division A councilman at large, caused a sensation in the community when he officially backed a motion to cancel the event, citing its continued financial loss.

To be clear, Sorapuru never said he wanted the festival shuttered; he just wanted it moved from St. John Government control to a nonprofit organization’s purview.

“We didn’t get elected to be Andouille Fest specialists,” Sorapuru told his fellow Council members. “We’ve got to give this community service. That’s where I stand. If that’s asking for too much, then I don’t need to go to Heaven.”

Earlier in the meeting, Sorapuru said the heavy use of the parish’s public works department and employees working the festival were a poor use of public government resources.

“I’ve got people climbing down my back day and night with texts and emails,” Sorapuru said. “I’ve got drainage issues to look at right now, road repair issues every day. I can’t sleep good at night knowing we’re spending $60,000 on employees working at the Andouille Fest.”

He bristled at the suggestion of his fellow Council members that his motivation for the cancelation agenda item was simply done for attention’s sake.

“I didn’t get paid to be popular or draw attention to anything,” Sorapuru said. “We have a responsibility. That’s where I am at. That’s the way it’s going to be. I’ve been on this Council for three years now and I’ve never been invited to one Andouille Fest meeting to have any input.”

His passion and conviction didn’t garner support, as his motion was not seconded by any of the other seven Council members present on Tuesday’s dais.

In fact, many of his colleagues were equally as passionate, stating the quality-of-life and auxiliary economic benefits from the festival justified the parish expenditure.

According to numbers provided by Sorapuru, the festival lost $172,400 in 2017 and $198,963 in 2018.

Andouille Festival proponents all seemed to agree those numbers were unnecessarily negative and more must be done to create a balanced event. However, none of those who spoke in favor of the Festival this week said what an acceptable profit/loss was, so it’s unclear what baseline administrators are going to work from in putting together the 2019 event.

Considering the election cycle approaching and widespread attention this issue has drawn in St. John the Baptist Parish, now seems like a great time to publicly establish an operating budget goal, clearly outlining what is considered an acceptable loss.

If that information can be combined with sales tax revenue information generated around the festival and hotel occupancy numbers from years past, our community will truly have a set of measurables to quantify this wonderful event’s impact and monitor its future performance.

Stephen Hemelt is publisher and editor of L’OBSERVATEUR. He can be reached at 985-652-9545 or stephen.hemelt@lobservateur.com.