By MOLLY DRYMAN

Staff Reporter

LAPLACE — St. John the Baptist Parish Council will welcome a new member as Council-at-Large Division B at its regular meeting on Tuesday.

Sherry McTopy will be sworn in Tuesday night to temporarily fill the place of her husband Joel McTopy, who passed away in August.

“It is an honor that the council respected me enough to offer this to me, ” she said. “I hope to continue to bringing the parish forward and to serving the people of St. John Parish.”

Other matters of discussion for the meeting will include Councilman Sean Roussel implementing rezoning notifications that will be posted on Channel 15 and on printed on bigger signs.

Parish President Nickie Monica will discuss the replacement of all the water meters after a proposal was given to the Parish from Johnson control. The Parish sampled 25 meters and found they were not calibrated because of age and now see the need to replace all of them to secure accurate readings, according to Monica.

Another topic of discussion will be the efforts of Councilman Cleveland Farlough to establish a 15 to 17 member advisory committee on hurricane preparedness and its aftermath. The committee will be made up of local citizens and will make recommendations to the council.

“We need to have a citizens committee to look at what happened and to evaluate it to see what we could have done better in the aftermath,” Farlough said. “We need to be able to address the situation before it happens. We don’t plan for things, we react to things. I would like to try to minimize the risks and be proactive.”