Jan. 11, 2016, the inauguration of the governing authority, marked a new beginning in St. John the Baptist Parish. It was a great day filled with events and activities that highlighted the unlimited potential of everything that is new and promising about the future of our parish.

It’s a new year, with new parish leaders and a new administration. Although I’m the same person that was elected four years ago and the same person that was parish president yesterday, last week, last month and last year, this is a new administration.

It’s new because of the new opportunities we face as a parish, the new relationships we will foster and the many NEW things that we can accomplish by working together.

As elected officials, we are only one small part of a much larger whole. We all have the desire to help citizens, and in our new positions we have the opportunity to help our entire community.

What happens in our parish affects us all. It doesn’t matter how great or small the challenges or what each member faces in their districts, this administration faces them too. What one citizen faces — we all face.

Well known lecturer, author and political activist Helen A. Keller said it best. She said, “Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.”

As we look back over the past 5 1/2 years, we’ve had many successes and we are proud of the work done toward that end. But this ‘new’ administration has some more very specific goals to achieve.

I’m proud to say that for the most recent reporting period, there was a 63 percent increase in building permits. Working together, St. John will continue to attract new economic opportunities and good jobs for our citizens, while taking every step we can to help the existing businesses in our parish. After all, they’ve already done the hard work of locating here, hiring locally and paying taxes.

A top priority is continuing to advocate for the construction of a hurricane protection levee. After more than 40 years of inaction, I am pleased to say that construction of the levee has finally been approved by the Corps of Engineers and we will not rest until construction is complete.

We will continue to make improvements to our water and wastewater systems that have plagued the parish for decades. Millions of dollars have been invested in major upgrades to our drinking and wastewater systems.

While we remain steadfast in the great progress we have made, we will continue to invest in our infrastructure to serve our citizens and enhance their quality of life for years to come.

More than $53 million in infrastructure improvements have been completed with another $73 million in progress today. Our parks are vastly improved from just a few years ago with $4.5 million in improvements completed and another $2.3 million in recreational projects under construction and nearly finished.

Senior citizens are benefitting from improved facilities and services, community centers have been remodeled, improved and enhanced. Our libraries are stronger, the animal shelter is vastly improved and public safety continues to be enhanced with new fire stations, state-of-the-art communication systems and enhanced procedures from the Office of Emergency Preparedness.

Clearly, things are headed in the right direction in St. John Parish.

I remain committed to serving our community and improving the quality of life for all citizens and I ask, challenge, pray and hope that we will all join together to build an even greater St. John the Baptist Parish.

Natalie Robottom is St. John the Baptist Parish President. She can be reached at
communications@sjbparish.com.