Though V.J. St. Pierre is the first parish president from the East Bank, the war veteran doesn’t believe that he faced any extra hurdles because he came from that side of the river.
“I would say a long time in the past there might have been a disadvantage, but now that the population is pretty even, I think someone on the East Bank has just as good of a shot,” St. Pierre said. “In my case, I just think people wanted change and I don’t think it was so much that I was from the East Bank. To be honest with you, I think I got a lot of votes because of my war experience.”
Instead, St. Pierre feels that many people just don’t want to run for government posts because of the extra scrutiny they face.
“In my opinion, the reason we don’t really get a lot of people to qualify is that a lot of people just don’t want to be scrutinized,” St. Pierre said. “You have to have pretty thick skin to run a parish race because everything you do is under a microscope.”
St. Pierre also said that a lot of people just don’t want to give up their business to run for a job that pays $80,000 a year.
“I sold my business and that’s why I decided to run,” St. Pierre said. “I just think you are constantly scrutinized for every little thing you do.”
West Bank connections sealed victory
But St. Pierre also had plenty of connections on the West Bank, which could have played a big part in his recent victory.
“I’ve been in business for 32 years and I did business on both sides of the bank,” St. Pierre said. “I was also a pretty good athlete in school and a lot of the connections I had on the West Bank were from guys I played sports against. Hahnville and Destrehan is a strong rivalry, but we were always good friends after the game.”
St. Pierre also feels that his involvement in organizations like the United Way of St. Charles and the Rotary Club helped him breach the natural barrier that the Mississippi River causes.
“I was active in the United Way a long time back and it was actually my idea to have the Bridge Run,” St. Pierre said. “I knew we had to do something different and I came up with the idea of running across the bridge. People told me it would never happen because it was a Federal highway, but I made a couple of calls and the next thing you know we are running across.”
That long ago example is just one of the many ways St. Pierre hopes to bridge the communities. He said that he knows that people on the East Bank think that those on the West Bank get everything, and vice versa. However, he hopes that his administration can change that.
“I’m trying to get away from that, so I’m not hiring people that just voted for me, but I’m trying to hire people that voted for other candidates,” St. Pierre said. “I’m trying to bring people together to show them that we’re not political. I just want to hire people who are the best the parish has to offer.”
St. Pierre not one-sided when it comes to banks
St. Pierre says that there are several projects he would like to see completed that would benefit both sides of the river. One of the projects that he hopes will do that is the proposed East Regional Library.
St. Pierre says that a new library would not only benefit residents on the East Bank, but would also serve an important purpose to those on the West Bank that live near the proposed location.
St. Pierre is also trying to revitalize I-310 and get a barrier for Airline Hwy.
“They revitalized the Airline Hwy. task force and we went to Washington, D.C. to present our wish list and that was one of the things on it,” St. Pierre said. “We want to come up with some kind of barrier that will prevent fatal accidents in the area.”
His administration also wants to improve the parks and make the East Bank a nicer place to live.
“I’d like to see our beautification committees kick in a little more on the East Bank and we are trying to find a nice piece of land somewhere in the St. Rose area for a park,” St. Pierre said. “My idea on parks is that we have 37 parks that we keep up right now. Instead of building more parks, we should take one nice park in each area and really develop that park into a quality park.”
But St. Pierre wants residents to know that he isn’t concentrated on one area or the other. He just wants what’s best for the parish as a whole.
“In my mind, it’s whatever is good for the parish,” he said. “We don’t decide to do something just because it’s on one side of the parish.”
Be the first to comment