Town of Delcambre still battling company over replacing water valves

DELCAMBRE — The town of Delcambre will make a counter proposal to Coburn’s offer to replace water valves that proved to be defective, the town’s Board of Aldermen decided at Monday’s regular meeting.
Coburn’s offered to replace the valves, Mayor Pam Blakely said, but Alderwoman Sarah Trahan said she didn’t think the town should have to pay to replace the valves after it had already paid to put the valves in to begin with.
The city had replaced the valves as part of improvements to the water system. Within a year, the town had to replace 170 of them, and after the big freeze this past winter, many residents found that turning off the water valves didn’t stop the flow of water.
Since then the town has sought to get the supplier, through the contractor the town had paid to do the work, to replace the valves. One issue was a different valve apparently was substituted for one that the town’s engineers had approved. A similar valve, but one that the mayor thinks is better than the previous one, will be used to replace the valves.
“It has been an ongoing problem,” Blakely said.
Town attorney Gabe Duhon will make a counter-offer to pay a fee to the city workers to replace the valves, the mayor said.
“We don’t feel it’s fair to our people that we already paid for the valves, that we shouldn’t have to pay to redo them,” Blakely said. “We don’t feel it’s our fault that the valves are faulty.”
Blakely said the town also approved the purchase of a police vehicle.
“This is going to be our third truck,” she said.
The board held a special meeting to approve a revision of the manufactured homes ordinance to say that trailers no older than 15 years can be brought into the city limits. The board voted unanimously to approve the change.
The board also approved a boat poker run scheduled for May 27 as a fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Hospital.
In other business, the board addressed the issue of houses to be torn down or cleaned up after sending certified letters to the owners of those properties telling them of the need for improvements.
“Some places are hazardous,” the mayor said. “We have some abandoned houses, and we have some homeless people that want to go in abandoned houses, and we don’t want any of that here.”
The board also:
• heard an update about an intergovernmental agreement being written for property to be transferred from the Iberia Parish School Board to the town to be used for a park.
• approved a revised budget as originally introduced at the March meeting.
• and revised its holiday schedule to remove Good Friday, the day after Christmas, the day after Thanksgiving and the day after New Year’s Day from the schedule, and adding June 19th and Christmas Eve, and a half-day on New Year’ Eve to the schedule.