Tax to build Bayou Cane fire station fails

Voters in the Bayou Cane Fire Protection District outside Houma resoundingly defeated a 2-mill districtwide property tax increase Saturday to fund a new fire station along Louisiana Highway 311 and to buy new equipment.

Ninety percent of the 1,593 residents of the district casting a ballot voted against the measure. Only two of the district’s 28 precincts voted in favor. Absentee ballots ran 81 percent against.

Voters in Lafourche Parish also decidedly rejected a charter amendment prohibiting parish council members from issuing directives and orders to members of the executive branch. Sixty-four percent voted against the amendment.

Tax measures in Lafourche fared better. A 2-mill parishwide property tax increase to fund the Lafourche Council on Aging passed with 52 percent of the vote. Another parishwide property tax – a 5.41 mill renewal – to maintain public facilities was approved with 53 percent of the vote.

A 5-mill property tax renewal for road and bridge improvements outside of Thibodaux, Lockport and Golden Meadow was passed with 54 percent of the vote.

Voters in wards 1,2,3,4, 7 and 10 in St. Mary Parish overwhelmingly approved a three-tenths percent sales tax renewal to fund police and fire operations in Franklin, and public works in Baldwin and the rest of the parish.

The vote was 63 percent in favor.