At the last Council meeting, Councilperson Cusimano took a swipe at the Sheriff over traffic enforcement concerns.
Cusimano lamented that the number one complaint that she gets from her constituents is the problem with people speeding. Cusimano’s comments reflect a growing dissatisfaction, especially among those in Arabi, with the Sheriff’s inability to ramp up traffic enforcement in any meaningful way.
Cusimano stated that “other than ticketing these people and enforcing the tickets and making them pay the fines” there doesn’t seem to be any other answers to this problem on the table. Cusimano’s point is hard to argue with.
Cusimano further stated “that’s not something [writing tickets] for us [the Council] to do, that’s something for the Sheriff’s office to do, but the Sheriff … they don’t have enough people…” Again, Cusimano’s point is hard to argue with.
Take a listen for yourself:
Councilman Moran later chimed in extending an offer of help to the Sheriff. Moran expressed his openness to providing additional funding to the Sheriff to assist with traffic enforcement by increasing the maximum fines applicable to speeding tickets.
It was unclear whether Moran’s offer was a passive-aggressive jab at the Sheriff or whether Moran was simply unaware of the recent millage passed for this very purpose.
Take a listen for yourself:
The voters had just recently approved a new tax millage for the Sheriff’s Office on December 10, 2022 that was estimated to provide an additional estimated $4,728,696 per year for “continued and expanded law enforcement services to the citizens of St. Bernard Parish.” With that type of extra money available for enforcement, it is difficult to understand how the Sheriff’s Office doesn’t already have the funds to increase traffic enforcement.
Cusimano and Moran both have an interest in increasing traffic enforcement. The first step might be getting a full understanding of where the additional $4,728,696 per year is being spent and then hopefully publishing this information to the community.
Cusimano and Moran seem to have their finger on the pulse of the community when it comes to the need for additional traffic enforcement. There is a growing sense in the community that the Sheriff has been unable due to staffing issues or unwilling because of pushback to ramp up traffic enforcement in any noticeable way despite these additional funds.
