Group leaves welcoming sign in Mandeville
Thursday, July 08, 2004
Kadee Krieger
Welcome. It's a simple word that means to give a cordial greeting or hospitable reception to someone who has just arrived.
And since Mandeville is a gateway to the north shore, visitors should immediately feel welcomed, and they should see a welcome sign as soon as they enter the city. That's the opinion of Peg Usner, the chairwoman of Keep Mandeville Beautiful's Beautification Committee. Usner and committee member Carla Buchholz, both former members of the now-defunct Community Appearance Commission, are working with landscape architect and former Covington Mayor Keith Villere in designing welcome signs for Mandeville. With Villere's help, Keep Mandeville Beautiful has been awarded a grant for more than $100,000 to create the signs. The grant is through the transportation enhancement program of the State Highway Department. Four signs will be placed along the perimeter of the city: at the foot of the Causeway, on Louisiana 22 near the entrance to Beau Chene, at the Northlake Nature Center on U.S. 190 east and near where U.S. 190 meets Louisiana 22. Usner said the signs will be surrounded with plants that will reflect the Mandeville area. "There are certainly a lot of projects that we want to do, but our main goal is to beautify the main arteries through the city," Usner said. "That means not just signs, but to extend it to trees and plants. To learn more about how the city can make the best use of planting trees, Usner, Buchholz and Villere on June 25 attended the Louisiana Urban Forestry Council's annual conference, "Trees . . . Beyond Beautification." Usner said the group learned about how trees are good for both the environment and the economy. "In the canopy of the trees, water is collected and absorbed. If there is not a good tree canopy, gallons will need to drain from ground," Usner said. But she said trees help cities save money on drainage by naturally helping water to drain. She said speakers at the conference heralded the virtues of trees, noting that areas with trees are cooler, trees increase property values and reduce energy costs. "If you position an air-conditioning unit near a tree, it takes less energy to cool the house," Usner said she learned at the conference. Usner said the more trees that get cut down, the longer it will take for the community to regain the benefits that the tree provided. Usner said she has been building ideas on ways to beautify the city since she first began serving on the Community Appearance Commission about three years ago. One of her plans is for a butterfly garden to meander around City Hall. But planting more trees around the city is paramount, she said. After all, a tree with its leafy limbs outstretched is another way for the city to say, "welcome." http://www.asla.org/meetings/am2003/specialevents/premtgenhance.htm SLU News -- Florida Parishes River Seminar Fort Worth Environmental Management Environmental Youth Award Environmental Protection Agency -
Students for Environmental ... Covington: Living History & Covington's Founding Families LSU Model Landscape Ordinance Community Assistance Honey Island Group, Sierra Club -- Water-Quality Seminar New Partners for Smart Growth Conference Wraps Up in
New Orleans ASLA: 2002 Fellows-Elect
National New Partners for Smart Growth Conference Wraps Up in New Orleans The failure of most of American planning efforts over the past 30 years has instilled a public fear of development -- pursued at a rate faster than population growth, with no concern for local character, congestion and overall livability -- said nationally known New Urbanist Andres Duany in his keynote speech at the 2nd Annual New Partners for Smart Growth Conference in New Orleans, LA, stressing, ''It's gotten so bad that people like to protect a potato field from development because they'd rather have that than a shopping center,'' but seeing solutions in well-explained, locally tailored and skillfully implemented policies of smart growth. Such great cities of the 1920s as Coral Gables, FL; Beverly Hills, CA; Shaker Heights, OH; and Forest Hills, NY, created a strong sense of community and improved adjacent areas, Duany said. Pointing out that smart growth policies of mass transit, street grids and walkability could reinvigorate not only urban cores but entire cities and that polls by his developer clients found between 30 and 60 percent of respondents willing to live in ''smart growth' communities if they could, he called for incentives for developers to help them satisfy this scarcely tapped market. That is still difficult, said earlier New Orleans Regional Planning Commission planning director Jim Harvey, noting that in the fast-growing St. Tammany Parish on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain ''the words 'smart growth' became a kind of demon.'' Nevertheless, he is optimistic that politicians will recognize the economic benefits of smart growth, especially the much lower costs of urban redevelopment in comparison with the costly construction of roads and water and sewer lines for fringe subdivisions. But one Tammany smart growth advocate, Covington Mayor Keith Villere, who often defines suburbia as places ''where they tear out the trees and then name the streets after them,'' remains concerned that the parish's New Directions 2025 planning effort ''is just going to pretty up sprawl'' rather than seek fundamental land use changes. And with New Orleans Mayor Bobby Simpson's Smart Growth Task Force still trying to define the term, North Carolina's Charlotte Republican Mayor Patrick McCrory told the audience he usually skips the definition and instead uses pictures of historic neighborhoods with nice streets, sidewalks and parks to illustrate ''good growth'' -- places ''where you bring visitors'' -- and pictures of strip malls, fast-food franchises and ragged infrastructure to illustrate ''crap.'' Politicians, he said, should look critically on new road and subdivision projects, then ask themselves, ''Fifty years from now, will it make sense?'' 2/2/2003 Click here or here to view the source publication.
Ex-Covington mayor recalls his 3 terms Villere says he wants to try something new Wednesday July 09, 2003 By Charlie Chapple One week shy of his 50th birthday, former Covington Mayor Keith Villere is facing life without politics after three terms as the city's chief executive. "You never say never," Villere said. "But I don't expect to be back in politics. Mayor was the only elected office I've ever sought. And not a lot of mayors or former mayors move on to other political offices. You never rule out another elected office, but I don't see anything opening down the road." His 12-year stint as mayor was the longest that Villere has held any one job. And the former St. Tammany Parish planner and landscape architect said he's ready to tackle something new. Although Villere couldn't run for re-election because of term limits, he said he wouldn't have sought another term even if he could have. "I had enough," he said. "I was ready to move on to something else." Villere, who officially stepped down as mayor Monday when Mayor Candace Watkins and a new City Council were sworn into office, is launching Villere Town Planning Associates, a consulting business for developers and local governments. "Hopefully, I'll do work for private developers and government clients like small towns throughout the Southeast," he said. "I'd like to do consulting work with towns on how to remake their downtowns and compete with big box stores. And how to make downtowns entertainment centers." "I'll work out of my home first and then probably move into an office in downtown Covington."
'A better place' As he prepares to pursue a new profession, Villere said he looks back with pride on the city's accomplishments during his tenure. "I don't think anyone can look at the city and say Covington is not a better place than it was 12 years ago," he said. Villere points proudly to the successful city effort that secured state and federal money to buy the old First Baptist Church of Covington and turn it into the Greater Covington Center, an education, arts and events facility. The effort to secure money for the center "was driven by Villere," said City Councilman Matt Faust, who began serving on the council when Villere took office. "We helped, but he drove the train." Other notable city accomplishments under Villere's leadership include: -- The hiring of the city's first full-time planner and the revamping of developmental and zoning codes to preserve the city's character. -- Getting voters to approve tax propositions for fire department improvements and improvements to the water and sewer systems. -- The hiring of the first black department heads in former recreation director Bo Elzy in 1991 and former planning director Nahketah Bagby in 1994. Villere fought bitterly with the City Council in 1991 and 1992 to get Elzy confirmed as a department head. But he fired Elzy 10 years later, "and that's all people remember," Villere said. -- The securing of many state and federal grants, totaling more than $7.5 million, for projects including water, sewer and street improvements, and sidewalks and parks. -- The permanent closure of the old city landfill, north of Covington, in an environmentally safe manner. -- Winning praise for the city's fiscal accountability, after prior audits had ripped city finances and bookkeeping. -- Heading a court fight with parish government to keep Covington as the parish seat. The bitter dispute led to an agreement in which the old Police Jury promised to keep courthouse agencies in the city and try to build a courthouse in the city's downtown. That effort succeeded in 1998, when voters approved a quarter-cent parishwide sales tax that resulted in the new $64 million courthouse, which opened in May. Constant battles Villere said there were disappointments during his term. The biggest, he said, was his inability to "give the black community of Covington a little bit of hope and more opportunity. Although we got several grants to improve water, streets and sewerage in parts of the community, there's still a lot of work that needs to be done in that area." Among the disappointments were several battles with the City Council, especially during the Villere's first and third terms in office. Villere says he got weary and frustrated with those battles, which became increasingly frequent during his last two years in office. "It got to the point if I said 'The sky is blue,' the council would say, 'No, it's not,' " Villere said. "But they wouldn't say what color it is." And Villere said that during his last two years in office, he pretty much let the council control city government. Council members said they were equally frustrated with the rifts. The mayor's Achilles' heel, Faust said, "was his inability to work with other people's ideas." Faust, who often was involved in disputes with the mayor, nevertheless gives Villere credit for accomplishing much for the city. Villere "is a very creative and very smart man," Faust said. "He brought the city into the modern age. And I think he did a lot to enhance and maintain the character of Covington over the years. . . . It's a great place to live." 'Keep it rolling' The mayor-council conflicts contributed to almost every candidate in the most recent city elections running on a platform calling for major changes in city government, and candidates purposely dodging any attachment to Villere. But as the new city government takes over, hard feelings appear to be subsiding along with any feelings of disrespect and contempt for the former mayor. During the inauguration of the government Monday, a crowd of 400 to 500, including many who had called for change, gave Villere a genuine and loud ovation. Some speakers credited Villere with building the foundation for the city to move forward. And as the former mayor moves on to life without politics, Villere left a parting message for the city. "Keep it rolling and keep it going," he said. "Keep progress moving."
Charlie Chapple can be reached at cchapple@timespicayune.com or (985) 898-4828. http://www.nola.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1057730315173970.xml?nola |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
