News

A freak fire destroyed a LaSalle Parish school bus during the first day of school for students following an extended Christmas and New Year’s break last Tuesday, January 7.

According to LaSalle Parish School System Transportation Supervisor Glen “Slick” Joiner, the fire started as the bus driver left her house to start her route and no children had been picked up yet.

“Kaye Huffman lives about a mile from Nebo Elementary and from her house to the school the fire started in the engine,” Joiner said. “She pulled over across the street from the school and the smoke was coming out from the engine.”

That was around 6:45 a.m. She immediately called Joiner to inform him of the situation and the fire department was paged. By the time Joiner arrived to the location less than 10 minutes later, the bus was completely engulfed in flames.

Retail sales in LaSalle Parish for the year just ended remained about the same as they did for the previous year, according to figures just released for 2019 by the Concordia Sales Tax Collection Agency, which collect sales taxes for several bodies in the parish.

Overall, retail sales in 2019 parish wide stood at $267.8-million, compared to $269.6-million during the previous year of 2018. Parish wide, retail sales were down by just .007%, while retail sales in the town of Olla was up by 12% and up in town of Jena by .06%.

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Town auditor CPA David Vercher’s audit report review was a main topic of discussion at the January meeting of the Town of Tullos Council last week. The findings and summary of the budget were presented to the Council.

Vercher informed the Council that the town received an unmodified opinion, which is the best the town can receive. He then went into the breakdown of the town’s funds, starting with the General Fund and Special Revenue Fire Fund. He updated the Mayor and Council on the following financial statements regarding Governmental Funds.

“Overall, the General Fund is making enough to cover itself,” Vercher said. “You had a transfer out of about $24,000 to water and sewer but that happens sometimes. And you basically broke even with the special revenue fire fund and that’s what you want to see.”

As social media continues to have a larger part of LaSalle Parish residents’ lives, The Jena Times is constantly working to improve its online resources to keep readers informed on the latest news.

For many years the LaSalle Parish newspaper has maintained its website, www.thejenatimes.net, and about eight years ago it expanded its operations to include viewing the entire paper each week on computers, laptops, phones, and other devices via its website.

In 2016, a larger effort was made to expand its online services, specifically through the world-wide interaction social media source of Facebook, and to date, that Facebook Page, “The Jena Times Olla-Tullos-Urania Signal” has just under 8,000 followers.

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The unemployment rate for the month of October 2019 in La-Salle Parish was the lowest of any parish in north Louisiana, and tied for the fourth lowest in Louisiana. No other parish north of the I-10 corridor had a rate lower than La-Salle.

At 4.1 percent, La-Salle was tied with Jefferson, Ascension and St. Tammany Parishes. The three parishes with lower rates include Cameron at 3.5 percent; Calcasieu at 3.8 percent; and Livingston at 3.9 percent.

The October jobless rate for LaSalle, at 4.0 percent, was up slightly from the 4.0 percent recorded in August. The number of people employed in LaSalle Parish also fell slightly, by 33 people between the two months, from 6,514 in September to 6,481 in October.

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