Parish Councilapproves$177million budget
Long-termfunding proposal forjustice system goes to voters in spring
BY WILLIE SWETT Staff writer
St. Tammany Parish’s$177 million budget for2025 sailed through theParishCouncil on Dec. 5with aunanimous voteand little discussion from the publicorparish officials.
Councilmember Rick Smithsaid the Parish Council andPresident Mike Cooper’s administration worked together to writea “budget that will meet the needsofour community in 2025.”
Cooper,inanews release, touted the budget’sinvestmentininfrastructureprojects andpublic safetyagencies.
Though the final budget’s passage was uncontroversial, thespending plan received a rocky reception when Cooper first proposed it two months ago. At the time, 22nd Judicial District Court Judge WilliamBurris slammed the proposal andDistrict Attorney
Collin Sims called it a“piece of garbage.”
That anger and frustration wasinresponse to Cooper’sinitial proposal,which would have halvedfunding forthe parish jail, northshore judges andthe district attorney’soffice. Michael Vinsanau, aspokespersonfor Cooper,said the budget unveiled in October was meant to be aworking document.
In the weeksafter the council’sOctober meeting, council membersworked with Cooper’sadministrationtofind ways to fill themillions of dollarsinmissing criminal justice funding.
The result was abudgetthatmeetsfunding expectations for the criminal justice system for 2025, according to Burris and Sims, whopraised the amended budget as a short-term solution, though not along-term one.
The Sheriff’s Office has declined to commentonthe budget, citing itsongoing litigation with the parish over how much the parish is mandated by state law to fund the jail. The council andadministrationhad to make “reasonable sacrifices” to find the
St.Tammany’s first hospital hits the70-year mark
BY KADEE KRIEGER
Contributing writer
On Dec. 1, 1954,the first hospital dedicated to the residents of St Tammany openedits doors with30 beds and 17 physicians fromCovington, Mandeville, Slidell, Madisonville and Lacombe.
That grand opening, held fora country hospital designed to meet the needs of the residents north of Lake Pontchartrain, sincehas growninto aflagship regional health care system with branches across the area.
And exactly 70 years later,St. Tammany Health System celebrated both its past and future with an anniversary party held Dec. 1inthe lobby of Covington’sSt. Tammany Parish Hospital.
SystemPresident and CEO Joan Coffman told thecrowd of employees, volunteers, formerpatients, communityleaders, health care system colleagues andresidents gathered for the event that the “secret to success” during thepast seven decades is simple.
“Even with all that growth and ourevolutioninto amodern health system, our colleagues have continued to place our neighbors and the needs ofour community at the center of everything we do,” she said.
During the anniversary party, staff debuted anew video ad that features St. Tammany scenes and health system physicians, nurses andstaff. In addition, attendees posed aspartofa photo that will be used for akeepsake 70th anniversary St. Tammany Health System
Christmas tree ornament.
Thecommemoration of theanniversary beganinSeptember 2023 when the health system’swebsite started spotlighting keymoments in the hospital’spast.Itwas a70week project that culminated with theDec. 1celebration.
That chronicle of history created the “70-for-70” flip book album.It spans from thehospital’sinception in the1940s; highlights memorabilia from napkins and newspaper articles to nostalgic photos; andconcludeswith the most recent developments in 2024, such as openings of the St. Tammany Academic Center and afamily medicine clinic.
The digital book, which serves as a70-year historical capsule of
BY KIMCHATELAIN
Contributing writer
Everycommunity has good Samaritans. They arethe people who serve quietly,without fanfare. They get things done outside the spotlight. They are the foot soldiersinthe armies of compassion, empathy,grace.
The St. Tammany Farmer soughtout six of these people andwill featureone each week through the remainder of 2024. We think these people, their stories, areremindersofthe good things people do for one another
We’recalling them “Unsung Heroes.” But now is timetosing their praises.
There wasatimeinFrank Shaw’slifewhen addiction had
PHOTO
GRANT THERKILDSEN
PHOTO BY BOBBY GILBOY Frank Shawturned hislife around with the helpof AA and other recovering addicts,and he has done the samefor others since getting sober himself.
Michelle, Carlotta andRyanGall join the leisurely neighborhood bikeride to help gently work off the Thanksgiving food.
Laid-back Turkey Ride
The Old Mandeville Historic Association’sfirst post-Thanksgiving Turkey Ride on Dec. 1drew friends, family and neighbors to join the slow-paced, 6-mile roundtrip pedal along flat ground.The laid-back ride startedatthe Mandeville Trailhead and ended at the LangHouse for beverages and bites. The association hopes to make it an annual event.
SHAW
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him staring into an abyss of fear,loneliness and desperation.
He had no ability to resist alcohol, tobacco and drugs. His destructive lifestyle strained relationships, put his law career in jeopardy and created within hima deep sense of hopelessness
With his world spiraling out ofcontrol, hewas able to overcome the disillusionment and pull himself outofthe freefall that was life in his teens and 20s.
Relying on counselors, along with Alcoholics Anonymous and its abstinencebased recovery program,Shawrighted the ship just as it was about to crash into the rocks. He believes divine intervention was the driving force.
Shaw met his wife, Lee,while attending AA sessions, and the Covington-area couple raised afamily of sevensons Shaw,now 67, went on to have asuccessful career,specializing in admiralty and maritime law and partaking in some of the most important oil and gasindustry cases in the region. He also found timetoserveasavolunteercoach, which allowed himtoinspire young people while enjoying hislove for football. He hasbeen sober for 38 years. His road to redemptionwas detailed in a manuscript, which eventually became his memoir —“Signals ofTranscendence.” Shaw is now adirectoratthe NewOrleansMission’s Giving Hope Retreat in Lacombe, where he providesfirst-hand testimony to those who face the anguish ofaddiction.
Laboring in the trenches well below the public radar,hehas spent countless
Ed Wallace gives the first Turkey Ride a thumbs up the weekend after Thanksgiving
Leslie Wallace was still celebrating the spirit of Thanksgiving during the first Turkey Ride, sponsored by the Old Mandeville Historic Association.
hours counseling people who are struggling with the same issues that nearly destroyedhim.
His story is one of an unsung St.Tammany Parish hero.
Drunkand miserable
The son of aformer Navy pilot and attorney,Shaw was raised in aloving, middle class family that included two sisters and ayounger brother
As he prepared to enter East Jefferson High School in Metairie in 1971, he became somewhat neurotic about how to fit in with peers. He developed adrinking problem in high school that worsened during his years as an undergrad at LSU.
Shaw says in his memoir,“Every weekend (in college) began with getting drunk on Friday and staying at some level of intoxication through Sunday …”
His problem was that he couldn’tstop at one or two drinks.
“When Istarted drinking, there wasn’t anything or anyone that could get me to stop. If Idrank, Igot drunk —and not just alittle drunk but sloppy,blackout drunk.”
He managed to secure ahealthy grade point average and was accepted to law school at LSU. He partied his way through, passed the bar exam and began practicing law,all the while developing into afull-blown alcoholic.
The drinking led to his being fired from ajob at aprestigious New Orleans law firm and nearly gothim canned from another
“Alcohol consumed everything and made me blind to the larger world that existed beyond my own selfish desires,” he says in his brutally honest memoir
“I’d made money,tried wine, women and song, but what’sthe point of it all if in the end all Idoismake myself and everyone who knows me miserable?”
Ahigherauthority
Today,Shaw refers to himself as a“twoby-four” Christian.
“God had to beat me in the head with a two-by-four until Ifinally surrendered,” he says.
Until he reached his late 20s, Shaw said he didn’tlook for or see any spiritual signs in his life. His family had taught him about faith, but the lessons didn’treally sink in.
“Then, in my darkest days, the seeds that had been planted helped me find my way back to who Iwas and where Icame from,” he says in thebook.
AA’s program of recoveryisbuilt on the simple foundation of one alcoholic sharing with another.The program, which has nearly two million members in more than 170 countries, is based on aset of 12 spiritual principles. AA says that when practiced as away of life, these principles can “expel the obsession to drink and enable the sufferer to recover from alcoholism.”
Shaw bought in and recognized his defense against booze needed aboost from a “higher authority.” He knows he was lucky to have survived his hard-living, moralitychallenged lifestyle during his earlier years.
Shaw said he had missed the signals of transcendence that God presented to him during those dark years, and he now believes he experienced them forareason.
Giving back
Every Wednesday at 2p.m., Shawstands in front of aclass of about 60 men at Giving HopeRetreat in Lacombe.The men are grappling with addictions that are familiar to the alcoholic who is speaking at the front of the class.
“I’m one of them,” Shaw said in arecent interview.“Ispeak the lingo.”
In addition to his work at the retreat
Ride coordinator Richard Adamiak gives riders afew basic instructions before the ride began at the Mandeville Trailhead.
house andother places where he provides counsel, Shaw has spent time working with the New Orleans Mission’sDesperate Reality Program. As its name suggests, the program provides immediate help to people in desperate situations.
Groups of five volunteers venture into homeless camps suchasthose underthe Claiborne Avenue overpass. In the latenight hours, theyencounter people who are at the end of their ropes.
“If you’re in New Orleans and thinking about going to the New Orleans Mission between 10 (p.m.) and midnight on aSaturday night, chancesare you’ve got aseriousproblem,”said Shaw,now apartner in adowntown Covington law firm. “It’s probably the most intense three hours that I’ve ever spent.”
Doing such work has givenhim insight into the comaraderie that exists among the homeless and allows him to more openly share the experiences of his past.
One of those horrible experiences occurred, long after he stopped drinking, when his 20-year-old son, Fletcher, died of adrug overdose in 2016. Despite his agony,Shaw resisted the temptationofusing booze to dull the pain.
Johny Lonardo, CEO of the New Orleans Mission, said Shaw’sperspective as a faithful family manwith agrievous past is ahuge asset to the non-profit organization’sgoal of repairing shattered lives and broken hearts. It is especially helpful to young men who need to understand that one’spastneed notdictate one’sfuture. Lonardo said Shaw serves on the mission’sboard of directors, teaches classes, ministers to men during chapelsessions and is atireless workerfor the cause. “He’sall in atthe mission,” Lonardo said. “He’s not one of those people who comes in, servesa few meals andgoes home.”
PHOTOSBYGRANT THERKILDSEN
