LOREAUVILLE — Loreauville Mayor Brad Clifton had plenty to be happy about at the village’s last meeting of the year Monday night.

“The ‘Christmas in the Village’ was a smash hit,” Clifton said. “We’ll do it every year until it isn’t a smash.”

In addition to getting the village’s first Christmas tree lighting ceremony off to a rousing start, with more than $8,500 raised toward the Loreauville Community Project’s effort to purchase new playground equipment for the village, the sidewalks that have been proposed for years on Ed Broussard Road near Loreauville Elementary School are one step nearer to reality.

Clifton told the village’s aldermen that the state Department of Transportation and Development finally has projected a start date for the construction, sometime between September and October of 2019.

“We were hoping it would be during the summer,” Clifton said. “It’s a two-lane road, and construction during the school year will make the pick-up line for the kids a mess. Already we have people using the park, and this won’t make it any better.”

Clifton said the project has been in the planning stages with the Metropolitan Planning Organization for years, since he was an alderman.

“It has taken a while,” Clifton said.

On a less cheerful note, the village also accepted the resignation of its member on the Port of Iberia Board of Directors. Gene Jeffries, a long-time employee of the The McIlhenny Co., reluctantly tendered the resignation for health reasons.

“It’s been a harder job than I thought it would be to replace you,” Clifton said. 

“Well, I learned a lot from this,” Jeffries said. “I learned a lot about town management that I never knew. You guys are sharp.”

The board set its meeting schedule for 2019, with the next meeting to be held at 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 14.