Mayor Pro Tem Dan Doerle talks about Velma Lee Perrodin and her contributions to the community at Tuesday’s New Iberia City Council meeting.  ‘She was a beautiful woman who did a lot for the community and never asked nothing from the community,’ Doerle said after the council voted to change the name of Shot Street to Velma Lee Lane in her honor.

It was a process that took a bit longer than expected for New Iberia City Councilman Marlon Lewis, but the city council voted to rename Shot Street in District 2 Velma Lee Lane at Tuesday’s meeting.

Lewis has been trying to rename the street since last year after several shotgun homes owned by the Mixon family were removed from the street. After talking to the few residents who lived on Shot Street, a decision was made to rename the street after the oak trees on the street.

After the Planning and Zoning Commission recommended naming the street Chene Arbre Way, local residents turned out to a January City Council meeting with another idea.

Family, friends and students of Velma Lee Perrodin, who operated a daycare on Shot Street for years, asked for the street to be named after the community stalwart. After some disagreement,  it was decided by the council to send the issue back to the Planning and Zoning Commission.

The commission made a new recommendation to rename the street Velma Lee Lane. At Tuesday night’s meeting, the City Council unanimously approved the measure.

“It’s a new day and a new chapter,” Lewis said. “All I ask is that we in the community continue to look for opportunities to make it better whether it’s naming a street, building a building or coming in droves as concerned citizens to support someone like Velma Lee, who’s done so much for our community.”

“I think this is like icing on the cake,” Mayor Pro Tem Dan Doerle said. “You’ve got a new outlook down that street, a new appearance down that street. She was a beautiful woman who did a lot for the community and never asked nothing from the community.”

In other business, the City Council heard from Burton Kolder regarding the city’s 2018 audit results.

Kolder called the state of the city’s financials “excellent” several times throughout his presentation, noting that there were no deficiencies found when Kolder, Champagne, Slaven & Co. conducted the audit.

As a guidepost for most municipalities, auditors note how long a city or town can operate with reserve funding to determine the state of the financials. To be in good condition, Kolder said if a municipality can operate 60 days on reserve funding it is in good shape.

“The 60 days is kind of a benchmark; you should have at least 60 days to operate this city with available reserves,” Kolder said. “You’ve got $7.6 million in excess of that. With the available resources you have, you could operate the city for 145 days, so you guys are in good shape here.”

He also said that last year the benchmark was 136 days, so New Iberia has improved from the prior year.

Councilwoman Natalie Lopez said that number was about 20 when she began her first term on the City Council.

“I’m just trying to show the public how far we’ve come,” Lopez said. “We went from 20 days to 145.”