By Paige Nash
The Claiborne Parish Police Jury (CPPJ) met for their regular meeting last Wednesday, April 11.
President Scott Davidson briefly mentioned the poultry houses moving into the parish specifically in the town of Athens at this time.
“There are some new poultry houses that are fixing to be built in Athens. Land was acquired and they are in the process of clearing the land,” said Davidson.
The CPPJ has received numerous calls of complaints from residents in Athens who live around the location that the new poultry houses are being built.
“The same thing happened to me 3 or 4 years ago when we were building our new house,” he said. “I had some calls and others have had some calls about trying to stop this and I told the man that called me from personal experience, I know there’s not anything you can do. You might as well just accept it. You’re going to have some new neighbors.”
President Davidson expressed the jury’s support of the poultry houses moving into the parish and mentioned the benefits that it could have for Claiborne Parish as a whole.
“There are some hard feelings down there about this, but Claiborne Parish is a rural parish and it’s always been an agricultural parish and as long as it’s here, it always will be, I assume. I understand that people get upset, but there is not anything the jury can do even if I wanted to. All of us are going to support the poultry business because it supported us,” he said. “We just wanted to make you all aware, if they start building poultry houses in your area, there’s not anything the jury can do to stop them. As a matter of fact I don’t think there’s anything that anyone can do to stop them.”
There are currently poultry houses located along Highway 518 with more on the way.