Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: What's up, guys? Welcome to another episode of the Parish Circuit. I am Stuart Amidon. With me, as always, is David Riley. And today, ladies and gentlemen, we have a special guest, Albert Guillory, in the house. Mr. Elbert, thank you so much for coming.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: Thank you for the invitation. It's good to be here.
[00:00:15] Speaker A: Yeah, man. I'm excited to have you here. So you are running for mayor of Opelousas. We have. It's day, what, two of early voting right now? Day three of early voting. Day three.
Day. Somewhere in there. Started on the 20th. The fourth. All right, here we go. So then let's talk through this, man. You're running for mayor.
You've lived here like we talked about. We were talking before we started recording just now. You've lived here basically your whole life, except for stints whenever you went around, did Navy stuff and other things we can talk about later as well. But your longtime Appaloosan.
I gotta tell you, when I think about becoming the mayor of Opelousas, that's a job I don't want.
That's a job I look at and I think, my goodness, this is something. But you're saying, let's go. You're saying, I'm ready for it. Talk to me about that. Why run for mayor of Appaloosas?
[00:01:11] Speaker B: To clean it up.
I love Opelousas.
Opelousas is in my heart. My family's been here more than 200 years.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: And it was a grand place. It was the third. It still is the third oldest city in Appaloosas, I mean, in Louisiana, but was once the county seat of the Imperial Saint Landry Parish, which covered one fourth of Louisiana's total land mass.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:01:47] Speaker B: So I love Appaloosas, and someone has to do this job. It's not a job that I dreamed of doing.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:01:55] Speaker B: I've had many challenges in my life. This will be the greatest challenge of my entire life.
But I face it with preparation. I've run state agencies in three state and city agencies in four states, worked for the Nixon administration, former law professor at Rutgers.
I'm prepared. I've been in law, government, and politics 67 years.
[00:02:28] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:02:29] Speaker B: So I'm ready for it.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: So then let's ask the big questions.
What would you do different?
Like what. What. What would change about how you would run the city of Appaloosas?
[00:02:42] Speaker B: First, I.
Because I have experience in doing budgets, I would prioritize the spending.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:02:51] Speaker B: And, for example, I would not spend $9 million on a football field when Brown water is coming out of the faucets.
[00:03:00] Speaker A: Okay. Okay.
[00:03:02] Speaker B: When the roads are torn up and falling apart.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:07] Speaker B: So the first. The first. My priorities are water.
[00:03:11] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:03:12] Speaker B: Roads.
[00:03:13] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:03:14] Speaker B: Safety.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: And then we'll start dealing with some of the other problems. I've already.
I mean, I've been meeting with an engineering firm. They have the ability to come in, identify the problems underground.
With their technology, they can speak underground and see where those problems are.
[00:03:39] Speaker A: You mean with the pipes or with pipes? With the pipes, specifically. Okay.
[00:03:43] Speaker B: Under our.
Our highways and streets and roads and the adjacent properties, some of those pipes are older than I am.
[00:03:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: Some of them are 100 years old.
[00:03:57] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah.
[00:03:58] Speaker B: So we have to identify them, replace them. It's going to be a serious problem, but it has not been tackled, and it must be tackled.
[00:04:08] Speaker A: So let me ask you this.
I've talked to people about the water situation in the past, and they've kicked around a $2 billion number to get it fixed, to actually repair the system. That has something to do with a lot of the pipes that serve the city run underneath. 190, right?
[00:04:27] Speaker B: Exactly. Yes.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: Yeah. So how. I mean, $2 billion. I look at our budget and I think, well, there's not a B there.
How would we do that? How do you attack something that seems so large?
[00:04:43] Speaker B: We are the richest nation on earth. We are spending billions of dollars in crap holes all around the world right now.
If we can afford to do that, then, by golly, we can afford to take some of those millions. Not the billions that they are already spending, but some of the millions, and bring them here to Opelousas and correct our roads and our water problems, feed our elderly, get the homeless off the streets.
It's a matter of getting our hands on those dollars. And because of my years of experience, I have contacts in Washington, D.C. and in Baton Rouge that we will call upon to get it done. I've also been in contact with a road engineer, highway engineer, with 45 years of experience, top level, and he is giving me a study of the roads and highways in Opelousas so that we can prioritize our attacks on the things.
[00:05:50] Speaker A: So you're saying let's fix the water, let's fix the roads, and then we'll worry about other things.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: No, water, roads and safety.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: Water, roads. So talk to me about safety, then. Like what? When you say safety, do you mean the police department?
[00:06:03] Speaker B: I mean we police department has done a good job. They have reduced crime significantly from very high to high.
[00:06:19] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:06:23] Speaker B: I don't believe that I'll ever get it down to zero.
[00:06:26] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: I want to get it way, way down to about where it was when I was 8 years old and I was able to get on my bicycle and ride all over Appaloosas.
And I was safe. My parents weren't concerned about me. The atmosphere, the community was safe. I wanted safe for our children and our elderly particularly.
[00:06:50] Speaker A: So how do you think that's accomplished?
What do you think that takes?
[00:06:55] Speaker B: We need adequate police.
Police officers.
[00:06:59] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:07:00] Speaker B: So that means adding more to our present police force.
[00:07:03] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:07:04] Speaker B: We need adding more vehicles so that they can patrol more neighborhoods and more frequently.
[00:07:12] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:07:13] Speaker B: So that people who are. Would be committing a crime will see that there are cops all around.
I'm not advocating a police state, but I'm advocating adequate police protection.
[00:07:29] Speaker A: More officers than we currently have.
[00:07:31] Speaker B: Absolutely, yeah.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: So you're saying we would increase the budget in the police department?
[00:07:36] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:07:36] Speaker A: Yeah. So what. What kind of budgetary increase are you thinking?
[00:07:40] Speaker B: I don't know. I've asked for a copy of the city's budget. I don't have it in my hands
[00:07:45] Speaker A: yet, but we have an old copy. We can. But it's from, like, what, May of last year?
[00:07:51] Speaker C: I think that the last update, where it's actually detailed is.
[00:07:55] Speaker A: Is from, like, May of last year.
[00:07:57] Speaker C: Yeah, something like last May.
[00:07:58] Speaker A: It's an old copy.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: I'll start with old.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: We can print that out for you before you leave.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I really would appreciate.
[00:08:05] Speaker A: Yeah, we can do that. Yeah. So then some. Let me ask you this question. So heightened police presence. Okay.
This is one of the things that I. So I lived inside of the city limits of Opelous. I live right over. Lived. I don't anymore, but I lived right behind the Episcopal Church here in town for, like, seven years, and I lived over on Jefferson street for another two.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:08:25] Speaker A: We live behind the Evangeline Downs now, so we have probably like a hundred yards outside of the city limits or something like that nowadays. But when I lived in town, I found that it was relatively safe for me.
Like, we didn't really have issues with people.
And, I mean, we were right on the edge of the hill over on Azalea Street. Like, we were in it. You know, not in it all the way, but in it enough.
And I found that a lot of the conflict that seemed to be going on around me because we saw fights. You know, we saw fights in my neighborhood.
We saw literally one time a guy getting a fight with another guy in the little park across the street from us with a baseball bat. We Saw those things happening, but it almost seemed like that those things were either family related issues that escalated, or it seemed to be related to some type of gang violence. Right. But as far as Opelousis being safe, just generally speaking, I mean, I found it to be pretty safe. Just as a person who lived in town for a little while. Like, what would you say to that? Would you say that it is the violence in the city of Opelousis, the danger in the city of Opelousas is that more happening to the people who are not keeping their noses clean than it is to everybody else? What would you say about that?
[00:09:48] Speaker B: There's a house on Kane Street. There was an old man sleeping in his bed. There were two little children sleeping in their cribs.
That house has 47 AK, 47 bullet holes in it. The old man is dead.
The bullets went right above the children's heads in their cribs. Wow.
And that happened here in Appaloosas? Yes. It was drug related.
That means that we have a problem with young people firing guns at each other.
We have a problem of drugs, and both of those problems have to be addressed.
[00:10:35] Speaker A: So it was some type of violence centered around that type of. So what you're saying is if we can get the drug issue dealt with, that'll solve a lot.
[00:10:44] Speaker B: That'll solve a big. A lot of problems.
It'll reduce. Help us reduce homelessness. And that's one of the things that we must do also, is to reduce the homelessness in Appaloosas.
[00:10:55] Speaker A: So then let's talk about those two things.
Let's talk about the drug issue first, and then let's talk about homelessness in Appaloosas. Because, I mean, we're in downtown. Our office is smack in the middle of downtown. We see transients, homeless folks all the time walking around town. I'd love to talk about that more, but. But the drug issues specifically, how do we combat that? So, like, more officers got it?
[00:11:16] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:11:17] Speaker A: But. But what else? Like, what else is there to do other than a heightened police force?
[00:11:22] Speaker B: We have to find out where the drugs are coming from. The lines.
[00:11:27] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: And I suspect that much of it is coming from the Houston area.
[00:11:32] Speaker A: I see a lot of Texas plates and Appaloosa's man.
[00:11:36] Speaker B: Yes.
So we have to stop the. We have to interdict it before it gets into our Opaloosas.
[00:11:42] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:11:43] Speaker B: That's part of it. And once it gets here, we have to identify who's using it, who's buying it, who's selling it, and we will Start with the drug dealers and we'll have to attack it. When Caille was here, he.
[00:12:00] Speaker A: Oh, I've heard legends about Caille.
[00:12:02] Speaker B: Caille is my nephew.
[00:12:04] Speaker A: Oh, okay, okay.
[00:12:06] Speaker B: And we certainly have different styles, but he was very successful in reducing the drug trafficking in Appaloosas. And we want to get that level of success back.
[00:12:24] Speaker A: I see the family being a huge asset in a community.
Whenever, whenever I'm thinking about this kind of stuff, I think if we have solid families, a lot of these other things will get better as a result of that. So like we had.
Oh man, I can't remember what his name was now. Zsa Zsa. What was his last name? I can't remember now. We had a guy on the podcast not too long ago. He lives here in town. He's lived here for a while. He makes jerk chicken. He was a fun interview to have.
That was one of the comments that he had made too. He was like, if we have solid families and we're engaged in our local communities, like in other words, if people take responsibility for their neighborhoods, okay, things seem to get better.
What do you think about that?
[00:13:15] Speaker B: Absolutely true.
Two things.
We have to. 70% of black children are born to single parent families.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: 70%, 70%. 707 0, holy smokes.
[00:13:35] Speaker B: Born to single mothers particularly.
And so we have to address that problem. I'm a Baptist preacher and so I will be working with the pastors and Reverend Zone this area.
We have to address responsibility to young fathers and to young mothers.
If you're not prepared to take care of your children, don't have them.
We have to get responsibility.
And the second thing is we have to hold parents accountable for their children's behavior. If you have a 13 year old who's out at 12 o' clock at night, it's your responsibility.
So I want that single mother held responsible, but I want that distant father held responsible also. Yeah, because that's his kid.
[00:14:35] Speaker A: No, I think that's a huge. I think you're saying something huge right now. Like the degree of personal responsibility is huge.
If we can get back to that, hey, you have responsibilities. Moms and dads. You have responsibilities for your children, care for them, take care of them, provide for them. So we're Christians. The Bible says that if you don't provide for your own people, for your own family, you're worse than an unbeliever. Right. So I'm a pastor too, by the way.
And so I hear things like high five.
I hear things like that, like what you're saying. Right Now. And that puts gas in my tank.
If you get in the seat and you ready to start that initiative, call me.
I promise, yeah, I'll be a part of that in a heartbeat. I would love to be a part of that.
But when I hear you say, don't have them, I get a little nervous because my head immediately goes to, oh, no. Are we talking about aborting kids? Are we talking about abortion? No, no, no, no, no, no, we're not.
[00:15:35] Speaker B: We're talking about telling ladies, if you're not prepared to accept all the responsibility of parenthood, keep your legs closed.
[00:15:46] Speaker A: Keep it to yourself.
[00:15:47] Speaker B: Zip it.
[00:15:47] Speaker A: Yeah, get out of here with that nonsense. See, I love this. This is great. Wonderful. I'm glad we're having this conversation. Okay, so personal. I like the idea of a society that pushes responsibility all the way down, not a society that keeps responsibility at the top. Do you get what I'm saying? So, like, somebody that looks at the state to solve all of our problems for us. I don't like that. I want to start with families. I want to start with individuals. I want to push responsibility down. I think that we have families in neighborhoods that look around their neighborhood and they're like, this is my neighborhood. And we used to think that way, you know, like, we would look around and say, this is my neighborhood. These are my people.
I'm taking care of this place. This is my family. This is my house. I'm taking care of this place. If we can get back there taking personal responsibility instead of kicking it farther up to somebody else to take care of us, I think we'll reclaim a lot.
[00:16:42] Speaker B: One of the big problems in the education system is the fact that. That so many children are disrespectful and difficult in classes. And that's a. That's a mommy and daddy problem.
[00:16:56] Speaker A: Come on, now.
Come on, let's go. You preach it now. Let's go. That's 100% right.
[00:17:03] Speaker B: I've got to tell you a short story. In my neighborhood, where I grew up here in Appaloosas, there was one single mother.
All the men worked, all the boys over, starting at teenagers worked. There was one single mother. She was widowed.
She got a boyfriend. And then she had some bruises on her body. And the ladies in the neighborhood talked to her about those bruises. And so the next time that the boyfriend came to visit, the men in that. On that block went over.
[00:17:39] Speaker A: They had a meeting on the sidewalk.
[00:17:43] Speaker B: I was a little boy, and I was watching.
They had a meeting. These were working men.
[00:17:50] Speaker A: I bet they Had a meeting.
[00:17:53] Speaker B: Big and muscular and strong.
[00:17:55] Speaker A: They were men. They were men who acted like men.
[00:17:58] Speaker B: That's right. And they explained in no uncertain terms that if that lady ever had another bruise on her body, that those men were going to make sure that he was not able to ambulate, would not ever be able to raise his hand to another woman.
[00:18:20] Speaker A: Draw your own conclusions.
[00:18:23] Speaker B: He never came back.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: I bet he didn't.
[00:18:27] Speaker B: That is one way of dealing with domestic violence.
[00:18:32] Speaker A: I think that's a great way.
I think that we have forgotten.
[00:18:37] Speaker B: That's what communities have to do.
[00:18:39] Speaker A: Yeah, there's a. So David told this story. David, what was it about the lack of police in early America? What was this? We were talking about this not too long ago.
[00:18:49] Speaker C: Yeah. Alexis de Tocqueville, when he came and toured the United States very early on, he was shocked by.
After months, he didn't see a single police officer in his whole time. He didn't see a single government official.
But it was a beautiful society in many ways. I mean, organized, safe, all those things.
And there was no top down representation of government. Does that make sense?
[00:19:19] Speaker B: Very much so.
[00:19:20] Speaker C: And so we're. Yeah. The point is that's not. That's not how things are today.
[00:19:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:25] Speaker B: Sadly, we've gotten away from that, Right? Very sadly.
[00:19:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:29] Speaker B: But we can move. We'll never move back to the toque field.
[00:19:34] Speaker C: No. No. You can't just turn the clock down. No.
[00:19:36] Speaker B: Yeah, but we're going to turn it back a couple of notches to where there's greater family responsibility.
[00:19:43] Speaker A: Well, maybe not in our lifetime.
[00:19:45] Speaker B: Right.
[00:19:46] Speaker A: But I have a positive view of human history.
I think that the way that the world works is that the gospel continues to advance throughout the world, Christianity continues to advance, the kingdom of God continues to advance, and things, generally speaking, get better over time. I think we can get back there again. I don't know when.
Probably not in my lifetime.
[00:20:09] Speaker B: I hope that it happens and I hope that it happens quickly. I'm concerned at the level of failure in the criminal justice system, the level of the number of victims who are upset and hurt by lack of consequences to people who do bad things.
And we've reached a period like this twice before in American history.
[00:20:36] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:20:37] Speaker B: In the 1860s, there was a rise of vigilantism.
The Louisiana militia and other organizations.
[00:20:47] Speaker A: Okay, okay.
[00:20:48] Speaker B: Came together to enforce the law because the law was not being enforced. There were no consequences for bad actors.
Sadly, that kind of activity gets out of hand quickly.
And that same thing happened again in the late 1890s. And early 1900s, same kind of organizations came together to enforce the laws and to lessen crime, to remove criminals from society. People who were committing crimes when the criminal justice system was not being able to do it.
And one of the big problems that we see today is the rise of organizations that are preparing to do just that again.
And that's. That's sad.
If the criminal justice system doesn't wake up and start enforcing the law and protecting victims rights and imposing consequences for seriously bad behavior, someone is going to be out there doing bad things.
[00:21:59] Speaker A: Someone will do what they think is the justice system for them.
[00:22:04] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: They'll take that mantle on themselves.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:22:07] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great point. But that kind of goes back to what we were talking about before. Where is the line between the neighborhood that takes responsibility for that young woman who lives in it and renegade justice?
This is a fun sidebar conversation we got going on here. Like you're an attorney. Where's the line for us here?
[00:22:29] Speaker B: Well, I'm against renegade justice. I don't believe that that's the problem. That's proper. Although my family has been the victim of a very heinous murder.
And I was not in favor. Although some members were in favor of taking matters into their own hands, I was not in favor of that. I believe in the criminal justice system. I live in it. I live by it.
And I just want it to do what is necessary for the victims and for the perpetrators. Okay, Fairness. Fairness. They must be treated fairly.
But there must be consequences for bad behavior at the criminal justice system level, at the high school level, at the elementary school level, and particularly at home with mom and daddy.
[00:23:26] Speaker A: Spare the rod, spoil the child.
[00:23:29] Speaker B: My mom and daddy did not believe in sparing the rod.
[00:23:35] Speaker A: Well, the Bible says that if. If you refuse to spank your kid, you actually hate them.
[00:23:40] Speaker B: Well, we got a lot of love and I appreciate it and I respect it and I love it.
[00:23:48] Speaker A: I know.
[00:23:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I was a rambunctious child and my mom and dad was able to get me to live within the bounds.
[00:23:59] Speaker A: They coached you? Yeah, they coached you. They brought you up, you know, they put you on. The way I tell people all the time, the Lord put a channel. There's this magical channel that the Lord put in your body from your butt to your soul.
He put that there and he uses that to train us up. That's good. And I think that's a great distinction too, that you made because the family is a form of government.
Like God established the family as a governing body. And that's an important thing that I think we've forgotten as a society.
[00:24:29] Speaker B: It was the first governing body that he established.
[00:24:33] Speaker A: Oh, dang, preach. Let's go. Come on. I didn't know we were going to have this kind of sermon action going on today. Let's go, let's go. That's right. No. So the families established as a governing body and it wasn't until after the fall of man, way after that actually government was established. That was whenever Noah got off the boat.
Then we actually see the type of government you and I are talking about right now emerge for the first time. And I think that we forget that as a culture.
And this goes back to the responsibility conversation that we were having earlier.
Moms and dads, especially dads, have a responsibility for their houses, for their family, for their people.
And God made it that way. God engineered it to work that way. So when you say earlier that 70% of black families are single parent households, vast majority of them only moms.
I'm looking around and I'm saying, okay, I think I see one issue that could be resolved and could help a lot, right?
[00:25:38] Speaker B: Yes.
You know that government was heavily responsible for that.
Lyndon Johnson's 1964.
[00:25:49] Speaker A: Oh, let's go.
[00:25:50] Speaker B: Humbug.
He's the one who came up with the concept of giving stuff.
[00:25:57] Speaker A: And he said this was the war on poverty.
[00:26:00] Speaker B: War on poverty. I'll give them some. These are. Linda Johnson, the President of the United States. These are his exact words. I'm going to give them something.
Not a lot, not enough to make a difference, but just a little bit. I'll have them voting. I'll have those.
And he used the N word.
Lyndon Johnson did no have them. Oh, yes, I'll have them voting for the voting Democrat for the next 200 years.
And so he started getting. Giving money to families and giving, I mean, to mothers and giving housing to mothers.
But they had to make sure they didn't have a man in the house.
And that was the beginning of the decline of families.
[00:26:49] Speaker A: Yeah, that was Zsa Zsa's point, or at least one of his points. Whenever he was talking about this past episode.
He's another African American guy, black guy, here in town. He was talking about the exact same thing. If, if dads are involved, families are involved, families say together, things get better. Yes, they get better. Amen.
[00:27:08] Speaker B: Men must be men. Return to being man as God made us.
[00:27:13] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:27:13] Speaker B: He made Adam first. So we should have a level of responsibility first.
[00:27:19] Speaker A: Yes, and more responsibility. I listen. If you're a man listening to this podcast right now, like, you carry the heavy load that you were designed to carry, and you will grow. Men used to do far more significant things than we do today. They were engineers and scientists and artists and philosophers and theologians. And that's one man. Now today, I mean, we work our 40 hour week. If we do that and we go home, we put up our feet, we crack a beer, and we watch whatever's on the television. What a pathetic life, man.
[00:27:50] Speaker B: Very fortunately, I still have three jobs.
[00:27:54] Speaker A: Let's go.
[00:27:57] Speaker B: I'm a.
A full time lawyer, full time associate pastor of a Baptist church in Alexandria, full time politician, and hopefully I will have a fourth job soon as mayor of Appaloosas.
[00:28:14] Speaker A: Let's go. Let's go. All right, I'm getting excited now. Earlier we said we were going to talk about it. Let's segue back in. Homeless in Appaloosas.
Yes, we've seen it. I mean, so like I said, our office is right here in the middle of town.
I look around and I think we've seen quite the uptick over the last six months. I would say considerably more.
[00:28:34] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:28:34] Speaker A: What's going on?
[00:28:36] Speaker B: I don't know. What's the cause? I need to look at it. I'm studying it. But the solution part of it is a place, a safe place for them to live. That's the first step.
[00:28:48] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:28:49] Speaker B: There was one for women here in Opelousas.
[00:28:54] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, the New Life center. That was over there in the old hotel.
[00:28:58] Speaker B: Yes. I was on the board of the New Life Center. So I'd like to bring back that facility if necessary, or at least some other facility doing basically the same thing.
[00:29:10] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:29:10] Speaker B: And there's one for men, which I believe needs expanding, possibly another site for it. So we have a safe place for them to live, but we must also help them rehabilitate themselves.
They need drug assistance.
They need education.
They need.
And I don't mean just reading, writing and arithmetic. They need to be educated in some trade so that they can get a job and support themselves.
We've got to get them off the streets, off the government dole, and being productive citizens again.
[00:29:53] Speaker A: How do you plan to do that?
So off the government dole, that seems like a massive undertaking,
[00:30:02] Speaker B: starting with getting them off the drugs.
[00:30:05] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:30:06] Speaker B: And once they. Once they're drug free, they should be able to get some kind of job training.
And we intend to work with T.H. harris Trade School and expand it.
We want the people who are here to start getting job ready. And also we have to have TH Harris expanded last Night making connections with the people who are doing SpaceX down in Vermilion Paris.
[00:30:37] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:30:37] Speaker B: So we need to know what jobs they need and what training facilities they can give to us and help us with so that we can be ready. We can have people here in Appaloosas getting ready for those jobs in vermilion Paris at SpaceX.
[00:30:58] Speaker A: Yeah. SpaceX is going to change a lot.
[00:31:00] Speaker B: Yes, it will.
[00:31:01] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm already hearing about facilities being planned or getting started here in Saint Lantry Parish to help support that project.
[00:31:09] Speaker B: Yes, indeed.
[00:31:10] Speaker A: Yeah, there's. There's a lot that's happening. That's what, $100 billion project, Dave, is that right?
[00:31:15] Speaker C: I'm not sure. I'd have to look that up. Yeah.
[00:31:17] Speaker A: I don't remember something crazy like that.
[00:31:18] Speaker B: It's astronomical.
[00:31:19] Speaker A: It's a wild amount. I was talking to a guy who worked on in economic development and he was talking about contractors and services and he said if you can't make a million dollars off of $100 billion, you might be doing something wrong.
In other words, what he was trying to say is the opportunity is huge for people who are here who are looking for it and fighting to get into it.
[00:31:41] Speaker B: Well, I think that if we can't employ 10,000 families, we need 10,000 jobs here in Appaloosas.
We want 10,000 people to be able to work, support their families, buy homes, cars, send their kids to college here. Yeah, off that cow. We want to bring that. Some of that milk here.
[00:32:06] Speaker A: Yeah. How do you like. So let's talk about economic development.
When you look, I look around at the economy and Appaloosis and Saint Leg of Parish, I'm like, man, it's not great.
But I also look around and say there is an insane amount of potential.
[00:32:22] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:32:23] Speaker A: So how do we harness that? Like, how do we develop the economy in Opalousas and Saint Legary Parish and really push it to the next level?
What do you think?
[00:32:33] Speaker B: We start by giving great support to the businesses that are here.
[00:32:37] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:32:39] Speaker B: Getting government off their backs and instead assisting them.
[00:32:43] Speaker A: That sounds wonderful.
I love the way that sounds.
[00:32:48] Speaker B: Then we become very business friendly so that we can invite other businesses. We want more businesses to come. We want to turn Opelousas in downtown Opelousis into a Mecca where people will want to come and park and walk down the streets and shop and look into the stores and step in and go into a restaurant, bar, listen to some music. We wanted, we want it to be a destiny for people to come so that for businesses that are here that for businesses that are coming. And the third part of that is we have to get more jobs. We had standard fittings, thousands of good paying union jobs, Fruit of the loom, 5,000 sewing machines making underwear.
Well, all of those jobs have been exported by some Couillon in Washington D.C. who decided that free trade, some free trade agreement would be to the benefit of the people of America. Well, that was horse hockey.
So we've got to get businesses.
[00:34:08] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:34:08] Speaker B: Here.
[00:34:09] Speaker A: So what do you, what do you think? So we're talking industry, right? We're talking standard fittings, we're talking like clothing manufacturing, we're talking industry.
What industries could we get here right now? Because when I, when I, I know the type of incentives that are being offered at a federal level to domesticate production. There's a lot of money pumping out of Washington to try and domesticate production.
I know folks who are building entire nickel refining and manufacturing centers because we don't have nickel. You need nickel to make steel. Like they're doing all kinds of things in this space right now. What is something like that?
Think industry, think production that we could put here.
[00:34:50] Speaker B: I would like to see a plant here that will provide some of the needs, some of the things that SpaceX will need for building rockets.
Not building the rockets, but some part. There are three or four or 5,000 parts that go into making a rocket. If we can make four or five of those parts here in Appaloosas, we will change the economy of Opelousis. But also I would really like to bring back Fruit of the loom. 98% of Americans wear underwear.
Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa.
What about the other two?
[00:35:29] Speaker A: What about the two? It's.
They wear diapers.
Yeah.
So what do we do?
[00:35:38] Speaker B: No underdraws are made in America. I want to bring back Fruit of the Loom. I want those jobs back here. I think that Americans should demand American made underwear and I want to do it here.
[00:35:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
What would we do to incentivize them?
[00:35:55] Speaker B: We're working on it. We are working on it.
[00:35:58] Speaker A: Okay, like what? Can you toss some ideas? Like what? You got anything out there?
[00:36:01] Speaker C: No.
[00:36:01] Speaker B: Can't we. It's, it's not just an idea.
[00:36:06] Speaker A: It's not just an idea. Okay, got it. I heard you. You heard it here first, folks. Well, what, what, what are some typical things, some other things that you would plan to do to incentivize other businesses to come here? So maybe not necessarily just manufacturing, maybe E commerce or Internet based stores or something like that. Like what, what would you do to get stores.
[00:36:28] Speaker C: Yeah, well, sorry. I was going to say, you mentioned, like, a beautiful downtown again. I would love that. We've seen a decent amount of development south of town and north of town, but we're right here in the middle, and we'd love to see this place booming again. So you mentioned restaurants or, you know, little shops, things like that. So that's someone else, I think, of that you could, you know, incentivize and history.
[00:36:49] Speaker B: I mean, our food, our music, our history, our people, all of that will sell, and we just have to make it. We have to package it in downtown Appaloosas so that people will come and enjoy it.
Baby, it's Saturday morning. Let's go to Opelousas and get a bite.
[00:37:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:09] Speaker B: And do a little shopping.
[00:37:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
Right now, my wife and I go out every Saturday morning. You know what we drive to Arnaville.
[00:37:18] Speaker B: Perfect example.
[00:37:19] Speaker A: You know, like, I would love.
Listen to me. Appaloosas, listen, I'm not. This is not a joke. I would love to not drive 20 minutes. I would love for there to be a spot that did a Saturday morning breakfast that I could take my wife to. I would love it whenever arpeggios was open. I mean, me and the guys from the office would pound arpeggios all the time. They're not open anymore. But we loved that place, man, that was a great spot to go to. And I don't.
I think that there's an issue with having enough frequency, but we also see tons of restaurants move into town and do well. Now there are chain restaurants like McAllister's, like Waffle House, like those guys. But I think what that communicates is that there's potential opportunity for others. You know, Lafayette, Louisiana, operates with some insane statistic that there are more. There are enough restaurants in Lafayette, Louisiana, enough eating places to where every single citizen in Lafayette could go sit down to eat at a restaurant at the same time, and there would still be empty chairs.
Like, that's crazy.
But I think what I'm trying to communicate here is that I think there's opportunity here.
[00:38:30] Speaker B: I agree.
[00:38:30] Speaker A: I think Opelousa's has far more opportunity than people realize. We've talked about this in previous podcast episodes. It just takes folks taking a risk being okay with looking a little silly, putting their heads down and doing the work.
[00:38:47] Speaker B: That's it.
I have a broom and a mop.
[00:38:51] Speaker A: I saw you out there with your broom and your mop the other day.
[00:38:55] Speaker B: I'm gonna clean up the mess. I'm gonna make Appaloosas.
Business friendly and people friendly. We've got to make some changes.
And I don't plan to take a. I don't have a 10 year plan or a 15 year plan. I gotta get this done and get it done quickly.
[00:39:13] Speaker C: Hmm.
[00:39:14] Speaker A: So let's say Elbert Guillory gets in the seat day one.
[00:39:20] Speaker B: What happens the day after the election?
I will sit and do an audit of all of the budget and personnel matters in the city.
[00:39:34] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:39:35] Speaker B: I'm talking about right after the election. I'm not. I'm talking about the day after. I'm talking about November 4th.
[00:39:40] Speaker A: Okay. Okay.
[00:39:44] Speaker B: So that.
And I expect to be sworn in sometime in December so that on January 1st, I'll hit the ground running. I'll have my expert in place, people who will be giving me the expert advice on things like water and streets as we've talked about.
[00:40:03] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:40:05] Speaker B: It's hard work and I'm prepared to do that hard work and get it done.
[00:40:11] Speaker A: Nice.
What would you be like? So people have their hundred day goals whenever they talk about getting into office.
First hundred days, what are things that you hope to have done? Checked off the list.
[00:40:27] Speaker B: Implemented a street plan.
[00:40:30] Speaker A: Street plan. That's for the repairs.
[00:40:31] Speaker B: That's correct.
[00:40:32] Speaker A: Okay. Okay.
[00:40:34] Speaker B: We should be well into implementing some changes in the water delivery system.
[00:40:42] Speaker A: Okay. Okay.
[00:40:44] Speaker B: Because I'm already working on both those things now.
[00:40:48] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:40:49] Speaker B: So within 100 days, people will begin to see.
There won't be major changes, but you'll see how the changes are starting. Yeah. I also have to make sure that the workers in Appaloosas are adequately paid.
I suspect that they are significantly underpaid right now. And we have to do something about that.
[00:41:12] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:41:13] Speaker B: I intend to do all of that without raising taxes.
[00:41:17] Speaker A: But wait, where does that money come from?
[00:41:22] Speaker B: Those billions of dollars that are being spent?
[00:41:24] Speaker A: Okay, okay. Outside dollars.
[00:41:27] Speaker B: Yes, outside dollars.
[00:41:28] Speaker A: Got it.
[00:41:29] Speaker B: America has the money. So they're just spending it in the wrong place. They're spending it overseas. I want to spend it right here.
[00:41:38] Speaker A: Gotcha. Gotcha.
[00:41:40] Speaker B: And it takes a loud mouth to go and pester people to do those kinds of things.
[00:41:49] Speaker A: But it's what I do is that that loudmouth is you.
[00:41:52] Speaker B: That's my loud.
[00:41:53] Speaker A: That's what she's saying.
I got it. Man. This is great. Okay, so then as we're thinking through first hundred days. Done. We Talked about Day 1 goals. Done.
Give me your elevator pitch.
Elbert Guillory for mayor. Because
[00:42:13] Speaker B: we are in a mess.
I'm going to clean up the mess.
I want to bring Appaloosas back. I want to bring business back.
I want to bring tourism back to Opelousas.
And I cannot do that alone. I want to do it with all of us together in Appaloosas. I would add two things.
In all of these years, I've had great opportunities in politics to become a multimillionaire.
I'm poor.
I'm staying in the same place where I was. I'm on the same corner where I was born.
And that's by choice, because I'm honest.
I have not been purchased. I'm not bought. You can't buy me.
Money does not motivate me. I've been offered women and drugs and money, not any noise. So you can expect me to be very honest. And the final thing I would add is that what I do here, one day, I will close my eyes on this earth, and I will have to meet my mother and daddy first, because they'll be waiting right at the door for me.
And I don't want them to say that I brought dishonor upon our family.
I want them to say, you did it right, boy. Come on in.
And then I have to meet my master.
I want to be able to look the Lord into the eyes and say, lord, I gave it my best shot.
And I want him to say, boy, come on in here. Well done.
[00:43:59] Speaker A: Mr. Gillory, thank you so much for spending time with us. I appreciate it. David, any questions before we're done?
[00:44:05] Speaker C: No, I think. I think we covered it. Thank you so much for being here. Appreciate it.
[00:44:09] Speaker B: Thank you. Thanks for this opportunity. Yeah. And I'm going to hold you to that offer.
[00:44:13] Speaker A: Oh, no. I'm ready. You get in the seat. We're talking. Let's go. Deal, guys. Thank you all so much for listening to another episode of the Parish Circuit. You can go to the parish circuit.com for blogs, articles, news, podcasts, and other things related to Appaloosa Saint Leger Parish in Louisiana as a whole. Thank you so much for being a part of what we're trying to do here in our own town.
And we ask that you would help us continue to push the ball further down the field. We will see you next time.
