PASTOR PROPOSES REHAB CENTER

Idea Gets Mixed Reaction In Edgard

A LaPlace minister wants to open a residential rehabilitation center in a
long-vacant Edgard school, stirring concerns from residents and school
officials about whether such a facility is appropriate at the site in the
small riverfront community.

The 15-acre parcel is home to the former Second Ward High School, vacant
since 1988. The Rev. Neil Bernard of New Wine Christian Fellowship on
Airline Highway hopes to renovate the school for a faith-based
rehabilitation center catering to young adults who have run into trouble
with drugs or the law.

It would initially house 30 people, age 18 or older, for three-month
sessions that would include job training and Christian-based teachings.

The center's grounds would be open to the surrounding community for
recreation when not needed for the rehabilitation program, Bernard said.

"Our young people get involved in delinquent behaviors. They do the same
thing again and again," Bernard said. "We've got to ask how we can turn
them around. Young people are our greater resource."

The school site was valued at $74,500 in a recent appraisal, but the school
building is in disrepair and likely would have to be gutted before it could
be used again, according to St. John the Baptist Parish school officials.
Bernard has pitched his plan to school administrators, but no agreement has
been reached.

His proposal has elicited a lukewarm response from some of Edgard's 3,900
residents.

Questions have been raised about how New Wine would finance the facility
and whether its presence would drive away future economic development
projects in Edgard such as a racetrack envisioned on the community's
western fringes.

"I don't oppose those people being allowed to have a second chance in
life," Edgard resident Virgie Johnson said. "I'm not so sure we should have
it here on the west bank. The west bank needs economic growth more than it
needs this."

But another Edgard resident, retired principal Nora Pierre, said Bernard's
vision would plug a social services gap in the parish.

"There's a lot of problems in Edgard," Pierre said.

"I'm open to the fact that this could be part of the solution."

Schools representatives were in negotiations last year to sell the site to
the parish for a recreation facility, but those talks broke off without an
agreement.

The parish now plans to build a $1.3 million recreation site on another
piece of land in Edgard, but no location has been set.

School Superintendent Michael Coburn said Tuesday that his "mind is not
closed" to Bernard's proposal but that recreation remains his top choice
for the site.

"That is the only thing I want at that facility right now," Coburn said.
"We have to sit down and discuss it and see if we can come to terms on that."