Slidell's Krewe of Mona Lisa and MoonPie could be on the move again, pending acceptance of an ordinance that came before the Slidell City Council on July 9.
The walking club, founded in 1984, began as a Carnival event. The procession was moved to the fall in 2019 in hopes of bolstering membership with a harvest-time street parade. That event was a hit, but the COVID pandemic scuttled parade plans in 2020 and beyond.
Last year, Mona Lisa and MoonPie returned to its usual Carnival season slot.
The ordinance brought to the Council on July 9 would put Mona on the calendar on Feb. 22, 2025, or two Saturdays before Mardi Gras. The movable feast of Fat Tuesday will be celebrated on March 4 next year.
Slidell limits itself to eight Carnival parades per year — three nighttime and two daytime float parades, two daytime walking parades and one nighttime walking procession.
If the calendar is approved at the Council's Aug. 13 meeting, the 2025 schedule would include Titans, Feb. 14; Poseidon, Feb. 15; Antheia, Feb. 16; Krewe de Paws, Feb. 22 (walking day parade); and Mona Lisa and MoonPie (walking night parade); Dionysus, Feb. 23; Selene, Feb. 28; and Krewe of KIDZ, March 4 (walking day parade).
Parish airport near Abita Springs looks to attract more flights
Dan Oppenheim tilted the yoke of the Cessna 210 and banked its nose to the north, aiming for a rectangular box cut into the woods east of Abita Springs some 1,000 feet below.
Eyes shifting between the horizon and the instrument panel, Oppenheim’s craft began its descent. Ever mindful of the pines on the south end of the airstrip, Oppenheim gently put the airplane onto the asphalt.
“As my mother used to joke, ‘We cheated death again,’” he said with a big smile.
Few flyers can claim to have touched down on the St. Tammany Parish Regional Airport’s runway as many times as Oppenheim. He’s the longest-renting tenant at the facility, having kept an airplane there since 1993.
In the decades since, he hasn’t actually seen much happen there, to hear him talk. The years have brought little change to the rural airport.
But Oppenheim says he and some others in the western St. Tammany flying community are optimistic that the parish has a new fixed-base operator — airport talk for a manager — that wants to draw some more traffic to the 42-acre airport off La. 36.
Not that Oppenheim wants major change.
“I don’t think we’re looking for it to become big,” he said, unbuckling and exiting his plane. “But we want to be healthy. I just don’t want this place to become another shopping center.”
Abita Skies Aviation, the new fixed-base operator — FBO for short — took over in May. Under the company’s agreement with the parish, Abita Skies pays $4,000 monthly to rent space and operate the airport, while the parish continues to handle much of the maintenance.
The company makes money from the sale of fuel and renting hangar space. Not that company officials plan to make much money, at least not in the short term.
Opened in 1971 as Richard Privette Sr. Airport, the facility, whose name changed to St. Tammany Parish Regional Airport somewhere along the way, offers little in the way of luxury. Just a 2,999-foot runway, an office building and a handful of hangars rented by 10 tenants.
But Bob Christ and his sister, Cheryl Walsh, who run Abita Skies, see untapped potential.
“We want to make it a little less country and more ‘boutique-y’,” Walsh, of Covington, said. “This could be a boutique destination — it’s smaller, more private.”
Christ and Walsh grew up in Houma, where their father ran an airport. So flying and operating small airports is in their blood.
“We have a high degree of wealth in this parish that could support this airport,” said Christ, who now lives in Mandeville and also has an oilfield-related business.
Quoting the oft-used movie line, he added, “'If you build it, they’ll come.' We can create an aviation community.”
“The flying community is always looking for reasons to fly,” added Walsh, who will handle the marketing. "We have to give them a reason.”
Tops on the improvement wish list for the airport is a runway extension to 5,000 feet and new, upgraded navigational technology. A longer runway would allow bigger airplanes and jets and open the facility to corporate business.
“Those two things will define our growth,” Christ said.
St. Tammany Regional is one of two airports in the parish. Slidell operates an airport with a 5,000-foot runway on the eastern side of the parish.
“It’s kind of been dormant,” St. Tammany Parish President Mike Cooper said of the little airport in the woods near Abita Springs.
“There’s lots of potential out there,” Cooper said. “Corporate planes are in the future plans.”
But the parish’s five-year improvement plan for the airport will require money the parish doesn’t have. Christ said the list of desired work at the parish-owned airport tops $10 million.
The Federal Aviation Administration offers grants that cover 90% of the costs for rural airport improvements. But those grants are competitive, and a need must be demonstrated to the FAA.
The airport averages around 70 takeoffs and landings per day now, according to FAA data.
“Not enough,” Christ said of that flight census.
“That’s why they call me ‘Maytag,’’’ Walsh chuckled, referencing the old TV commercials featuring the not-so-busy appliance repair person.
Oppenheim, the longtime tenant, is hopeful some of the potential that Christ and Walsh and Cooper see can be tapped. Circling 1,400 feet above the airport, looking down at vast stretches of pines interspersed with big subdivisions, Oppenheim can almost envision it.
“You could have something really nice out here,” he said. “Pilots would come here.”
Bob Warren
Sunset Point pier gets FEMA funding
Mandeville finally has federal funding to repair a popular fishing pier in Lake Pontchartrain that had to be closed after it was heavily damaged in Hurricane Ida almost three years ago.
Mandeville Mayor Clay Madden announced recently on social media that FEMA had approved funding for repairs to the pier at Sunset Point. The city wants to rebuild it stronger, using materials that will allow it to withstand heavier storm surges, in the hopes of not having to replace it again after the next hurricane.
The lighted pier juts around 400 feet into the lake. It is just east of the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway.
“What we want to do is rebuild it with more resilient products,” Madden said. “The flip side to that is that it’s going to take a little longer.”
The new pier will feature two big improvements, according to Madden: It will be higher than the old one, and the decking material will feature a metal grid, rather than wooden planks. It has been unusable, along with another parish-operated fishing pier in Slidell, since Ida struck in late summer 2021.
Madden said the cost is expected to be about $2.2 million, though the tally might change as the designs for the new pier are finalized.
“I know people have had to wait — we’re coming up on three years this August since Ida,” he added. “Once we get this thing built, the goal is to not have to do this again.” He stressed that the federal program also requires stringent environmental and design evaluations, which take time.
“I think it will be well worth the wait if it’s rebuilt to be more structurally sound,” said Mandeville resident Eric McVicker, 33. “To me it really is about attracting people to see the beauty of what the lakefront has to offer.”
Ida, with its six-foot storm surge, took down piers and boardwalks throughout the state, including the marsh boardwalk in nearby Fontainebleau State Park, which is also still out of commission. Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser said he hoped it would be repaired by September.
St. Tammany Parish government spokesperson Michael Vinsanau said Mandeville receiving the go-ahead from FEMA for its pier brings hope the parish-owned pier near Slidell will be funded soon, as well.
Madden couldn't provide a timeline to when residents can expect the Sunset Point pier to reopen, though he said the federal agency will foot 90% of the bill to rebuild.
“We anticipate a rigorous permitting process due to the pier's location and environmental protection requirements for local wildlife,” he said.
Alex Lubben