THE ZACHA Y
ADVOCATE& T H E A D V O C AT E.C O M
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W e d n e s d ay, Au g u s t 20, 2025
11TH YEAR, NO. 45
$1.00N
Efforts to prevent budget shortfall spark tensions
Leila Pitchford AROUND ZACHARY
BY OLIVIA MCCLURE
SU Ag Center to host canning and preserving workshop The Southern University Ag Center will host a fruits and vegetables canning and preserving workshop from 9 a.m. – noon, Sept. 11, in room 157 of Pinkie Thrift Hall on Southern University’s campus. Registration will begin at 8:30 a.m. The workshop will provide a hands-on introduction to the fundamentals of food preservation and canning. Participants will learn how to safely preserve seasonal produce, trends in food preservation, and the essential equipment. During the workshop, participants will prepare fruit, pack a jar, and receive a jar of preserves to take home. The workshop is free and open to the public, but seating is limited. To register, visit https://form.jotform. com/252096036998066.
Flag football seeks players 2025 Legendz NFL Flag Football, Zachary’s official NFL Flag Football, is open for registration. Age categories include 6U, 8U, 10U and 12U. Registration is $185, which includes official NFL Flag jersey, shorts and flags. Fees must be paid by the registration deadline Aug. 26. PayPal link is on the registration form at https:// tinyurl.com/ywuemtw4. Coaches can register players as a team, or individuals will be placed on teams. Games will be played on Monday nights and schedule will be released soon. All games will be held on Zachary High School Field. Email flagfootball.legendz@ gmail.com for information.
Sound Radio hosting birthday concert Sound Radio’s 40th Birthday Celebration/Concert is 5 p.m. Sept. 6 at Amite Baptist Church, 7100 Amite Church Road, Denham Springs. Local vocalists and musicians will be among the presentations. There is no admission charged at the door. A love offering will be taken to support the Sound Radio ministry, which is based in Zachary. Music includes The Right Road Quartet, Chronicle, the Cooksey Family Legacy, Mike Vaughn, Robbie Bass, the Barber Brothers, So Blessed, Dennis Calmes, Charles Pierre and The Gospel Travelers, Ricky
ä See AROUND, page 2G
Contributing writer
STAFF PHOTOS BY JAVIER GALLEGOS
Area capital manager Blaise Provitola, center, points to a monitor as Brad Jackson, left, looks through the viewfinder of the surgery console for the DaVinci 5 soft tissue surgery machine during a tour of the new tower at Lane Regional Medical Center on Aug. 12. Surgeons operate the machine from the console and control the instruments via remotes as they view its movements through a small camera. Provitola used a bell pepper in the demonstrations.
PLANNED FOR PATIENT NEEDS Get a look inside Lane Regional Medical Center’s $90 million ‘game changer’ building
BY IANNE SALVOSA
ä See BUDGET, page 2G
Recycling in Zachary will provide larger bins and increased cost
Staff writer
Lane Regional Medical Center officials unveiled a $90 million patient tower Tuesday, which they said will elevate the Zachary hospital’s patient care to match other medical facilities in the area. The tower houses 48 patient rooms and robotic medical technology. Chief Executive Officer Frank Corcoran said the expanded facility will enable the hospital to provide additional services, including neurology and critical care. “I call it a five star hotel like facility to take care of these patients,” Corcoran said at the ribbon cutting. “I am so happy to have it here.” Lane Regional had 139 beds prior to the expansion, which brought the total to 187. He said once the tower passes inspection from the Louisiana Department of Health, patients can start moving in mid- to late September. State Sen. Regina Barrow, D-Baton Rouge, said the hospital’s surrounding areas house a “vulnerable” population, dealing with ailments like diabetes and heart disease, and the expansion and added technology will bring residents closer to care when they need it. “Time makes the difference,” she said. The new patient rooms are
Anticipating rejection of its proposal to raise Zachary residents’ property tax rate, city leaders asked the council Aug. 12 to amend the budget to reflect the expected shortfall of cash. The council introduced an ordinance that, if formally adopted later, will grant the administration’s request. The vote came after a lengthy discussion that highlighted tensions that have mounted between members of the council and the administration in recent months — and that have escalated in the past few weeks amid accusations that the city attorney tried to pressure a councilman to vote for the tax increase. Last month, city leaders proposed rolling forward the tax rate from 5.07 to 5.48 mills, which would generate an extra $98,000 a year. The council agreed to introduce an ordinance increasing the millage on a 3-2 vote. One of the “no” votes came from Councilman John LeBlanc, who alleged that City Attorney John Hopewell threatened him with political consequences if he didn’t agree to the rate hike. LeBlanc called on Hopewell to resign and for Mayor David McDavid to investigate the situation. The council has yet to vote on whether to adopt the ordinance that would roll forward the millage. Zachary’s budget of about $21.3 million was approved at a council meeting in May. Officials crafted the budget assuming the council would sign off on the millage increase — something they apparently now view as unlikely given the proposed budget amendment ordinance.
BY OLIVIA MCCLURE Contributing writer
performs minimally invasive procedures and lessens recovery time. The hospital plans to bring in new surgeons trained on the Da Vinci 5 equipment. Intuitive, which produces the technology, will provide training to existing surgeons on staff. Other facilities in Louisiana with Da Vinci 5 technology include Our Lady of Lourdes in Lafayette and Christus Ochsner Southwestern Louisiana, which both acquired the technology earlier this year. LJ Baker Jr., the hospital’s chief strategic initiatives officer and physician recruitment
Zachary residents soon will be able to dispose of their cardboard boxes, plastic bottles and other recyclables in larger collection carts — but not everybody is happy about the change, which will cost customers an extra $4.35 a month. The new recycling containers will be offered as part of a five-year contract with Waste Management that the City Council approved on a 4-1 vote Aug. 12. Residents’ monthly bills will increase from $22.87 to $27.22. The garbage rate of $18.44 will stay the same. The recycling fee will go from $4.43 to $8.78. Donald Hains, Waste Management account manager, said the increase will help cover recycling processing costs, which have skyrocketed in the past decade, as well as investments in equipment such as high-tech collection trucks. In exchange for the higher rate, residents will be able to replace their current 18-gallon recycling bins with 96-gallon carts — the same size as the containers used for garbage. Zachary will be the first in the area to provide such a large recycling cart, Hains said. East Baton Rouge Parish and Baker both have 64-gallon containers for recycling and 96-gallon containers for trash. Part of the reason Waste Management is
ä See PATIENT, page 4G
ä See RECYCLING, page 3G
Board Chair Thomas Scott speaks during a ribbon cutting of the new tower at Lane Regional Medical Center. on the third and fourth floors of the tower, with 12 rooms on each floor that are 2 to 2.5 times larger than the older rooms at the hospital. The bathrooms are large enough to allow patients in wheelchairs to wheel themselves in, while in older hospital rooms, staff assistance may have been required for patients in wheelchairs. The patient tower also includes a sterilization room that is three times as large as the hospital’s existing room. New robotic technology includes the Stryker Mako, which performs total knee replacement surgery, and the Da Vinci 5 surgical robot, which
New Zachary High football coach has long ties to Brewerton
Chris McNamara
The last of our three new Zachary high football coaches is Chris McNamara, who is new to Zachary but not new to many on the ZHS coaching staff. McNamara started his coaching career at Chalmette in 2003 and 2004. After Hurricane Katrina, McNamara was forced out of Chalmette and was the defensive coordinator for coach David Brewerton at Livonia. “We hit it off immediately,” McNamara said. After Livonia, McNamara moved to Jefferson Parish and then home to Chalmette. Through all those moves, Brewerton and the other coaches with him at Livonia were on McNamara’s mind. Before we get into all that, McNamara got his education and prepped at Holy Cross, where he
Warren Brady ZACHARY SPORTS
played football and threw the discus. From there he moved on to Northwestern State and finished at UNO. McNamara is quick to point out that he has been to every state championship game Zachary has played in but the first one in 2015. Based on some of the near-misses at Livonia, Brewerton banned McNamara from the 2015 title game where the Broncos beat John Ehret. After the jinx was broken, Mc-
Namara has been at all the other Broncos trips to the Superdome and notes that “you can see me and my son with our hands up in the end zone on the catch by Hilton against West Monroe (2018) that was in The Advocate.” He notes that he saw Brewerton after the 2015 championship “at the Poydras exit to the Superdome.” McNamara’s son Cooper, who recently graduated from Chalmette, wanted to graduate with his friends, which was one of the reasons his move to Zachary was delayed. McNamara and his wife, Yvette, moved to Zachary in June, and he loves it. When asked why he has kept this relationship with Brewerton and made the move to Zachary, McNamara replied, “It’s the way he handles things,
how players, parents and coaches respond to him, how he lets the coaches do their jobs and the management of the program just draws you in.” Though he was previously a defensive coach, he will be working with the H-backs this year. He has three seniors that he is excited because they bring different qualities to the position. “We have some big bodies and two smaller younger guys that are physical and will know what their job is going to be,” he said. When he is done with football, he will be working with his other passion, wrestling. He is keenly aware of the positive attributes of wrestling for crossover to football. “I had a kid at Chalmette that
ä See BRADY, page 2G