COVINGTON • FOLSOM • LACOMBE • MADISONVILLE • MANDEVILLE • SLIDELL
ST. TAMMANY
N O L A.C O M
ELECTION 2026 SLIDELL POLICE CHIEF
Nicaud, Williams duel for Slidell Police chief job
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W e d n e s d ay, A p r i l 22, 2026
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Twenty tons of crawfish for tasty benefit
Suga Johnson is ready to meet the all-you-can-eat challenge. She has her armband on, a portable fan around her neck, and all the crawfish she can carry to a table in Fritchie Park, site of the 21st annual Crawfish Cook-off benefiting Hospice House.
Crawfish are being sold out front, but behind the tents is where the hot work of prepping and cooking takes place.
BY SARA PAGONES
Contributing writer
Slidell voters will choose between two veteran law enforcement officers, both retired from the Slidell Police Department, when they elect a new police chief on May 16. Brian Nicaud, a fourth-generation police officer with a 30-year Nicaud career, and Tommy Williams, a Slidell native who spent part of his 30 years in law enforcement in Georgia before returning home, are vying to succeed Randy Fandal, now the city’s mayor. The two Republicans are running on their experience, with Nicaud stressing his breadth of Williams service and Williams touting his supervisory credentials. Both candidates say that they’ll keep Slidell a safe, peaceful community. Early voting is May 2-9.
ä See CHIEF, page 2A
Report offers opinion on St. Tammany’s fiscal issues
BY WILLIE SWETT Staff writer
St. Tammany Parish spends more on firefighting than comparable parishes and has less money to spend on the courthouse and other criminal justice costs, according to a new report that’s likely to add to an ongoing debate about the parish’s tax and budget issues. The 19-page report, conducted by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s office and released last week, compared property and sales tax data for St. Tammany with five other parishes in fiscal year 2024, and also analyzed St. Tammany’s budgets from 2024 to 2026. St. Tammany’s operating budget in 2026 was $202 million. The report, which looked across several spending categories, found that while St. Tammany collects more taxes per person dedicated to its fire departments than the other parishes, overall it collects fewer undedicated taxes per person. Dedicated taxes are approved by voters and have to be spent on a specific purpose. The undedicated taxes that it does collect, which go to general funds and are spent at the discretion of elected leaders, tend to go toward the parish’s cities, the report said. The lack of general parish taxes has contributed to St. Tammany’s issues funding its district attorney’s office, as well as the courthouse and parish jail, the report suggests. In 2026, the parish cut funding by 30% for the jail, the criminal division
ä See FISCAL, page 2A
PHOTOS BY MATT DOBBINS
This might have been the world’s biggest crawfish pot boiling away in Fritchie Park on April 18, but boiling 40,000 pounds of crawfish is a really big job.
What made the 21st Crawfish Cook-off for Hospice House on April 18 in Slidell so different from other boils? The numbers, that’s what. More than 50 teams of cooks prepped and boiled 40,000 pounds of crawfish and served them up with 17,500 pounds of sides so that everyone who came to Fritchie Park could eat all the tasty little crustaceans they could hold.
Art is imitating life in St. Tammany’s public spaces — and people love it BY KADEE KRIEGER Contributing writer
St. Tammany residents enjoying parks, trailheads, gardens and sidewalks throughout the parish this spring are noticing and enjoying the addition of life-size statues that have transformed these community spaces into public art displays. The “Art Imitates Life” exhibition pieces — all 14 of them on loan from the Seward Johnson Atelier — will be on display in five St. Tammany Parish communities over the next year. Most are installed in Covington, but one each is also being located in Madisonville, Mandeville, Slidell and Abita Springs. The project is a collaboration between The Covington Public Art Fund, a nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing all forms of public art to the parish, and Visit the Northshore, the parish tourism arm, as well as some business sponsors. Created by artist Seward Johnson, the bronze sculptures depict everyday moments in such crisp detail that
PHOTO BY BOBBY GILBOY
This looks to be a pedestrian who just stopped to rest on a shady public bench in front of the EOC on Boston Street. But the artist named this figure ‘The Search,’ so perhaps she’s trying to find something in her handbag.
they will invite anyone in the vicinity to step into the scene and become part of the art, said Lisa Condrey Ward of the Covington Public Art Fund,
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spearhead of the project. “Public art adds depth, beauty and connection to a community,” she said. “These sculptures will create moments of surprise and delight throughout our streets and parks. Public art encourages people to linger a little longer, discover something new, and experience the culture and creativity that make the Northshore communities such vibrant places to live and visit.” The hyper-realistic figures are a sculptural commentary on everyday life over the decades, and they represent Johnson’s love of finding and replicating what he termed “the beautiful moments or ordinary life.” The artist intends them to be interactive, to be touched, to be talked to, to be laughed at, to simply be enjoyed by those who look at them, sit next to them, prop on them, be photographed with them. In fact, Johnson said his figures don’t actually come to life until they are seen. The price to borrow the statue collection was about $60,000, but Ward said there
are additional costs that include printing locator maps, marketing the exhibit and associated events, and the delivery of each piece to its temporary home. Throughout the year, the Covington Art Fund will hold fundraisers to support the exhibit and generate seed money for the next project, Ward said. She hopes the fund raises a cumulative $100,000. Covington’s statues are located throughout the city’s historic downtown. Others can be found at the Mandeville Trailhead, the Abita Springs Community Garden, a pocket park in Olde Towne Slidell, and Madisonville Town Hall. Each statue depicts familiar movements and moments. In Mandeville and Slidell, couples twirl in dance; in Abita, a girl spins a hula hoop. Other statues depict women and men carrying groceries, waiting on a bench as if for a bus, playing fetch with a dog and completing strokes with a paintbrush. “It is mind-blowing the fine
ä See ART, page 2A
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