EVANGELINE PARISH — Construction crews have spent more than a year working nonstop—pouring concrete, raising steel beams, and bringing the new Evangeline Parish jail closer to reality. Now, officials say the $21 million facility is just months away from opening, funded entirely by a one-cent sales tax.

Sheriff Charles Guillory, who has advocated for the project from the very beginning, emphasized that a new jail was not simply a desire for the parish—it was a necessity. The current facility, more than 35 years old, has room for only 68 inmates.

“We are sending 30 to 40 pretrial inmates out of town and it’s costing me 25 to 35 dollars a day… Sometimes it adds up to 40 to 50 thousand dollars a month,” Sheriff Guillory explained. Those costs, he noted, are funds the parish would rather put

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