Port Arthur certainly had its rainy day when Tropical Storm Harvey hit at the end of August. Now a Port Arthur City Councilman is requesting Gov. Greg Abbott to tap into the state’s rainy day fund for relief.

Thomas Kinlaw III, District 3 councilman, made the request at the regular meeting of the Port Arthur City Council on Tuesday morning for the governor to call an immediate special session to release rainy day funding to the Gulf coast community.

Kinlaw said the residents of Port Arthur have endured many things and it’s in the city’s best interest to get state funding from different funding sources.

Cade Bernsen, a Beaumont attorney and chair of the Jefferson County Democratic Party, spoke at the podium and said these are unparalleled times for the Gulf coast. He added that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has limited money and its up to the State of Texas to play a role in recovery.

“We should seek every pot of money and demand it until they fix our communities,” Bernsen said. “There is $10 billion in the state’s rainy day fund just sitting there. It’s our money. It can be a start. We don’t have to take it all.”

He said the governor and officials have come to Port Arthur to take “many photo opps,” but now it’s time to get to work.

The governor could call a special session of the Legislature for what the coastal communities need most. He said the longer the wait, the more damages will become irreparable, people won’t move back to their communities and businesses will close.

He said some legislators fear a special session would take money from other funds, but that is unfounded.

“We do not want to wait until the 2019 session,” Bernsen said.

Harold Doucet Sr., District 4 councilman, asked if the Democrat Party has addressed this issue before. Bernsen said the party has been screaming about the issue, but as a minority party in the state, they can only use their words and writings.

Kinlaw said it was nice for the governor and the secretary of Housing and Urban Development (Ben Carson) to visit the city, but his concern was time would go by and the state would forget about Port Arthur.

“We don’t want the red tape to get in the way. Our job is to protect the citizens of Port Arthur by any means necessary. We need help now. Seventy percent to 80 percent of Port Arthur citizens are displaced from their homes,” Kinlaw said.

Bernsen told the council Port Arthur could lead the way for other municipalities. He added that this should be a nonpartisan issue and some Republicans agree with him.

Doucet said what is needed is a plan to present identifying what the city needs along with the numbers.

“We need to show specifically what we need or they’ll just tap dance,” he said.

Raymond Scott Jr., District 1 councilman agreed and said they need to call or write legislators about this.

Mayor Derrick Freeman said Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said a special session is not required to pull from the rainy day fund.

Freeman said he feared if another special session is called more contentious items that were detrimental to Port Arthur would be placed on the list again from the last special session.

He would favor the special session if it was solely restricted to this issue.

Willie “Bae” Lewis Jr., District 5 councilman, told the council a committee doesn’t need to be formed to write a special resolution to send to the Legislature. City Attorney Val Tizeno agreed and amended the wording to add “solely” or “only” to the present resolution.

In other Tropical Storm Harvey recovery business, it was approved to purchase nine 2018 Freightliner trash trucks from Houston for $1,798,533. These trucks are replacements for the trucks destroyed by Tropical Storm Harvey.

The resolution read this purchase is authorized because of a public calamity that requires the immediate appropriation of money to relieve the necessity of the municipality’s residents or to preserve the property of the municipality.

A presentation was made by Tony Broussard of Waste and Recycling Impact LLC to use shredders for C and D Construction Debris. This was a non-action item.

Broussard said his shredder can eliminate much of the trash impact, help the air space and the landfill by reducing trash piles down from an 8 to 1 ratio.

He said the shredders proved successful in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

The Super Shredder increases the compaction rate by 300 percent. It can even shred tires. It can be moved to different neighborhoods if there’s enough operating space using end dumps, processing anywhere from 1.2 million to 1.5 million cubic yards of debris. It can shred 50 tons to 100 tons in an hour.

“We shred, condense it, reduce the footprint at the site or bring it to the landfill,” Broussard said.

Lewis said he spoke with Broussard before Harvey about using the shredder for cleaning up Port Arthur.

Freeman said he appreciates a Port Arthur native who is a businessman. He added that he has seen the shredder in action and it is impressive.