From: "Fontenot, William" To: Subject: Good luck in your effort Hello Mr. Perkins, Thank you for calling me today. Good luck to you and your neighbors. There is usually nothing easy about a struggle like this. My experience is whenever people get together, get organized, talk to their friends, public officials, the media, other groups, etc. they are usually successful. Just good old common sense, hard work and persistance makes a tremendous difference. If everyone in the group would take the time to write letters to their public officials this would make a big difference. If a hundred people would write a short letter to their Police Juror, State Representative and State Senator that would probably be more letters than they have ever gotten on any subject in the last ten years. You might pick five public officials who would be happy to get letters from their cconstituents. If you can get just 30 people to write short letters to 5 officials that will make a big difference. If you could, over the next month, get 200 people to write letters like this you can make a real difference.Anyway, these are just suggestions but things like this work. Like I told you over the phone if everyone in the group wears the same color t-shirt, cap, glove, scrap of paper, or sticker to the next public meeting the officials at the meeting will be impressed and remember the group. I always encourage people to be courteous but always let the officials know why you are at the meeting and that you are together. Always identify who is with the news media, introduce yourself, or whomever is speaking for the group, and tell them why you are at the meeting, even if no one speaks at the meeting. Anytime you can get the newsmedia to cover your story you are reaching a larger audiance and coverage like this is usually great for your organization and your effort. Always contact the reporter after a story runs in the news paper or on TV and thank them for covering the story. Find out from them who is their supervisor and thank that person for the coverage. The media rarely gets thanked for their stories and they really apreciate getting thanked. If you meet with any of your public officials always follow up with a letter of thanks. Even if they do not agree with you thank them for meeting with you. You then have a record of who you have met with. Keep a copy of letters like this for your records.Get the list of all elected officials in the parish and over the next few months try and have groups of three people from the group meet with all of them. If you have 60 officials in the parish and 60 people in the group then break the list of your members down and then no group of yours would have to meet with more than three officials. If enough people do this and you have enough time the work is not too hard on anyone. Share the work as much as possible and no one will have to work too hard. Do not try and do all of these things yourself. Get as many volunteers as possible to help out. Everyone should know the officials in their parish and this is a good way to learn who they are. This year is an election year for some officials and they are trying to get your vote for something. This work is your way of getting their vote for something you want. Please call or write if you have any questions. Sincerely yours, Willie Fontenot