ST. LANDRY PARISH, La. (KLFY) -- Elected officials in St. Landry Parish have launched a new weekly online show, "Let's Talk St. Landry", to boost transparency and encourage public engagement.

The show, hosted by Parish President Jessie Bellard, airs every Friday on St. Landry Parish Government social media and features a new topic each week based on community interest.

"It's a question-and-answer type of deal, and I don't want to know the questions beforehand," Bellard said. "I want them to ask me the questions; I want to be able to answer the questions and that not be rehearsed because it was rehearsed and it's not genuine."

"Let's Talk St. Landry" follows the example of successful web shows in the parish, such as "Chief's Corner" by Port Barre Police Chief Deon Boudreaux. Boudreaux noted the impact of his show.

"My show is just to reach out to the people I serve in our community to inform them of things that's going on inside of our community," he said. "The first year, I would get between several hundred to maybe a thousand views. This year, some of those are at almost 7000 views."

Covering topics from the home-rule charter to trail ride changes, Bellard hopes the show creates a culture of engagement with the people of the parish.

"The people that want to know something, I want them to say, 'Hey, let's talk about this. Let's talk about that.' Good or bad, whatever it is, I want to be able to explain my position on the issue and then have that engagement with the public," Bellard said.

All facts in this report were gathered by journalists employed by KLFY. Artificial intelligence tools were used to reformat from a broadcast script into a news article for our website. This report was edited and fact-checked by KLFY staff before being published.

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