§ 3:312 — Legislative findings

§312. Legislative findings
The legislature hereby finds and declares that:
(1) The state's rural territory is vast in size, exceptionally diverse, possesses abundant
natural and cultural resources, and together with its economic, human, and community
resources, contributes greatly to the quality and maintenance of life of all people of the state,
and hence to a healthier, more prosperous state.
(2) Federal, state, and local resources, and individual effort available to address rural
needs are often isolated and limited to individual symptoms of blight and deterioration.
Related programs are frequently inaccessible to the residents they are designed to serve. The
placement of such programs within the various organizational structures is indistinct and
many localities have inadequate numbers of managerial, professional, or technical personnel
to pursue such assistance. Additionally, many public and private agencies also lack adequate
staffing to adapt programs and services to the special needs and requirements of citizens and
their environs. This situation has contributed to a growing confusion and disintegrating force
that discourages coordinated individual policy and program development and delivery of
services intended to address the needs of rural localities and citizens. Consequently, the
energies and resources of the many individual federal, state, and local, public and private
initiatives that could help answer rural needs and capitalize on the strengths of these areas,
are often frustrated or diminished in their effort.
(3) An important role and challenge for state government, therefore, is to get diverse
groups to work together for the betterment of Louisiana, and to combine their efforts in
imaginative ways to the end that all regions of the state may always offer the highest possible
quality of life, and cultural and material standards of living without sacrificing individual
freedom or responsibility. The legislature believes that such individual efforts can be
significantly enhanced, and support and sustain each other in the public interest; and many
useful and innovative responses to rural needs will be possible if a more focused and
coordinated interdisciplinary approach for addressing these problems and opportunities is
made available through state government.
(4) The legislature seeks to amplify the efforts of existing agencies and individuals
who are interested in such rural policy areas as economic development and employment,
local government and management, business, agriculture, environment, land use, natural
resources, community revitalization, human services and community life, health care,
education, transportation, community facilities, housing, broadband connectivity, water
quality, and sewer treatment.
(5) No state office has been specifically created to promote, harmonize, or assist such
efforts of existing agencies and individuals that address the unique needs, conditions, and
strengths of rural areas of the state. It is, therefore, the intent of the legislature to create a
state office of rural development. The office shall serve as a single contact point for rural
governments, service providers, state and federal agencies, and for individuals interested in
rural policies and programs of the state; shall strive to promote cooperative and integrated
efforts among such agencies and programs that are designed to address rural needs including
but not limited to the Governor's Advisory Council on Rural Revitalization, the office of
broadband and connectivity, and Louisiana Economic Development; and shall recommend
to the governor and to the legislature the suitable use of policies, programs, long-range plans,
laws, and regulatory mechanisms in order to meet such needs.

Legislative History

Acts 1990, No. 216, §1; Acts 1991, No. 396, §2; Acts 1991, No. 449, §1; Acts 2021, No. 331, §1.