Unidentified speakers opened the meeting at Bethune Park in Norco with a ribbon‑cutting to mark the reopening of the playground at the former Bethune High School site. "This project's been a long time coming," one speaker said, noting new fencing, LED lighting, a condensed multi‑use field, two backstops and a new pavilion and playground seating that community members and partners, including Shell, helped deliver.

Parish leaders also used the event to highlight separate infrastructure work intended to reduce flooding in nearby neighborhoods. Parish officials described two pump‑station projects that will deliver permanent pumping capacity for the local watershed, an investment the record described as about $33,000,000. The speaker said those pump stations, combined with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' West Shore hurricane protection levee, would be part of more than $100,000,000 in local and federal infrastructure aimed at drainage and storm‑surge protection.

Parish officials thanked community groups and private partners for their support at Bethune Park and said additional incremental improvements remain possible through ongoing collaboration with the parish council and civic associations. The remarks emphasized the site's history as the former Bethune High School and the parish's effort to preserve that legacy while providing modern recreation amenities.

Next steps: the parish indicated continued collaboration on smaller improvements to the park; timing and funding for those incremental items were described as subject to future council consideration.