Personnel Directory

Angel is responsible for clerical functions related to maintaining good records, and assisting with any customer service needs. 

She has been with City Hall since 2014.

A graduate of Riverside Academy in Reserve, Delgado and SLU in administrative studies, she brings experience in maintaining and processing applications from her work on a grant for Recruitment and Retention of Health Care Practitioners affected by Katrina areas. 

She and her husband have 3 kids, when the family is not involved with extracurricular activities, they enjoy vacationing

Carlene Raiford Ott is responsible for maintaining and protecting the court records, collecting and disbursing all monies payable to the proper sources, while focusing on customer service and fiscal accountability.

She has held a number of positions at City Hall, coming first as a PHS Senior through Cooperative Office Education. Taking time out for SLU, motherhood along the way, she has worked over 30 years and multiple mayors.  

She is a member of Bedico Baptist Church and enjoys the craft of painting old fence boards.

Cheryl Ragan Hoover is over all finances, explaining that the city has some thirty-four active bank accounts. Some, by ordinance, must be kept.

Each grant requires separate tracking as well as each department such as water, sewer, mausoleum, cemetery, sales tax, investment accounts, equipment, police and fire millage, etc.

Ponchatoula also keeps an emergency account and at a statewide seminar when the speaker asked,  “How many municipalities have such an account?” -  Hoover was surprised to learn she was the only one to raise a hand. Unfortunately, many learned too late from Katrina.

She is also over automatic withdrawals, bank reconciliations and preparation for annual budgets and audits and assists with monthly billing and Accounts Payable.

Hoover studied Accounting and has worked at City Hall since 2006, bringing over thirty-one years of experience from her work at Sam Yawn and Yeoman’s Accounting.

She and husband, Russell, recently celebrated their forty-third anniversary and are parents of two and grandparents of six. Members of St. Joseph Catholic Church, they enjoy cooking, gardening, fishing and spending time with family and friends.

Ramona Tara’ Umbach serves in several roles when it comes to permits, taxes and record keeping.

She assists new businesses in filling out applications for business permits and each January sends existing businesses renewal forms for their business taxes.

Downloading local property tax information from the parish assessor’s office, each December she sends Ponchatoula residents their city property tax notices.

While the Strawberry Festival Board handles permits for area non-profit groups inside Memorial Park, Mrs. Umbach issues itinerant permits for outside vendors, abiding by state-set vendor permits. To centralize these vendors, former mayor Julian Dufreche set standards still in place: The outside vendor must set up on private property that has to be in the C-2 commercial zone.

A local native and graduate of Ponchatoula High School, Mrs. Umbach is the daughter of Raymond and Shirley Dietz and has always worked in the field of finance. She had been in Savings and Loans for eleven years when board member Ron Morgan recommended her for Tax Collector for the city, a position she has held for over twenty-five years. To stay current, she is a member of the Louisiana Association of Tax Administrators.

In their personal life, she and husband Rickey are active in First Baptist Church, parents of sons, Ryan (Chelsea) and Seth, and enjoying grandchildren.

Rhonda Sheridan's responsibilities are as many and diverse as her title implies and each day is different. For starters, she is responsible for on-going grant work, capital outlay projects and the mayor’s appointments.

While the city has had no cemetery plots available for ten years, all cemetery questions are still addressed to her. She keeps a list of anyone wanting to buy or sell a plot and helps families (especially out-of-towners) locate existing plots along with providing maps.

She coordinates events such as kick-off royal toasts that are part of Strawberry Festival, Krewe of Erin, Krewe of Omega, Leadership Tangipahoa, USS Ponchatoula Shipmates, etc., preparing gifts bags and honorary citizenships. Sheridan arranges for a gift basket and a certificate from the mayor to honor each resident having a one-hundredth birthday.

As an administrator for Mayor’s Court, she works with the mayor, the magistrate, the police chief, and the court administrators voluntarily. All reporting goes to the Louisiana Supreme Court, State Police, State of Louisiana and the Department of Motor Vehicles. With laws changing so rapidly, she stays updated with the latest in technology.

Sheridan began laying the groundwork for her present position right after graduating from Ponchatoula High School when she earned her court stenographer license and worked for Judge Bruce Bennett for nine years. After time-off for parent care, she served fifteen years as a paralegal for Attorney Tom Waterman who was also the city attorney.

She’s held her current position for nine years and has been Secretary and Treasurer for Wadesboro Catholic Cemetery also for the same length of time.

As a 2012 graduate of Leadership Tangipahoa she has served on its board of directors for over four years and in 2016 was its chairperson, believing in the life-changing organization with a passion.

For three years, she has served on the Westminster Place Apartments Board and is currently serving on the Tangipahoa Economic Development Board.

To relax, she and husband Mike enjoy their camp on the Tangipahoa River.

Robert F. “Bob” Zabbia, a lifelong resident of Ponchatoula, brings to the mayor’s office over forty years of business and administrative experience dealing with the workings of governments at all levels—local, parish, state, and federal. This role has allowed him to see first-hand how other cities solve their problems.

He served twelve years as a member of the Board of North Oaks Health Systems until his retirement in 2010. Mayor Zabbia also served on the Board of Parish National Bank for eight years prior to the sale to Whitney.

Mayor Zabbia graduated from Ponchatoula High School in 1968 and Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond in 1972 with a B.A. in Marketing. He has been married to the former Kim Howes since 1974. They have one daughter Kate Zabbia Stuart who, along with her husband JD and daughter Maggie, lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

He is a current member of the Ponchatoula Chamber of Commerce and a past member of the Ponchatoula Kiwanis Club. Mayor Zabbia also participates in as many community involvements as his schedule allows. He and his wife Kim are members of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church.

“Ponchatoula is where we were born, where we grew up, where we were married, where we all went to school,” the Mayor added. “Kim, Kate, and I all graduated from PHS where Kim spent thirty-three years as an educator.

“Ponchatoula is where I have lived my life. I know what this city is, I know what it has been, and I know what it can still become.”