Official takes blame for Parish Council map errors
The director of the agency that drew new St. Mary Parish Council districts took the blame Sept. 27 for mistakes that prevented one man from qualifying for an at-large seat in the Oct. 14 primary.
Problems with the district maps remain to be worked out.
The apology came from Kevin Belanger, director of the South Central Regional Planning and Development Commission staff, at the Sept. 27 council meeting. The council hired the commission’s staff to develop the updated district maps required after the 2020 Census.
Discrepancies in the new maps threaten to affect the Oct. 14 primary for Parish Council seats. In at least one case, they already have.
Former Parish Councilman Peter Soprano of Franklin originally qualified to run in District 10, one of the three at-large districts. Although members from the at-large districts are elected by a parishwide vote, members are required to live in the districts they represent.
Soprano learned that the new maps put his home outside District 10. So he signed up again later on the first day of qualifying to run in District 3, now represented by Rodney Olander of Franklin.
Olander is running for re-election. A third candidate, Whitney Bourque of Franklin, has also qualified to run in District 3.
Two council members later admitted that they hadn’t read the ordinance adopting the new maps. But they said they’d been assured by South Central that the at-large maps were unchanged from the maps in force in elections for the previous decade.
Soprano appeared at the Sept. 27 and called the mapping snafu “pretty rediculous.”
He also said he believes the discrepancies in the at-large district maps isn’t just a simplemistake.
“I hope Mr. Belanger has some secrets to unfold for us tonight,” Soprano said.
But, while owning up to the mistake, Belanger denied intentional wrong-doing.
“I think the inference is that this was an intentional act,” Belanger replied.”I want to say unequivocally that there was no conspiracy.”
Belanger said district maps in digital format needed for the redistricting work weren’t available from the demographer who performed the last redistricting. Mike Hefner of Duson performed the remapping after the 2010 Census.
So the South Central staff was forced to reconstruct the maps in digital form using paper maps and legal descriptions, Belanger said.
But the finished product wasn’t checked against the legal descriptions, he said.
“We take full responsibility for that error,” Belanger said.
Parish President David Hanagriff said the administration had no part in redistricting. And he took a swipe at the council’s decision to hire South Central to do the mapping rather than Hefner or Cedric Floyd, who had also sought the work.
“If we had gone with the guy {Hefner} who did it flawlessly the time before, we wouldn’t necessarily be in this situation,” Hanagriff said.
Councilwoman Dr. Kristi Prejeant cut off Hanagriff’s comments by bringing up a point of order.
Prejeant said his comments about administration involvement is “completely irrelevant because this is a legislative process.”
The at-large districts aren’t the only difficulty with the new mapers.
Registrar of Voters Terri Foulcard said voters in two precincts in the Baldwin area would have to go Franklin to vote under the new maps, which place the voters in District 3 rather than District 1.
“If we can’t get people to go around the corner to vote, why would we think they would go to Franklin to vote?” Foulcard said.
The affected voters, whom Foulcard described as “non-minority,” could also affect the election in unexpected ways. Olander, who is White, could lose votes because of the move, while the slim Black majority in District 1 would be reduced even more.
Foulcard attended an earlier council meeting to bring up the problem. But her appearance required the agenda to be expanded, and any councilman can block an agenda change. Councilman Mark Duhon cast that vote.
Belanger said he hopes to have corrected maps for the council to consider in two to three weeks.