Parish Council focuses on possible charter changes

The St. Mary Parish Council continues to take a hard look at the home-rule charter, considering changes in the way the government operates.

That was the subject of a special meeting Wednesday in Franklin. The only action taken was referring some of the ideas under consideration to legal counsel to see if they comply with state law.

Some of the ideas, many from a list of recommendations by a charter committee in 2020, are relatively minor and are put forward to bring the 39-year-old charter into line with state laws that have changed.

Some are more far-reaching.

One charter amendment is already headed for the ballot in the spring. Proposed by Councilman J Ina of Franklin, it would open the council chairmanship and vice chairmanship to any council member.

Currently, the charter says the council leadership positions must be filled only by members elected from the council’s at-large districts.

Members representing those districts are elected parishwide, but each represents a geographic district — 9 in the west, 10 in the central parish and 11 in the east.

Ina has put forward the idea of turning 9, 10 and 11 into “super districts” from which members are elected rather than running throughout the parish.

The western district, 9, would have an African American majority, addressing what Ina sees as a racial imbalance. The parish has a population that is about one-third Black, but Ina and the Rev. Craig Matthews of Jeanerette are the only Blacks on the 11-member council.

Parish President David Hanagriff said increasing minority representation would be good. But “you have to look beyond that,” he said.

The fundamental issue is fairness, Hanagriff said. He talked about a hypothetical race in which a candidate running in one of the at-large districts could get not a single vote in that district and still win the right to represent it because of votes from across the parish.

“How is that fair?” Hanagriff said. “It’s completely not fair.”

Ina has put forward another idea last month: raising the parish president’s salary from $12,000 a year, the level set in the charter in 1983,, to the average of the mayoral salaries in the parish’s municipalities. Currently, Ina said, that’s nearly $50,000.

The point is to push the parish closer to having a full-time president to devote more time to his parish duties. One of the duties discussed last month was economic development.

Councilman James Bennett of Morgan City wondered how that would help when the parish already has a full-time economic development director in Evan Boudreaux.

Hanagriff said he already accompanies Boudreaux to talk to prospective businesses.

“Economic development should be done by an individual who is trained and has experience in economic development,” Hanagriff said. “It shouldn’t be in the hands of an elected official.”

The council should look at the raise as a cost-of-living adjustment after nearly four decades, said Hanagriff, who won’t benefit from any raise because he’s term-limited.

“Fifty-thousand is not a full-time salary for a full-time parish president,” he said.

Also under consideration after the committee recommendations: fine- tuning the chief administrative officer’s power to hire and fire personnel; prohibiting an office-holder whom voters have recalled from running for office again; giving the parish president a line-item veto to use on the annual budget; and removing the one-year waiting period before a construction project or the means of financing a construction project that has been rejected by voters can appear on the ballot again.