'Unchanged' districts changed; Parish Council members want to know why

Some St. Mary Parish Council members are demanding answers about the post-census redistricting by the regional planning authority hired to do the job. They want to know why districts that weren’t supposed to be changed were, in fact, altered in a redistricting ordinance that two members admitted they hadn’t read.

The issue came to light at the Sept. 13 Parish Council meeting after comments by Peter Soprano, who was forced to qualify first in one district, then another in his bid for a council seat in the Oct. 14 primary. The question stems from the way council districts are constituted.

Eight members of the 11-member council are elected from traditional geographic districts. Three more districts, called at-large districts, are overlaid on top of the others. At-large members — those serving Districts 9, 10 and 11 — live in their at-large districts, but each is elected by a parishwide vote. The parish charter limits the council chairmanship and vice chairmanship to at-large members.

Districts are redrawn after each census. The council hired the staff of the South Central Regional Planning and Development Commission to develop a new district map for $25,500.

Soprano, a Franklin resident and former council member, signed up during the Aug. 8 opening of qualifying to run in At-Large District 10. But he said that later that day, an employee of the Registrar of Voter’s Office came to his nearby business to tell him that he no longer lives in District 10.

Soprano told the council he later learned that the recent redistricting included boundary changes affecting Precincts 19 and 20 in the Franklin area, changing his district residency.

So Soprano went back to the Clerk of Court’s Office and qualified again, this time to run for Parish Council District 3, one of the traditional districts.

At the end of qualifying, Soprano was running against incumbent Rodney Olander and challenger Whitney Bourque, both of Franklin. Incumbent Dr. Kristi Prejeant of Centerville qualified without opposition in At-Large District 9. And in At-Large District 10, incumbent Gwendolyn Hidalgo of Bayou Vista is being challenged by Reginald Weary and Angelena Brocato, both of Patterson.

Soprano called the situation “embarrassing. ... You paid your money. You should get a refund.”

The ordinance enacting the new districts includes the Precincts 19 and 20 changes.

Addressing Olander, Soprano said, “I fail to understand how you voted for something you didn’t read.”

“I can assure you I was not asleep when we did redistricting,” Olander said.

Olander, and later Prejeant, admitted they hadn’t read the portion of the ordinance dealing with the at-large districts.

Most of the redistricting discussion before passage had focused on expanding District 1 to include a larger minority population and on the districts covering Amelia and Berwick.

Olander and Prejeant both said they were assured – Prejeant talked about multiple assurances – that the at-large districts would be unchanged.

“The last thing I wanted,” Olander told Soprano, “was to have you in my race. I thought I was going in unopposed.”

Prejeant said she won’t vote on an ordinance again without reading all of it.

“I will read every line of every ordinance,” she said.

But “it’s very disappointing that we have worked with an organization that does a ton of work in this parish and gets paid a ton of money in this parish and we still don’t have any answers,” Prejeant said.

Councilman James Bennett of Morgan City wants those answers even if, he said, it requires issuing a subpoena to be delivered to the South Central staff by a parish deputy.

Councilman J Ina noted that the council picked South Central over two demographers, including Mike Hefner of Duson.

Hefner has worked with the Parish Council in the past and developed the current St. Mary School Board districts.

“This might be like a self-inflicted wound,” Ina said. “We’re upset, but we brought it on ourselves.”

Council Clerk Lisa Morgan said she will contact South Central with a request to appear at an upcoming council meeting.

South Central CEO Kevin Belanger told the Review in July that the redistricting process is complex because it involves a variety of districts, including those for Legislature and other state bodies as well as local offices.