UPDATED: Patterson Council raises mayor's salary

PATTERSON — Mayor Rodney Grogan is getting a raise.
The Patterson City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to raise the mayor’s salary from $36,000 to $48,000 a year while keeping the job’s $6,000 annual vehicle allowance in place.
The council also introduced proposed charter amendments that could, if passed by the council and Patterson voters, raise the qualification bar for the mayor and police chief, and allow the police chief to receive an immediate pay raise rather than waiting for the current council term to end, as the charter now requires.
But another proposed amendment, which would have required the mayor’s post to be a full-time job, proved too difficult to define.
Also Tuesday, Grogan urged council members to study a list of 23 street sections, many of them with only gravel for surfaces, to set priorities for $570,000 in proceeds from a bond issue earmarked for road repair.
Mayor’s pay
Grogan had asked for the raise at the Sept. 7 council meeting, when the ordinance was introduced.
His request was based in part on salaries in nearby municipalities. Grogan quoted figures that included annual pay of $69,000 for Morgan City’s mayor, $36,000 in Berwick and $62,000 in Jeanerette.
He also talked about the demands of the job, especially recently in light of Hurricane Ida and the COVID-19 pan-demic.
“The stress our job carries — but we continue to march on,” Grogan said at the September meeting. “I just felt the time was right.”
The council members generally praised Grogan’s work during his 11 years as mayor. But Councilwoman Tina Johnson asked what would happen if Grogan’s successor doesn’t measure up.
“You can’t be afraid of the future …,” Grogan said. “Please don’t penalize me and be afraid of the future.”
Councilman Joe Russo said he considers Grogan a friend and thinks he deserves the raise. But setting the salary shouldn’t be about personal feelings, Russo said.
“We should give the seat what it deserves,” he said.
After a public hearing with no public comments Tuesday, Russo, John Rentrop, Johnson, Lee Condolle and Travis Darnell voted for the $12,000 increase.
The $36,000 annual salary has been in effect since 2014, when the council raised it from $20,000.
Charter
amendments
Defining the mayor’s post as a full-time job proved to be more difficult. The council refused to introduce a proposed charter amendment making the job full-time after a long discussion about what exactly constitutes full time.
The questions from the council included: Can the mayor be required to work a certain number of hours each day? Can the mayor be prohibited from having job outside City Hall? If so, does such a rule effectively prohibit business owners from becoming mayor?
And even if the council settles on a definition, City Attorney Russel Cremaldi said, there’s still the problem of settling the legal language.
Darnell wondered aloud whether the city could require the mayor to work an eight-hour day.
“Now think about it,” Cremaldi responded. “How do you say that in an ordinance?”
Russo also said he’s concerned that a requirement might limit the number of people who would be eligible to run for mayor.
Condolle’s motion to introduce the ordinance calling for a vote on the full-time requirement died for lack of a second.
But the council successfully introduced three ordinances proposing charter amendments that must be passed with the votes of four of five council members and then by popular vote.
The proposed amendments:
—Would require the mayor to have a high school diploma or its equivalent.
—Would require the police chief to be certified under Peace Officer Standards and Training guidelines.
—Would allow the council to raise the police chief’s pay during the same term in which the raise is approved.
Currently, the charter says that if the council decides to decrease the pay of either the mayor or police chief, the de-crease can’t go into effect until the following council term. But a pay raise for the mayor can take effect during the term in which the council passes the raise, while the police chief has to wait until the next council term.
The amendment would create the same pay raise and pay cut rules for the chief and the mayor.
There is now no formal proposal for raising the police chief’s pay. Chief Garrett Grogan currently makes $60,000 per year.
If the council passes the proposed amend-ments by the end of December, the measures would go on the March 26 ballot.
The council’s passage vote could come as soon as Nov. 2.
Street work
The mayor once more asked council members to consider a list of streets needing work as the city tries to set priorities for the $570,000 in bond issue proceeds. Completing all the repairs on the list would exceed the money available by at least $200,000.
Gravel streets on the list are:
Taft from Hickory to 11th; Eighth, Ninth, 10th and 11th from Park to Taft; Tall Timbers from Luke to the end; Fern from Tall Timbers to the cul-de-sac; Dangerfield and Vaughn from Plum to Hickory; Willow from Taft to MLK; St. Mary and St. Lucy from Gabriel to the end; Sugarhouse from Joseph to Stable; Stable from Waveland to Kent-wood Water; Joseph from Waveland to Sugarhouse; Lucia from Leo to Mike; Progresso from Lia to Veterans; Morrison from Live Oak to end; Roussell from Cherry to end; Laws from Main to end; and Jake Street from Lia to the city limits.
The streets on the list with overlays are Park from Carmen to U.S. 90 and Shady Grove from Red Cypress to the cul-de-sac.
Morey Park
The council approved a Del Con bid of $99,000 to build the last piece of the Morey Park improvements, a 30-foot by 40-foot pavilion. Work by Kidder Inc. of Morgan City on projects worth $15,000 and $17,000 were also approved.