Councilman-elect: Postpone ordinance

An ordinance establishing a 120 day waiting period before re-introducing an ordinance that had previously failed was withdrawn Wednesday.
Councilman-elect Scott Ramsey, Bayou Vista, asked the St. Mary Parish Council to postpone that action until the new slate of council members are seated in mid-January.
“What’s this trying to accomplish?” Ramsey asked.
Councilman Kevin Voisin explained, “We had an issue changing meeting dates (recently)” that repeatedly came up meeting-to-meeting.
Ramsey noted that there are seven new council members taking office in January. “We kinda talked it over, and we really would rather that you wait on this, and let the new council address this. Ya’ll haven’t had to face this. I understand what you were trying to do, but there may be some inadvertent problems that would cause the new council, if something happened with an ordinance, that we’d have to bring back in a hurry.”
Councilman Ken Singleton, sponsor of the ordinance, said there is an avenue to bring up ordinances again if absolutely necessary.
“Just don’t put that burden on us,” Ramsey said. “Let us get in, and if we need to make that decision, we can make that when the new council comes in.”
“It’s going to put a huge burden on the chairman of the council,” Voisin added. “It’s going to come to three newly-elected people that have no previous elected experience running this meeting. I don’t like that new avenue. It says the chairman of the council will determine if it meets the necessary measures to move forward. I just don’t like this, and I agree with them, they should handle this.”
Singleton said he’s checked with other parishes and “just about every parish” has similar provisions.
No action was taken other than withdrawal of the ordinance.