UPDATED MIDDAY THURSDAY: Brent qualifies to run for School Board seat

Longtime St. Mary school employee Guienzy M. Brent qualified Thursday morning to run for the District 1 School Board seat she has held January.

Qualifying for the School Board and Morgan City offices primary Nov. 5 will continue through Friday.

Brent, of Franklin, was an interim appointment to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Joseph Foulcard, also of Franklin, in December. She'll run against Don A. Foulcard, who qualified to run for the District 1 seat Wednesday.

Morgan City will have at least one City Council race in the Nov. 5 primary.

Jean Paul Bourg, former St. Mary Parish public works director and chief administrative officer, qualified Wednesday to run against incumbent Bonnie F. Leonard in City Council District 2.

Also in Morgan City, Mayor Lee Dragna qualified to run for a second term.

Also qualifying were City Council incumbents Tim Hymel in District 1; the Rev. Ron Bias in District 3; Steve Domangue in District 4; and Lou Tamporello, District 5.

Leonard was appointed to an interim seat on the council earlier this year when Mark Stephens resigned the District 2 seat. Bourg was promoted from Public Works to CAO late in the administration of former Parish President David Hanagriff, but left early in the tenure of current President Sam Jones.

One bit of local political trivia: This will be the first election under a Morgan City home rule charter that says council members should be elected from districts rather than at large.

Members have been elected from districts since 2000, when the city government became party to a consent decree in a voting rights case. But the charter wasn’t updated to reflect the change until voters approved an amendment in October 2023.

Also Wednesday, U.S. Clay Higgins, R-Lafayette, qualified to run for a fifth term representing Louisiana’s 3rd Congressional District.

Under the most recent redistricting, the 3rd District now covers all of St. Mary Parish.

Also qualifying to run in the 3rd District are “Xan” John, a Lafayette Republican; Lafayette Democrat Priscilla Gonzalez; and Sadi Summerlin, a Westlake Democrat.

Assumption Parish is now part of the 2rd Congressional District, represented by New Orleans Democrat Troy Carter. Carter qualified Wednesday along with Shondrell Perrilloux, a St. Rose Republican.

Neither of Louisiana’s U.S. Senate seats is up for election this year.

The deadline to register in person to vote before the Nov. 5 election is Oct. 7. You have until Oct. 15 to register if you use the GeauxVote online system.

Early voting will be Oct. 18-29, excluding the two Sundays during that period.