Avoyelles Police Jury debates Road District 2 board appointment process

English is a confusing language. When it is used in trying to describe a complicated and controversial issue, one little word out of place is enough to put the brakes on what should be a simple process.

Take, for example, the appointment of members of the parish’s Road District 2 board of commissioners. The 7-member board works to recommend road projects and spending of the district’s road tax revenues. The board includes three jurors with election districts in at least part of the road district. The commission is also supposed to have four other members.

At its Jan. 14 meeting, the Police Jury took about 30 minutes to try to clarify the meaning of a few words to determine where those four non-jurors must live.

‘FROM EACH DISTRICT’

District Attorney Charles Riddle started the discussion by noting the initial authorizing ordinance setting up road district boards says each road district will be overseen by a board consisting of the three police jurors serving that area and four members “from each district.”

Those last three words could be interpreted to mean there must be a representative from each of the four established road districts on each road district board. Riddle said four road districts were created. Three are inactive because voters rejected road improvement taxes for those districts.

Road District 2 voters approved a 30-mill tax to improve and maintain parish roads and municipal streets. Riddle said the intent was probably different because it would not make sense to require someone from Marksville to sit on a road district commission in another part of the parish.

That four-letter word “each” -- and the fact that “district” can have multiple meanings within the same sentence -- is the linguistic problem.

Does it mean a member must come from each of the four road districts? Does it mean a member in a specific road district must come from each of the Police Jury election districts in that road district? Does it mean members must live in the road district where they would be serving?

“It needs to be reworded,” Riddle said.

TWO PROPOSALS

Board member Bobby Bordelon submitted a motion to require each Road District 2 juror -- himself, Jacob Coco and Glenn McKinley -- to appoint someone from their election district.

The jurors and those three appointed members would then select the seventh member and the Police Jury would confirm the appointments, he said.

Bordelon said that would ensure each juror’s constituents would have a voice on the road commission.

Juror Charles Jones, who was president when the road districts were created, said the intent at the time “was to build road districts based on the old wards and not on the current Police Jury districts.”

Jones said interpreting the appointment process to mean a member from each of the four road districts is ridiculous.

Requiring an appointee from each of the three jury districts with constituents within the road district is also problematic.

“McKinley may only have 80 people to choose from who live in Road District 2,” Jones said, noting the Mansura juror’s district has only a small area in Road District 2. It would also be contrary to the intent of the ordinance for the District 4 juror to appoint someone in his district that does not live in Road District 2, he said. Juror Jacob Coco seconded Bordelon’s motion to allow it to come to a vote.

Jones amended Bordelon’s motion to enable the three jurors to appoint anyone living anywhere in the road district to the commission.

That version of the motion was approved 7-1, with Bordelon voting no. Coco voted in favor of the revised motion and Kirby Roy, as president, chose not to vote on the issue.

Riddle said he would revise the ordinance now that the jury had clarified its intent on how the board is to be selected.

He said the road district commission may meet and conduct business even though he has not presented the final written version of the procedure.

A short while later, Bordelon appointed Thomas Hammons to the Road District 2 Commission to replace Plaucheville Mayor Teryl St. Romain. McKinley appointed St. Romain to the board. Coco appointed Glen Gremillion to the commission to replace Duane Lacour.

Those six members will meet to select a seventh member, who will then be confirmed by the jury.

PORT COMMISSION

In another commission-appointing issue, state Rep. Daryl Deshotel said he will be submitting legislation in the upcoming session, that begins March 9, to simplify the appointment process for the Avoyelles Port Commission.

At this time, the process calls for each of the nine jurors to submit three names to be considered by the state representative and two state senators serving Avoyelles Parish. The three legislators would then pick one of those nominees to serve as that election district’s representative on the Port Commission.

Deshotel said new state Sen. Heather Cloud, from Turkey Creek, said she and new Sen. Glenn Womack, of Harrisonburg, should be removed from the process.

Deshotel said he would be pleased if the process was for each juror to submit one nominee and that nominee be the appointee from that juror’s district.

Since the requirement merely states that “three names” be submitted, it was -- perhaps half-jokingly -- suggested that jurors could just submit the same name three times.

EMPLOYEES OF QUARTER

In other business, the Police Jury recognized James Washington and Dorcas Gillam as the “Employees of the Quarter” for the fourth quarter of 2019.

Washington has been with the parish for 34 years. He oversees the solid waste operations at the Parish Barn in Mansura. Gillam is a secretary in the Parish Permit Office, where she has worked for six months.