There was little disagreement over the Ascension Parish Council’s decision in May to purchase the Lamar Dixon Expo from the foundation that had owned it since it was constructed.
After all, the $7.5 million purchase was one of those proverbial win-wins that promised to bring long-term stability to the popular facility and untold opportunities for the parish, which plans to expand it, upgrade it and rent it out for a variety of revenue-generating purposes.
While the acquisition seemed like a no-brainer, Parish President Tommy Martinez couldn’t help but wonder if the purchase would have happened had the parish been under the governance of a police jury, as it used to be, instead of a home rule charter with a council and parish president, as it is now.
“I don’t know if we would have ever been able to get the six votes we would have needed [under the old system],” Martinez says. “Police jurors tended to vote for what was best for their individual districts. They didn’t care about what was best for the parish as a whole.”
It has been 15 years since Ascension made the switch from police jury to parish council. But it’s only been within the past year or so that Martinez, a former police juror and two-time parish president, has noticed that the parish in general and the council specifically are starting to think like a parish—and not like a collection of fiefdoms. Making the transition, psychologically, has taken a long time.
Ascension is not alone. Though 14 of the 17 corridor parishes have moved from the more rural police jury form of government to a home rule charter, which includes a parish council and president, some of those parishes are still grappling with the old-school mentality. That may not have been a problem when those parishes were largely rural. But as they have become more urban—or exurban—it has become increasingly important that they think more globally and less parochially.
“It only makes sense to have one governing body for one parish,” says Barry Erwin at the Council for a Better Louisiana. “In order to be regional you need a broader governmental structure in order to govern more effectively.”? Of course, the idea of thinking regionally about the 10/12 corridor is a relatively new concept and until recently most of the parishes along the corridor were generally rural. As such, police juries, which essentially perform both legislative and executive functions, worked well. That’s because by their very nature they are able to respond swiftly and directly to the needs of those in their districts, whose problems tend to be generally simpler to solve than the complex issues that might confront an urban area.
“It’s a more direct form of government because people go to their police juror for ?everything,” says St. Tammany Parish President Kevin Davis, who was a police juror before his parish adopted a home rule charter in the late 1990s. “Police jurors have authority over roads, drainage and, basically, what projects get done in their district.”
As a practical matter, that means if someone wants, say, a paved road or a stop sign near his property, he will go directly to his police juror with the request. Assuming there’s money available, the police juror can pretty much make it happen if he wants to—and without having to go through the bureaucratic red tape of involving a parish-wide public works or streets department.
Residents of rural areas like having that kind of access to their elected officials. They also like the expediency. That’s why Acadia parish, which is west of Lafayette, still has a police jury. A few years ago, the parish formed a commission to explore the issue of moving to a home rule charter but decided against it on the basis of the if-it-ain’t-broke argument. Proponents of the system say police juries work just fine as long as the elected officials are doing their job.
“I think the people that are serving in the positions as police jurors or council members are what make the system effective,” says Terry Lacombe, the secretary-treasurer of the Acadia Parish Police Jury. “When you look back historically there have been some stalemates and tie votes but I think now our personalities blend and we’re moving forward on a number of fronts.”
Others point out, however, that the police jury system lacks the checks and balances that exist under a home rule charter. Police juries are autonomous and can’t be vetoed or overridden by an executive branch. As a result, the personal and political whims of the individuals on the jury tend to hold more sway and the minority vote on the jury has no voice. The jurors, individually, are more powerful than their counterparts on a parish council and their priorities are more narrowly focused.
In rapidly growing parishes where roads, sewerage, drainage and infrastructure issues cross the boundaries of police jury districts, that’s a problem. Ascension Parish recognized that back in the early 1990s and in 1994, and adopted a home rule charter because “the police jury was no longer appropriate,” according to Martinez.
It wasn’t an easy sell at first, and in order to get the police jurors and their constituents to go along with it, those pushing for the change had to make several concessions. For one, the new parish council was carved into 11 districts. That was arguably more than was needed but it satisfied police jurors at the time, who were concerned with preserving as much of their power as possible.
More significantly, the new parish council was given a lot of leverage over parish spending. Not only did the council have the power to approve the budget; until recently, it alone approved every line item in the budget over $10,000. That meant if Martinez wanted to hire someone or purchase something he had to take his request to the council, even if it had already approved the general budget.
“It was really burdensome … to have to go to three or four different meetings to get permission every time I wanted to get a contract signed,” Martinez says.
Earlier this year, Martinez was able to ?convince the council to raise the limit on line-item approvals to $50,000, which has cut down on the time he spends going to meetings. It is an example of local government running more efficiently and it is evidence that the Ascension Parish Council is beginning to act like a parish under a home rule charter.
“They’re finally starting to look at the parish as a whole,” he says. “They’re not as parochial. But it took us a long time to get there.”
The transformation took some time in St. Tammany Parish, too. In fact, the Northshore parish made two attempts to move to a home rule charter. The first try was in the mid-1980s, but after just two years—before the first term could even be completed—the parish voted its police jury back in.
“There was tremendous infighting back then,” Davis says. “People just weren’t accustomed to it.”
By 2000 they were ready to try again. This time it worked and observers largely credit Davis for helping make the transition a smooth one. He will be the first to admit it wasn’t easy. As in Ascension, Davis has made a deliberate effort to include the parish council in decisions that keep them closely in tune with what the executive branch of parish government is doing.
“I’ve told the council members to feel free to come into our offices, meet with our staff, work on problems,” Davis says. “This gives them a bigger role in daily decisions.”
As a practical matter, if a particular subdivision has a problem or concern that is brought to the attention of the district council member, that council member then takes it up directly with the appropriate department head. Instead of merely reporting the issue or turning it over to an assistant director of public works, the council member still has the power—as he or she did as a police juror—to help solve the problem.
“I let them go to the barn sites directly and work with the public works director or the head of engineering,” Davis says. “I encourage that because my belief is that if they can help us get a project done for their constituency we both win.”
In Livingston, the transition has not been so smooth. Though the parish adopted a home rule charter in the mid-1990s, the council has been at odds with Parish ?President Mike Grimmer over all sorts of management issues.
They overrode his budget veto in late April and have been embroiled in a power struggle over spending parish road money to pave dozens of private gravel roads and municipal parking lots, rather than allocate the money to parish road priorities.
When their auditor told them the practice was illegal, they fired him, a move they were later forced to rescind. They then tried to hire Tax Assessor Jeff Taylor’s wife, Delia Taylor, a public relations consultant, to handle damage control. After Grimmer refused to enter into a contract with Taylor—in part out of concern the council neglected to seek bids from other firms—she withdrew.
Council members also have been known to criticize their own for getting involved in matters outside the confines of their own district. According to media reports, Councilman Don Wheat ?actually chastised fellow Councilman Buddy Mincey during a discussion over whether to enact a moratorium on the road projects because it would affect districts other than his own. “You worry about District 5,” Wheat told Mincey, “and let me worry about District 6.”
Now federal authorities are investigating the council over Hurricane Gustav debris removal contracts. Council President Jimmie McCoy is accused of signing agreements with contractor IED and burn site property owners without the knowledge or consent of the rest of the council or Grimmer. District Attorney Scott Perrilloux has determined that only the parish president has the authority to sign contracts on behalf of the parish, and has advised the council to heed the home rule charter.
But McCoy publicly insists he has the power to sign contracts with council approval. “If the council says I can, I can,” McCoy has said. The charter does allow the Council to authorize someone other than the parish president to sign legal and financial documents, but only if the “project or purpose” was “previously approved by ordinance.”
In short, it’s a mess. But the problems in Livingston don’t surprise observers, who say unless parishes carefully manage the transition from police jury to home rule charter —as they have in Ascension and St. Tammany—it can be difficult to move away from the mindset of a parochial form of government. Add some strong personalities to the mix and it becomes even more of a challenge.
Then there’s the underlying fact that even in the rapidly growing corridor parishes, there’s still not a significant influx of new people to the area, which means the old mindsets linger.
“In Louisiana, 82.5% of the people are native born and that’s important in context because that means the vast majority—the highest percentage—of people in St. Tammany or Livingston have been there for a long time,” says Shreveport demographer Elliot Stonecipher. “They know the old system and, for the sake of argument, they liked it better the old way.”
That’s not to say the old way was bad. Indeed, Stonecipher is the first to admit that parish councils can be ineffective and poor stewards of parish funds. Similarly, police juries can be competent, efficient and forward thinking. But for an area to think and act like a region, as the corridor strives to do, not only must parishes cooperate more with one another but they must cooperate more within their own districts.
“When we had a police jury we had 11 little kingdoms and each police juror was king,” Martinez says. “Now we’re starting to think about the parish as whole—and even beyond.”
