Council nixes charter changes

Proposed changes to the St. Mary Parish Charter died last week after council members failed to muster a second or two-thirds vote to consider the measures.

Two of the changes – reducing compensation of council members who miss meetings and implementing term limits – failed after no one seconded Councilman Kevin Voisin’s proposal.

“We could lose everyone each time we have an election,” he said at last Wednesday’s meeting. “That’s not going to change no matter what you do with the charter.”

“I’m going. I’m making my own term limit,” Councilman Chuck Walters chided after the vote. “You could not pay me to do this job again.”

Two other proposed changed – pay raises for St. Mary’s parish president and council – died in a 7-3-1 vote.

Councilman Logan Fromenthal of Morgan City, was absent from last week’s meeting.

According to the charter, eight votes are needed to pass a measure.

Councilman Glen Hidalgo sponsored all four of the measures based on recommendations by a charter committee the council appointed in 2008. “This is a slap in the face to the people who made these recommendations,” he said.

Councilmen Albert Foulcard, Chuck Walters and Kevin Voisin voted against giving the parish council and the parish president pay raises.

Meanwhile, councilmen Gary Duhon, Butch Middleton, Craig Matthews, Glen Hidalgo, Steve Bierhorst, David Hannigriff and Ken Singleton all voted for the pay raise measures.

Had the measures passed, voters would have had the final say in the fall elections before the raises would have gone into effect.

The salaries for the council and the parish president have been the same since the Home Rule Charter was adopted in 1983.

The proposed ordinance on the president’s salary would have increased the current $12,000 per year to $36,000, but the job would have remained part-time.

The other ordinance would have increased the council salaries to $800 per month for single-district members and to $1,150 for at-large members. Those salaries now are $450 and $800 per month, respectively.

Walters said there are more pressing issues the council needs to address such as “retirement benefits going through the roof … and we want to give ourselves raises?”

He said that when voters were given the opportunity to increase the president’s salary in 2003 the proposition was overwhelmingly defeated.

Foulcard, who served as St. Mary’s first African-American parish president, said, “One dollar, $2, $3 raises; none of it bothers or concerns me. I [serve] from the bottom of my heart, not from the bottom of my wallet.”

Duhon said increasing the council’s pay would allow more people to run for office. Without it, he said “the guy making $12 an hour,” will likely not have the opportunity to run.