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The Terrebonne Parish School Board will consider two modifications to a reapportionment map adopted by the Terrebonne Parish Council that school officials had initially rejected.
Presenting the maps at last Tuesday’s school board meeting, South Central Planning and Development Commission Graphic and Information Systems Coordinator Scott Leger said he thought he found a solution for drawing lines for voter representation.
Leger said it was a matter of playing with the numbers that resulted in an arrangement that met legal requirements for the districts involved to avoid placing school board members Richard Jackson and Debi Benoit in one district and Hayes Badeaux and Brenda Babin in another having to face one another in an election bid.
Board member Donald Duplantis has resisted changing school district alignments from parish lines. He wants to minimize voter confusion and contends that if two board members end up running against one another, the board should let voters have their say without having to protect an outcome.
“What you’re doing is gerrymandering the lines just so that people don’t have to run against each other,” Duplantis said. “That’s just not right.”
“No matter what we do tonight, we are going to present it to the public anyway,” Badeaux responded.
Council President L.P. Bordelon cautioned members not to accept one plan to help one district at the expense of another district. “If we do that then we don’t have the best interest of the public at hand,” he said.
“I’m seeing very little difference in the plans,” Badeaux said. “We’re going through a process right now.”
The board had already sent the idea of redistricting to committee. Now it added the modified maps for consideration with a vote of 8-1. Duplantis cast the only opposing vote.
“I am sensing an effort of cooperation [among board members],” Babin said following the meeting. “I’ll take eight out of nine.”
School districting realignment is required every decade to adjust for U.S. Census figures and comply with the 1965 Voting Rights Act that requires having a majority minority district for voter representation. The Terrebonne Parish School Board had rejected automatically accepting a map adopted by the Terrebonne Parish Council and approved by the U.S. Department of Justice.
South Central Planning and Development Commission Geographic Information System Coordinator Scott Leger presents two adjusted redistricting maps to the Terrebonne Parish Council.
