The St. Tammany Parish Council will create a committee to look at trimming the size of the parish government and the 14-member Parish Council.
The council resolution, adopted Thursday night with only one no vote from council member Maureen O’Brien, establishes a committee made up of representatives from the parish government as well as private citizens, to reform the parish’s government structure.
The committee will be made up of four Parish Council members, Parish President Mike Cooper or a representative from his administration, northshore District Attorney Collin Sims or a representative of Sims’ choosing, and five St. Tammany residents.
“Every meeting will be televised,” said council member Joe Impastato. “They’re wide open. So community participation is not only welcomed but it’s encouraged.”
One thing that will certainly be considered: A reduction in the size of the Parish Council, which has long been a point of contention for some in St. Tammany Parish.
The 14-member council is a carry-over from the parish’s old police jury government. Under that system, the 14 police jurors functioned as both the legislative and executive branches of government; there was no parish president.
In 2000, the parish adopted its current home rule charter, which established the role of the parish president and retained the 14 police jurors as parish council members.
Is smaller better?
“The police jury had 14 [members],” said Carl Ernst, a representative of citizen watchdog group Concerned Citizens of St. Tammany Parish. “We still have 14 of everything.”
“In the 14 different districts of the parish, there’s a lot of waste,” he added. “Can we do something about that?”
Since the charter was adopted, the parish’s population has exploded to more than 270,000 people. It’s transitioned from a more rural community to something decidedly more metropolitan, more akin to suburban Jefferson Parish than Washington Parish, St. Tammany’s more rural neighbor to the north.
That’s led some to contemplate whether the growth warrants an update to the parish’s structure of government.
The Northshore Business Council, an influential group of CEOs and business executives from across the northshore, commissioned a report last year that examined the pros and cons of trimming the council. It noted that if the council isn’t downsized, “organizational inefficiencies and council member frustrations may continue.”
More in St. Tammany
St. Tammany Parish has more parish council members than any parishwide legislative body in the New Orleans area. Jefferson and Orleans Parish each have seven council members, five with districts and two at-large representatives.
The St. Tammany Parish Council consists of part-time representatives, who each earn about $30,000 a year. By contrast, in Orleans and Jefferson, council members are full-time, with staffed offices, and earn upward of $90,000 a year.
O’Brien, the lone St. Tammany council member to vote against the resolution to create the committee, said she wanted more private citizens on the panel — an objection that she said she heard directly from many of her constituents.
“The complaint I heard was: Not enough participation from citizens,” she said. “I think there should be more citizen involvement.”