– The City of St. Martinville has scheduled two Town Hall meetings in March to present information to city residents about the item on the May 3 election ballot that will give voters the option to change the city’s form of government from a special legislative charter to the Lawrason Act.
The meetings will be held at 6 p.m. on March 6 at Adam Carlson Park and at 6 p.m. on March 11 at Magnolia Park.
Consultant Karen White, who spent 30 years working with the Louisiana Municipal Association and is an expert on the forms of municipal government in the state, will be on hand at both meetings to give a presentation explaining the differences between the two forms of government that voters will choose between.
She also will answer questions from the public about the two choices. Mayor Jason Willis asked interested residents to attend and have any questions they have about the election and the two forms of government prepared.
Former St. Martin Parish President Chester Cedars, an attorney, also plans to attend the March 11 meeting, Willis said.
The city’s charter and the Lawrason Act both date to the late 1800s but provide different forms of municipal government.
Under the city’s charter, the city council operates under a stronger position. Twenty-four towns, villages and cities in the state have legislative charters.
White said at a meeting earlier this month that the Lawrason Act, which has been the standard for the state since voters abolished legislative charters in 1974, provides more checks and balances similar to the U.S. government’s division between the executive branch (in this case the mayor, who is the city administrator) and the legislative branch (the board of aldermen, or city council in St. Martinville’s case). Around 248 municipalities in the state are governed using the Lawrason Act. Another 33 are under Home Rule Charters.
Town Hall
Existing legislative charters were allowed to continue after 1974 but the legislature could aend or repeal those charters at any time. IN 2010, the legislature enacticed a statute that says if a legislative charter is silent on a particular matter, the provisions of the Lawrason Act controls the issue.
White has prepared a fact sheet about what the voters will decide, one on basic differences between the city’s legislative charter and the Lawrason Act, and a rebuttal to a fact sheet being distributed in the city listing the negatives of the Lawrason Act and comparing it to a Home Rule Charter, which is not the form of government in St. Martinville, the mayor said.
