EAST BATON ROUGE — Voters across East Baton Rouge Parish will be able to shape how the city-parish’s Plan of Government looks on Nov. 5.
District 3 Metro Council member Rowdy Gaudet spoke at the Press Club of Baton Rouge’s meeting on Monday, Oct. 7, and described various proposed amendments to the plan.
In recent months, Gaudet has been leading the charge on the new proposed Plan of Government.
Some of the most significant changes include the creation of a new executive counsel position for the mayor-president to use for legal guidance instead of the parish attorney. It would also change the chief administrative officer position into a city-parish manager. Another proposed change would allow the Metro Council to confirm the manager before the mayor fills the position.
Gaudet told press club attendees the proposed amendments are made with an eye toward public policy perspective but said with such a stacked November ballot, it’s been difficult to raise interest for the changes.
“On this ballot, you have everything from Presidential to down to Mayor-President. We’ve got a couple of tax renewal issues, so it’s been a challenge to generate a lot of interest in the community because this is a very policy-heavy initiative but one that I would say is critical to the future of our parish,” Gaudet said, before going into some of the other changes being proposed which include:
- Requiring the council budget officer to attend all budget hearings conducted by the Office of the Mayor-President and the Finance Department.
- Moving up the submission date of the mayor’s expense and capital budgets to the Metro Council from Nov. 15 to Oct. 15, providing an extra month for budget evaluation.
- Pushing back the date of adoption of the expense budget by the Metro Council from Dec. 15 to Dec. 31, providing additional time for budget evaluation.
- Removing requirements stating that council members make $1,000 per month, allowing for the council to change their salaries in the future.
- Changing and removing out-of-date language, like changing “he” to “he or she.”
Gaudet was asked about the language of the ballot item during the question and answer portion of the meeting. He said he’s not pleased with the confusing nature of it.
“You will not find me disagreeing that the language of this proposition could use some severe improvement. It’s a frustration of mine that I didn’t catch it on the front end so I’m going to take the hit for this while I’m not the author of the language. I’m disappointed at what the language actually is,” Gaudet explained and added that he attempted to simplify the ballot language but it was too late in the process.
One potential controversial proposed change includes the ability for Metro-Council members to raise their salaries without a vote of the people, which Gaudet said was true.
Ultimately, Gaudet said the proposed amendments serve to benefit the parish and its residents and advocated for its approval.
“These are quality amendments and they are beneficial to the future of our city and parish. They are not in any way partisan and so I think they’re worthy of a yes vote on Nov. 5,” Gaudet said.
You can read about all the proposed changes for the plan of government here.
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