Ambiguity over Louisiana law regarding boards of library control, and unambiguous illegal activity of Bossier Parish police jurors possibly not serving legally on it, have become issues in Police Jury contests.
Since 2016, the Jury has had members serving on the parish’s Library Board of Control. At present, the entire composition of the Board is made up of jurors: Republicans Glenn Benton, Bob Brotherton, Julianna Parks, Doug Rimmer, and Democrat Charles Gray. All ran for reelection this fall, with Benton and Rimmer drawing no opposition.
By state law, the parish if it chooses (or enough citizens petition it) to have a library system must have this panel with five to seven citizens of the parish appointed by it. State statute also grants the board some powers independently of the parish: to elect and employ a librarian, and, upon the recommendation and approval of the latter, to employ assistant librarians and other employees and fix their salaries and compensation; provided that no contract of employment shall be made for a longer period than four years nor with any person as head librarian, or director, who has not been certified by the State Board of Library Examiners. Otherwise, the parish controls all other aspects of library operation that it chooses to do so.
Bossier Parish established its libraries in 1939 (Ord. 75 of 1939) following state statute operating at the time (Act 36 of 1926), which scarcely differs from statute addressing that today that creates and defines a board. Opinion since, as recently as this summer, since then has reaffirmed that this process makes a board a creature of the parish.
Yet juror service on a library board is deemed illegal by Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry’s office, forcefully stated in a document released in February. It explicitly reads that “Louisiana’s Dual Officeholding and Dual Employment Law prohibits a member of the governing authority from serving in an office that they have the authority to appoint. The law provides that the governing authority appoints citizens to the library board of control. The governing authority may not appoint a member of the governing authority to the library board of control.”
Given the status of boards as a creature of governing authorities, that would appear to grant an exception to the dual office-holding statute, in that the prohibition applies “except that local governmental subdivisions may appoint members of the governing body to boards and commissions created by them and over which they exercise general powers as provided in Article VI, Section 15 of the Constitution of Louisiana.” On the surface, this would seem to exempt the prevention of jurors from serving on a board and is the justification the parish uses to back the practice.
However, it seems unlikely that the AG’s office would make something up out of thin air contrary to that and there must be some rationale as to its declaration of the illegality of juror service on a board. Unfortunately, Parish Attorney Patrick Jackson reports that inquiries about this have gone unanswered. But, oddly, that’s the extent to which the Jury has gone to clarify the matter. It’s had nearly eight months where it could have instructed Jackson to request formally an opinion rendered about the question whether juror service on the board violated dual-officeholding, which would have forced action on behalf of the AG and likely would have produced an opinion by now with an explanation/resolution.
As it stands, while the AG has issued several opinions (such as 19-0143, 19-0113, 19-0096, 11-0022, 08-0126, 03-0454, and 93-710 particularly related to incidents in Caddo and Bossier Parishes) over the decades about members of a governing body in a parish serving on the library board of a parish (or parish/city’s board, as the law allows joint library systems and a number of parishes operate under this mode), none involved the current situation in Bossier Parish: can a police juror in a Lawrason-governed parish (that is, without a home rule charter whose governance state statute therefore mandates) serve on a library board that solely governs library operations across the entire parish? And while it is speculation as to why the AG’s office declares the answer to this question in the negative, two reasons suggest themselves.
First, if a parish (or parish/city) is to have a library, state law dictates that a board with certain composition and powers be established to run it. That could mean that legally a board is not considered to be entirely a creation of a jury, because the state gives no option for that so in some sense a board is an instrument of state policy. Second, because statute gives boards those few powers independent of a jury, that independence becomes destroyed if a juror is allowed in part to exercise both and creates dual officeholding.
A review of several larger-populated parishes (Ascension, Jefferson, Livingston, Ouachita, Rapides, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa) with over 100,000 people that don’t have joint parish-city government or library operations, whether operating under a charter, shows no members of the parish governing authority serving on their boards, except in a few instances where such a member (on behalf of the authority’s chairman) serves in the ex-oficio capacity as allowed under statute. Even among the smallest parishes in the state, under 10,000 in population, with parish libraries (Caldwell, Cameron, Red River, West Carroll; information couldn’t be located for Catahoula, East Carroll, Madison, Tensas), where because of the small populations a jury might take the shortcut of appointing their own except for the ex-oficio allowance no jurors served as board members. Thus, Bossier Parish is an absolute outlier in adopting this practice, and that this large sample of similarly-governed parishes for library matters in the state doesn’t follow that method indicates at least in part hesitancy to do so over legal concerns that don’t seem to bother Bossier.
Altogether, this suggests the practice is of dubious legal validity and, that as discretion should be the better part of valor, Bossier would do best to avoid it. Regardless, the Jury-driven Bossier Board members did unambiguously break the law in one matter: last year hiring Parish Administrator Butch Ford as the interim library director for several months. Under Louisiana law, as he doesn’t have a librarian certification, he could not have served in that position.
At the time of Ford’s appointment, Brotherton, Gray, and Rimmer served on the Board, comprising a majority. Within three months Benton and Parks joined, and all acquiesced to Ford’s continued service – much like they and the rest of the Jury allowed Ford to serve as parish administrator for almost a year illegally as they surely knew he lived in Caddo Parish and did not have a Bossier Parish address at which he could register to vote as required by law. Since then, Ford established a sham residence in Bossier Parish that likely if challenged as a registered voter in the parish would have that registration deemed fraudulent.
The way incumbent Bossier Parish jurors like to play fast and loose with the law should trouble voters, especially when considering the illegal behavior of Benton, Brotherton, Gray, Parks, and Rimmer on the Board and the probability they continue to serve on the Board illegally. At least the electorate will have the chance to register its views about this in the cases of Brotherton, Gray, and Parks.
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