Illegal meeting shows Bossier Jury dishonesty

Pick your nastiness colloquialism: thumbed its nose, poked them in the eye, gave them the Bronx salute, held up its index, middle, and ring finger and told then to read between the lines, lifted its hind leg, whatever, but the Bossier Parish Police Jury just did that to parish residents.

Prior to its meeting last week, the Jury, for the first time in over two years, met as the parish’s Library Board of Control. This February, it had made “appointments” to it by making as members all 12 jurors, as well as assigned as officers those positions as held on the Jury.

The matters attended at the meeting were prosaic, but the mere fact of having the meeting in this fashion was not. For one thing, the Jury didn’t have the legal authority to appoint a couple of its members to the Board because terms of previous appointees had yet to expire nor had they been removed in a public vote. More seriously, all 12 couldn’t serve because state law limits voting membership to seven at most (with nonvoting status set aside for the Jury president). Because of these inherent illegalities, any action taken (which if citizens missed the Zoom-transmitted meeting only will have the minutes, which probably will not be posted on the Internet, available for a description of those actions) therefore is legally challengeable and likely would be undone if taken to court.

Having had a meeting, although illegal, the Board/Jury has fulfilled the annual meeting requirement. But at this meeting it didn’t yet comply with still another mandate that the Board forward to the Jury a budget for next year. Even if it does, the fact that the meeting was illegal could moot whatever actions taken that, at least for now, put the Board in compliance.

And avoiding all this is so simple. With the attorney general’s opinion that a governing authority can remove Board members at any time and another affirming that jurors can serve on the Board, the Jury could remove the existing members who terms hadn’t expired and then choose any five to seven of its own to serve on the Board. Yet, for unknown reasons, it continues this brazen path that flouts the law.

Maybe it’s because the Jury’s going to do what the Jury’s going to do, just because it thinks it can get away with it and a little proof every now and then that it can impose its will on the citizenry on such a small matter isn’t a bad thing, in its book. To that, we must remind it of the greatest book, specifically Luke 16:10 -- whoever can be trusted in small matters can also be trusted in great ones, but whoever is dishonest in small matters will also be dishonest in great ones. Why does the Jury insist on being so blatantly dishonest?