[StBernard] St. Bernard Parish voters will decide Nov. 6 on ethics board, 911 fee

Westley Annis westley at da-parish.com
Tue Oct 23 07:57:08 EDT 2012


St. Bernard Parish voters will decide Nov. 6 on ethics board, 911 fee
By Benjamin Alexander-Bloch, Staff Writer
on October 22, 2012 at 5:20 PM, updated October 22, 2012 at 5:53 PM Email |
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St. Bernard Parish voters on Nov. 6 will decide on a ballot proposal to
establish a parish ethics board and another proposal to change the fee
structure for its monthly 911 emergency telephone service. And along with
many voters across the state, St. Bernard voters will decide whether they
want to impose a three-term limit on their local school board members.

If authorized by voters, the new ethics board would consist of five members
selected from nominations by the presidents or chancellors of University of
New Orleans, Loyola University, Tulane University, Xavier University and
Nunez Community College. The members would serve four year terms.

When introduced by the administration, the proposal had Holy Cross College
instead of Nunez to maintain independence of the body, but the Parish
Council on July 17 changed the proposal to instead include Nunez, with
Council President Guy McInnis saying, "I really do think (Nunez) can put
someone in who would be independent." Both Parish President Dave Peralta and
various councilmen have pushed ethic reforms and transparency within their
bodies.

In terms of the 911 fee proposal, the charge would become a uniform flat-fee
schedule rather than a percentage of the monthly telephone bill, as it now
is assessed. The 911 fee changes would bring in about $186,000 more per year
to the parish's 911 Communications District.

"The additional money will be used to balance the budget which has been
operating at a deficit for quite some time now and to supplement some of the
administration costs associated with running it," said parish Chief
Administrative Officer Jerry Graves, who is chairman of the 911
Communications District's board. "It also will allow us to set some money
aside for equipment failures and for equipment upgrades as technology
changes."

The 911 assessments now are 3 percent of monthly residential and commercial
telephone bills and 85 cents a month on cell phone bills.

The new structure would instead allow the parish communications district to
impose up to $1 per month for each residential landline, $2.07 per month for
each commercial landline and $1.26 monthly for each cellular or other
wireless line "for the purpose of improving, maintaining and operating an
enhanced 911 emergency telephone system and for any other authorized
purposes of the District," according to the ballot language.

The current fee structure generates about $360,000 a year, whereas the new
flat fees would bring about $546,000.

In May, Gov. Bobby Jindal signed into law Senate Bill 630, introduced by
Sen. J.P. Morrell, D-New Orleans, that allowed St. Bernard voters to raise
the fees charged for monthly 911 emergency telephone service.

The bills tie the fees to the users' street address, so someone with a St.
Bernard cell phone number who lives in another city would not be assessed
the wireless charge.

In terms of the school board term-limit proposal, Jindal signed House Bill
292 by Rep. Steve Pugh, R-Pontchatoula, to let voters in all school
districts decide whether they want to impose a three-term limit on local
school board members starting with the terms that begin in January 2014.

Jefferson and Lafayette already have imposed a three-term limit. The terms
board members have already served will not count toward the limit, and the
three-term limit would not apply to the Recovery School District or the
governing boards of charter schools.



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