Keith Kishbaugh v. the City of Lafayette Government

STATE OF LOUISIANA
COURT OF APPEAL, THIRD CIRCUIT

CA 19-417

KEITH KISHBAUGH

VERSUS

THE CITY OF LAFAYETTE GOVERNMENT, ET AL.

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APPEAL FROM THE
FIFTEENTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT
PARISH OF LAFAYETTE, NO. C-20192137 A
HONORABLE JOHN DAMIAN TRAHAN, DISTRICT JUDGE

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SYLVIA R. COOKS

JUDGE

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Court composed of Sylvia R. Cooks, John D. Saunders, and D. Kent Savoie, Judges.

AFFIRMED; MOTION TO STAY DENIED.

SAUNDERS, J., dissents and assigns reasons.

Stephen J. Oats

Lawrence E. Marino
Oats & Marino
100 E. Vermilion
Gordon Square, Suite 400
Lafayette, LA 70501
(337) 233-1100
COUNSEL FOR DEFENDANT/APPELLEE:
Louis J. Perret, Lafayette Clerk of Court

Carey Thompson Jones
Emily G. Andrews
Asst. Attorney General
Department of Justice
P.O. Box 94005
Baton Rouge, LA 70804
(225) 326-6000
COUNSEL FOR INTERVENOR/APPELLANT:
Kyle Ardoin, as La. Secretary of State

Larry Lane Roy
Brown Sims
600 Jefferson St., Suite 800
Lafayette, LA 70501
(337) 484-1240
COUNSEL FOR PLAINTIFF/APPELLANT:
Keith Kishbaugh

Michael Dean Hebert
Paul David Escott
Becker & Hebert
201 Rue Beauregard
Lafayette, LA 70508
(337) 233-1987
COUNSEL FOR DEFENDANT/APPELLEE:
Lafayette City-Parish ConsolidatedGovernment
The City of Lafayette
Lafayette Parish Government

Steven T. Ramos
Andrus, Boudreaux, Landry & Coussan
1301 Camellia Blvd, Ste 401
Lafayette, LA 70508
(337) 984-9480
COUNSEL FOR DEFENDANTS/APPELLEES:
Daniel Gillane
Deborah Amy
Harold Bernard, Jr.
Dennis Sullivan
Jane Sawvel
Bruce Sawvel

Travis J. Broussard
Gary McGoffin
Durio, McGoffin, Stagg & Ackermann
220 Heymann Boulevard
Lafayette, LA 70503
(337) 233-0300
COUNSEL FOR DEFENDANTS/APPELLEES:
Jane Sawvel
Bruce Sawvel
Dennis Sullivan
Deborah Amy
Harold Bernard, Jr.
Daniel Gillane

Cooks, Judge.

Plaintiff, Keith Kishbaugh, filed suit against the City of Lafayette

Government, the Parish of Lafayette Government, and the Lafayette City-Parish

Consolidated Government, (collectively Lafayette City-Parish), challenging the

constitutionality of an ordinance that sought to cure deficiencies in certain city and

parish council district descriptions set forth in the recent 2018 amendment to the

Lafayette City-Parish Consolidated Government Home Rule Charter. Along with

its answer, Lafayette City-Parish filed a reconventional demand, seeking a

declaration that the ordinance was a valid reapportionment of the council districts.

The Secretary of State subsequently intervened as a plaintiff, and several affected

residents intervened as defendants (residents/intervenors).1

After a bench trial on the merits, the trial court found in favor of Lafayette

City-Parish and the residents/intervenors, denying the claims of Plaintiff and the

Secretary of State and dismissing, with prejudice, their petitions. The trial court

denied as moot all remaining claims and demands not addressed in the judgment.

Finding Plaintiff and the Secretary of State failed to prove that the ordinance

was not a valid reapportionment, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

I.

ISSUE

The validity of the Charter is not contested on appeal. 2 The sole issue

presented for this court’s review is:

1
Deborah Amy, Dennis Sullivan, Daniel Gillane, Bruce Sawvel, Jane Sawvel, and Harold
Bernard are all “elector[s] of the City of Lafayette and Parish of Lafayette, domiciled and
registered to vote in Precinct 74,” in the portions of which were omitted in the council district
descriptions at issue herein.
2
Plaintiff did not attack the validity of the new Home Rule Charter. The Secretary of
State has not assigned as error the issue involving the validity of the charter for our review. Even
if assigned, the law provides that: “An action contesting an election submitting a proposition to
the voters . . . shall be instituted not later than 4:30 p.m. of the thirtieth day after the official
promulgation of the results of the election.” La.R.S. 18:1405(D). A request to invalidate the

Whether the trial court was correct in failing to find that both the
Lafayette Home Rule Charter and the State Constitution mandate that
any Charter amendment must be voted on by the people and that the
amendment presented must match that put into effect by local
government[?]

The Secretary of State sets forth five assignments of error:

(1) The trial court committed legal error by concluding that
Lafayette City-Parish Ordinance No. O-042-2019, adopted by
the Council but not submitted to the electors of the City and
Parish of Lafayette, was an effective and valid amendment of the
City Parish Home Rule Charter.

(2) The trial court erred as a matter of law in determining Lafayette
City-Parish Ordinance No. O-042-2019 to constitute a
reapportionment of the voting population of the City and the
Parish of Lafayette in advance of the first election for council
members under the Charter Amendment, rather than an
ordinance to correct the deficient descriptions of city and parish
election districts in the Lafayette City-Parish Charter
Amendment that was ratified by the voters on December 8, 2018.

(3) The trial court misapplied the legal principles that give courts the
authority to reform a legal instrument to accord with the intent of
the parties when clerical errors are found therein.

(4) The trial court erred as a matter of law by resorting to the intent
of the City-Parish Council to allow for reformation of the
election provisions of the Charter Amendment by ordinance.

(5) The trial court erred in allowing Michael Hefner to testify as an
expert witness in this case when Mr. Hefner had a direct stake in
protecting his own reputation and work by testifying favorably
to the Lafayette City-Parish.

II.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

In 1996, the Lafayette City-Parish Consolidated Government Home Rule

Charter (Current Charter) took effect, under which the governmental functions of

the City of Lafayette were consolidated with the governmental functions of the

charter would constitute a collateral attack upon December 8, 2018 election, the official results of
which were promulgated on December 18, 2018. Plaintiff’s petition filed, on April 5, 2019, would
have been prescribed on its face. Therefore, the only timely filed action before the trial court was
the challenge to the constitutionality of the ordinance.
2

Parish of Lafayette. On December 8, 2018, a majority of voters approved an

amendment to the Current Charter (Amended Charter), abolishing the Lafayette

City-Parish Council and replacing it with a separate Lafayette City Council and

Lafayette Parish Council. Relevant herein, the textual descriptions and boundaries

of the Lafayette Parish Council districts and the Lafayette City Council districts were

set forth in the Amended Charter, but neither the textual descriptions nor boundaries

of the council districts appeared on the ballot.

After ratification and promulgation of the Amended Charter, the Registrar of

Voters discovered errors in the district descriptions in that some portions of an

existing precinct were inadvertently omitted, effectively disenfranchising three

hundred and thirty voters, while some voters were included in more than one district.

In March 2019, the Lafayette City-Parish Council attempted to cure the deficient

descriptions by adopting Ordinance No. O-042-2019 (Ordinance) to include the

omitted portions and voters residing therein and to correct the misidentified precincts

and districts.

While the bulk of the Amended Charter provisions would not go into effect

until after the first council members elected under the Amended Charter took office,

those provisions necessary to carry out the elections became effective upon

promulgation, which occurred on December 18, 2018. One such transitional

provision, Section 8-01 of the Amended Charter, provides:

Council districts for the election of the first City Council
members and Parish Council members for the elections authorized by
Section 8-13(D) of this charter shall be as follows, and shall remain as
follows until changed by reapportionment:

[City Council Districts and Parish Council Districts are then
described by precinct.]

Another transitional provision, Section 8-13(D) of the Amended Charter, mandates,

in part: “The first election for City Council members and Parish Council members
3

whose positions are established by the amendments to this charter shall be held at

the same time as the primary and general elections for the governor of Louisiana in

2019.”

On April 5, 2019, Plaintiff filed suit challenging the constitutionality of the

Ordinance. Plaintiff alleged that the Ordinance amounted to an amendment to the

Amended Charter prohibited by La.Const. art. 6, §5(C). He petitioned for

declaratory and injunctive relief to prevent the Ordinance from going into effect for

the first election under the Amended Charter. The Secretary of State intervened in

the suit similarly alleging the unconstitutionality of the Ordinance. He also sought

declaratory and injunctive relief with respect to the Ordinance.

With its answer, Lafayette City-Parish filed a reconventional demand,

generally seeking a declaration that the Ordinance was a valid reapportionment of

the council districts. Lafayette City-Parish also sought an order directing the

Secretary of State as well as the Clerk of Court of Lafayette Parish to perform their

respective ministerial duties in regards to the city-parish council election provided

for in the Amended Charter. Louis J. Perret, the acting Clerk of Court, was

consequently made a defendant-in-reconvention. Six residents of the City of

Lafayette also intervened as defendants, petitioning for affirmative relief in the form

of a declaratory judgment (1) declaring the Ordinance legal and valid, or

alternatively (2) declaring the deficiencies were merely typographical errors that

should be disregarded or severed with the corrections to be made by the Lafayette

City-Parish Council or the court.

The matter proceeded to a bench trial on May 8, 2019, wherein Michael

Hefner, an experienced demographer and reapportionment expert, testified

4

regarding the origins of the discrepancies. 3 Charlene Menard, the Registrar of

Voters, also testified as to her discovery of the discrepancies.

Mr. Hefner explained that Lafayette City-Parish originally retained him to

draw the new parish and city council districts proposed in Ordinance O-121-2018

(amending ordinance), which detailed the amendments to the Current Charter.

Between the time of the introduction of the amending ordinance on July 10, 2018,

and the scheduled time for its final adoption on August 7, 2018, there was substantial

public debate regarding the appropriate boundaries of the new council districts. In

light of the numerous suggestions and instructions as to how the districts should be

drawn, Mr. Hefner developed a number of hypothetical plans for discussion

purposes. Ultimately, the Lafayette City-Parish Council decided to implement maps

known internally to Mr. Hefner as “Plan 2” for the Lafayette Parish Council districts

and “Plan 2D” for the Lafayette City Council districts.

As reflected in the minutes of the Lafayette City-Parish Council meeting of

August 7, 2018, these maps “could be viewed in the Alcove just outside the door.”

A summary of the proposed amendments to the amending ordinance stated, in

pertinent part: “Section 8-01 revises descriptions of City Council districts to match

most current City Council five-district map.” Mr. Hefner testified that the “maps”

referred to in these minutes are the “Plan 2” and “Plan 2D” maps he prepared and

transmitted to the Lafayette City-Parish Council. These maps did not exclude any

area from a council district or include any area in more than one council district.

They were also posted on the Lafayette City-Parish official website and publicized

3
Although the Secretary of State challenges the trial court’s acceptance of Mr. Hefner as
an expert, we find no merit to this challenge as the trial court’s oral reasons show that the trial
court, within its broad discretion, merely relied on the factual accounts of Mr. Hefner’s testimony
as well as Ms. Menard’s testimony in concluding the discrepancies were clerical error. The trial
court looked to the charters and Louisiana law in holding that reapportionment “is always a
legislative function[.]”
5

across local media outlets. The textual descriptions adopted by the Lafayette City-

Parish Council, however, did not match these maps due solely to Mr. Hefner’s

admitted error in failing to use the correct maps when drafting the textual

descriptions.

Mr. Hefner also explained that the unintended omission of three hundred and

thirty voters from Precinct 74 resulted from the inadvertent inclusion of a dividing

line instead of the original precinct boundary. Ms. Menard further explained that,

according to the description in the Amended Charter, voters in Precinct 34 would be

able to vote twice. She also testified that she discovered the discrepancies when she

tried to “follow the verbiage with the map.” The map, she explained, “was printed

through . . . the GIS Division of the Lafayette Consolidated Government.” The

testimony further revealed that the revised textual descriptions Mr. Hefner drafted

for the Ordinance do correspond to the maps.

After presentation of the evidence, the trial judge dismissed the claims of

Plaintiff and the Secretary of State, reasoning:

The issues in the case are primarily questions of law. And I think
probably on appellate review, which I assume there will be, there will
be a de novo review of what are the legal issues in the case. But I think
there are some facts that – fact-findings that I need to make, and they
influence my decision in a couple of ways.

First, there wasn’t anything nefarious about the mistakes being
made, it was just an innocent error; a prior iteration of the city map was
used instead of the latest one.

I also find that the intent of the council was to have the districts
and the precincts conform to Parish Map 2 and City Map 2D. What
councilperson would have intentionally left out 330 voters or permitted
some folks to vote twice?

So we get to the ordinance. The way the mistakes happened in
the textual descriptions of the precincts leads me to conclude that those
mistakes are purely clerical. I mean, it was literally the substitution of
an erroneous map for the correct one that caused these errors. The
council passed the ordinance with reference to those maps.

6

The ordinance is entitled to a presumption of constitutionality
under the law. The charter itself calls for a liberal construction of its
terms. And the charter also reserves to the council the reapportionment
power.

As always, the reapportionment power, the right to redraw
district lines, is always a legislative function and never submitted to the
electorate for a decision on those matters.

All of these things have convinced me that the plaintiff and the
Secretary of State have failed to prove by clear and convincing evidence
that the corrective ordinance violates either the constitution or the
charter itself.

On May 16, 2019, the trial court signed the judgment denying the claims for

relief sought by Plaintiff and the Secretary of State and dismissing, with prejudice,

their claims. The trial court denied as moot all remaining claims and demands not

addressed in the judgment. Both Plaintiff and the Secretary of State timely filed for

appeal. The Secretary of State also sought expedited consideration, which this court

granted, and requested a stay, which is presently before the court.

III.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

An appellate court reviews the factual findings of a trial court under the

manifest error-clearly wrong standard of review. Rosell v. ESCO, 549 So.2d 840

(La.1989). The trial court’s legal conclusions on questions of law, however, are

reviewed de novo. City of Bossier City v. Vernon, 12-78 (La. 10/16/12), 100 So.3d

301.

IV.

LAW AND DISCUSSION

“An ordinance, like a state statute, is presumed to be constitutional and the

party attacking the ordinance has the burden of proving its unconstitutionality. An

ordinance will be upheld if there exists a reasonable relationship between the law

and the public good.” Theriot v. Terrebonne Parish Police Jury, 436 So.2d 515, 520
7

(La.1983). “It is well settled that the burden of proving the unconstitutionality of an

act or ordinance is by clear and convincing evidence.” Plaquemines Par. Civil Serv.

Comm’n v. Plaquemines Par. Council, 17-449, p. 6 (La.App. 4 Cir. 2/14/18), 241

So.3d 1040, 1045.

The test to be applied in determining whether a particular
ordinance is a reasonable exercise of a government’s police power is
whether there is a real and substantial relationship between the
regulation imposed and the prevention of injury to the public or the
promotion of the general welfare. City of Shreveport v. Curry, 357
So.2d 1078 (La.1978). While an ordinance is accorded a presumption
of constitutionality, and the burden of proving invalidity rests with the
challenging party, government does not have the unlimited authority to
regulate the lives of its citizens and may only pass laws which are
reasonably related to protection or promotion of a public good such as
health, safety or welfare.

Gilbert v. Catahoula Par. Police Jury, 407 So.2d 1228, 1231 (La.1981).

No one disputes that the council district descriptions contained in Section 8-

01 are textually deficient. The dispute is over the proper manner in which to cure

the deficiencies, or rather, the constitutionality of the Ordinance through which the

Lafayette City-Parish Council sought to cure the deficiencies.

Plaintiff and the Secretary of State seek to rebut the presumption of

constitutionality accorded the Ordinance by arguing that it constitutes an amendment

to the Amended Charter explicitly prohibited by La.Const. art. 6, § 5(C), which

provides: “A home rule charter shall be adopted, amended, or repealed when

approved by a majority of the electors voting thereon at an election held for that

purpose.” In opposition, Lafayette City-Parish and the residents/intervenors argue

the Ordinance is merely a reapportionment of the council districts necessary to

uphold the intent and will of the electorate.

The trial court reasoned that Plaintiff and the Secretary of State failed to carry

their burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence that the Ordinance was an

8

unconstitutional amendment to the Amended Charter rather than a valid

reapportionment. We agree.

Although the city and parish council districts are set forth in Section 8-01 of

the Amended Charter, that same section provides for the reapportionment of the

districts, explicitly stating that the districts “shall remain as follows until changed by

reapportionment.” Under Section 2-02 of the Current Charter, the authority to

reapportion is vested in the council: “Following official publication of the federal

census by the United States Bureau of the Census, the Council by ordinance shall, if

necessary, alter, change or rearrange the Council district boundaries so as to provide

for population equality among the districts as near as reasonably practicable.” The

language contained in Section 2-02 of the Amended Charter is identical, except it

identifies the governing authorities as “the City Council and Parish Council[.]” Such

authority is also granted to the council, as the governing body, under La.R.S.

33:1371 and 33:1411. In all these provisions, the council “shall” “by ordinance”

reapportion the districts if there exists an inequity or inequality in population

evidenced by a recent census.

Louisiana Revised Statutes 18:532(A) similarly grants to the governing

authority of each parish the power to “establish precincts, define the territorial limits

for which each precinct is established, prescribe their boundaries, and designate the

precincts.” This statute mandates that “[t]he governing authority of each parish shall

by ordinance adopt the establishment and boundaries of each precinct[.]” Louisiana

Revised Statutes 18:532.1(A) further allocates to the council, as the parish governing

authority, the “authority . . . to change the configuration, boundaries, or designation

of an election precinct. Any change so determined shall be adopted by ordinance of

the parish governing authority.”

9

While admittedly there are no charter or statutory provisions expressly

authorizing reapportionment by ordinance to correct a textual, clerical error in the

description of council districts, there are also no provisions that explicitly prohibit

reapportionment by ordinance in such circumstances. Moreover, charter and

statutory provisions mandate reapportionment by ordinance when inequity or

inequality in population is evident and explicitly grant to the governing authority the

power to establish and change precinct boundaries by ordinance. This court must

decide then whether the Lafayette City-Parish Council’s use of its reapportionment

power herein was permissible under a fair and reasonable interpretation of the

Current Charter and the Amended Charter.

By analogy, the following rules that apply to interpreting our constitution also

apply to our interpretation of home rule charters:

In construing a constitutional provision or amendment, a court
should ascertain and give effect to the intent of both the framers of the
amendment and of the people who adopted it. In carrying out this
function, therefore, the court should consider the object sought to be
accomplished by the adoption of the provision. Accordingly, effect
should be given to the purpose indicated by a fair interpretation of the
language employed, and the construction which effectuates, rather than
that which destroys a plain intent or purpose of the constitutional
provision.

Bd. Of Comm’rs of Orleans Levee Dist. v. Dep’t of Nat. Res., 496 So.2d 281, 298

(La.1986) (on rehearing)(citations omitted).

Section 8-09 of the Current Charter and the Amended Charter mandates that

the charters “shall be liberally construed in aid of [their] declared intent which is to

establish for the people” of the City of Lafayette, the Parish of Lafayette, and the

Lafayette City-Parish Consolidated Government “effective home rule free from

legislative interference as to the structure and organization of its local government,

and with the power and authority to manage its local affairs.” Pursuant to this

language, we find a fair and reasonable interpretation of both charters would support
10

a liberal construction of the council’s reapportionment power to uphold the intent of

both the drafters of the Amended Charter and the people who adopted it.

As the trial court found, the evidence of record, namely the testimony of Mr.

Hefner and the August 7, 2018 council meeting minutes, reasonably establishes that

the Lafayette City-Parish Council intended for the textual description of the districts

to comply with the maps published to the public. It was only a clerical error that

resulted in the misidentification of certain precincts. No one disputes that the

reapportioned districts comply with the published maps and equally apportion the

population, whereas the textual descriptions neither comply with the maps nor

equally or equitably apportion the population.

The intent of the majority of the electorate can also be surmised from the

proposition they voted in favor of, namely to “abolish City-Parish Council, create

the Lafayette City Council and Lafayette Parish Council, as governing authority for

Lafayette City-Parish Consolidated Government; establish as governing authority,

City Council for City of Lafayette and Parish Council for Parish of Lafayette.”

While the proposition unequivocally evidences an intent to abolish the Lafayette

City-Parish Council and replace it with a separate Lafayette City Council and

Lafayette Parish Council, the proposition does not in any fashion describe or refer

to the districts from which the new council members would be elected. It is not

reasonable to assume, therefore, that the electorate intended to amend the Current

Charter to exclude three hundred and thirty voters from the language of the

proposition, particularly when the maps published by the Lafayette City-Parish on

its website did not contain the disenfranchising discrepancies at issue. Such an

assumption also defies common logic and raises the question posed by the trial court

as to who would intentionally omit three hundred and thirty voters, while allowing

other residents to vote twice.
11

Therefore, we find that, under a liberal construction of the provisions of the

Current Charter and the Amended Charter, the reapportionment at issue herein was

a reasonable method whereby the Lafayette City-Parish Council, to whom such

authority is granted, could remedy the textual, clerical discrepancies so to uphold the

intent of the drafters and voters as well as the voting rights of the electorate.

Notably, our law even contemplates that, through inadvertence and error,

unintended mistakes will arise in the drafting of laws. Louisiana Revised Statutes

24:253 grants to the Louisiana State Law Institute, in preparing the printer’s copy of

recent legislation, the authority to “[c]orrect manifest typographical and grammatical

errors, and . . . [m]ake any other purely formal or clerical changes in keeping with

the purpose of the revision.” The supreme court has also long acknowledged that

“clerical errors in the use of words or numbers in a statute may be recognized and

corrected by the courts whenever necessary to carry out the manifest intention of the

Legislature, as gathered from the context of the act.” State v. Rogers, 148 La. 653,

658, 87 So. 504, 506 (1921). Thus, Louisiana statutory law and jurisprudence also

recognize and support the use of various measures to correct clerical errors so to

uphold the intent in the adoption and enactment of laws.

Taking all of this into consideration, we find there does exist a reasonable

relationship between the Ordinance and the public good in that the Ordinance

remedies the unintentional, clerical discrepancies consistent with the intent of both

the drafters of the Amended Charter and the people who adopted it. We, therefore,

find the Ordinance is constitutionally sound and was a proper exercise of the

reapportionment power granted to the Council so as to uphold the intent of the

drafters and the people. Accordingly, we find that the trial court did not err in

concluding that Plaintiff and the Secretary of State failed to carry their burden of

proving by clear and convincing evidence that the Ordinance was unconstitutional,
12

and we affirm the trial court’s judgment. Finally, because the Ordinance properly

remedies the discrepancies, all remaining issues are rendered moot, and we pretermit

their discussion.

V.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed. The

motion to stay is hereby denied as moot.

Costs of this appeal are assessed to the Plaintiff/Appellant, Keith Kishbaugh.

AFFIRMED; MOTION TO STAY DENIED.

13

STATE OF LOUISIANA
COURT OF APPEAL, THIRD CIRCUIT

19-417

KEITH KISHBAUGH

VERSUS

THE CITY OF LAYAFETTE GOVERNMENT, ET AL.

SAUNDERS, JUDGE, dissenting.

This case arises out of an amendment to the Lafayette City-Parish

Consolidated Government Home Rule Charter (Amended Charter), ratified and

promulgated in December 2018, that contained deficinecies in certain city and parish

council district descriptions. At issue herein is the constitutionality of an ordinance

adopted by the Lafayette City-Parish Council to cure these deficiencies. The

majority finds the ordinance is a valid exercise of the council’s reapportionment

power. For the following reasons, I respectfully disagree.

“Just as the Constitution is the supreme law of the state, home rule charters

are the supreme law of home rule charter jurisdictions, subordinate only to the

constitution and constitutionally allowed legislation.” Montgomery v. St. Tammany

Parish Gov’t by & through St. Tammany Parish Council, 17-1811, p. 7 (La.

6/27/18), __ So.3d __.1 As a document founded on the will of the people, a home

rule charter can only be amended “when approved by a majority of the electors

voting thereon at an election held for that purpose.” La.Const. art. 6, § 5(C). Once

approved, an amendment becomes the prevailing law of the land, “to which all

legislative acts and all ordinances, rules, and regulations of creatures of the

legislature must yield.” Caddo-Shreveport Sales and Use Tax Comm’n v. Office of

1
2018 WL 3151290.

Motor Vehicles Through Dep’t Of Pub. Safety and Corr. of the State, 97-2233, p. 6

(La. 4/14/98), 710 So.2d 776, 780.

Although the majority looks to the proposition presented to the voters so to

ascertain the voters’ intent, the voters did not adopt the proposition. Rather, they

adopted the Amended Charter as proposed by the Lafayette City-Parish Council in

Ordinance O-121-2018. The language of the Amended Charter in Ordinance O-121-

2018, not the language of the proposition, is paramount and prevailing “to which all

legislative acts and all ordinances, rules, and regulations of creatures of the

legislature must yield.” Id. By their vote, a majority of the electors evidenced their

will and intention to amend their existing charter in accordance with the language

proposed by Ordinance O-121-2018. The Amended Charter, therefore, as a

document of the will of the people, cannot be amended without the approval of “a

majority of the electors voting thereon at an election held for that purpose.”

La.Const. art. 6, § 5(C). Accordingly, I find the ordinance adopted by the Lafayette

City-Parish Council must yield to the provisions of the Amended Charter as

proposed by Ordinance O-121-2018 and adopted by a majority of the voters. I

would, therefore, reverse the judgment of the trial court.

For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent.