Several Lafayette City-Parish Council members violated the state open meetings law by discussing in text messages how to secure enough votes needed to adopt a change in the local government charter, an assistant state attorney general claims.

But the violation can’t be prosecuted because it was discovered long past the 60-day window that state law requires to address such problems, Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Wale wrote in a July 8 memo.

"It is clear that members of the city-parish council skirted, if not outright disregarded, Louisiana's Open Meeting Law," Wale wrote.

The council members discussed in text messages polling other council members and ensuring they had the votes necessary to get the ordinance approving a December vote on splitting the council introduced and approved.

The messages were revealed as part of a records request made by the Attorney General's office on May 9, the day after a trial judge ruled in favor of the council's district fix, and released by the Lafayette Consolidated Government at the end of June. The Attorney General's office challenged the council's vote to fix the incorrect districts.

The memo detailing their contents was sent to Lane Roy, who represented Lafayette businessman and Parish Council District 1 candidate Keith Kishbaugh during the lawsuit, on July 8, days after the Louisiana Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

Wale's memo refers to a series of text messages shared in groups that included council members Kevin Naquin, Jay Castille, Kenneth Boudreaux and Bruce Conque, as well as Fix the Charter PAC organizer Kevin Blanchard and Lafayette Mayor-President candidate Carlee Alm-LaBar.

The messages, which were sent in June and July 2018, center around the council's vote on plans to split the current combined city-parish council into separate councils for the city of Lafayette and Lafayette Parish with an amendment to Lafayette's Home Rule Charter.

The Attorney General's office wrote that the texts were "quite possibly clear violations of the Open Meetings Law."

In one message dated July 28, 2018, Boudreaux writes that he planned to ask for Councilman Pat Lewis's support for the council split change over a drink writing, "I am going to lay it out for him as if he had the only vote. Then I plan to specifically ask for his support ... I am confident that I will get him. Or get him drunk and record his response."

The Attorney General's office alleges in the memo that Boudreaux's message violates a state law that "specifically forbids polling in an informal setting."

Boudreaux said the council's attorneys will likely look into the legality of the group messages and that his mention of getting Lewis drunk and recording him was an inside joke about the scrutiny placed on politicians.

"That was an inside joke that is now outside," Boudreaux wrote in a message Friday. "We often talk about don't get drunk, don't do anything wrong in politics etc. I don't think I can actually get anyone drunk."

The memo also alleged wrongdoing in Conque's July 17, 2018, response to a message from Blanchard asking if Councilwomen Nanette Cook and Liz Webb Hebert had "an idea of what's coming."

Conque replied "Yes," which Wale states in his memo violates state law. "Again, this method of polling is improper."

Wales said the texts indicate that "council members deliberated and discussed matters before the Council outside of a public meeting."

"The text messages contain numerous instances of council members discussing and deliberating council business outside of public meetings," the memo states.

"Members of the City-Parish Council disregarded the spirit, if not the letter, of the law," it adds.

Conque said he was already seeking a legal opinion on the use of group messages by council members before seeing the memo on Friday.

"I hope that our legal counsel provides clarity to the AG’s contention that the text messaging 'skirted, if not outright disregarded, Louisiana’s Open Meetings Law' and provides direction as to future correspondence between council members."

Alm-LaBar, who was included in one of the text message threads, said in a statement Friday that frequent communication was a necessary part of council work, but violating Open Meetings laws should have consequences.

"If council members only worked two nights a month — at council meetings — very little work would get done," she said.

"We are going to need to keep communicating to move our city and parish forward," she added. "Of course, at any point, if the communications that are necessary to shape good policy decisions cross over into a violation of open meetings laws, then appropriate actions should be taken."

Wale identified another message as a third example of improper polling and "a flagrant violation" in which Naquin told a group of council members he would have to miss the vote to introduce the ordinance that would put the council split on the ballot.

Castille responded by writing, "If you can't make the intro meeting we still have five votes to get to final adoption. Me, Kenneth, Bruce, Nanette and Liz ... The night of the final adoption we will need you there."

A six-member majority was needed for the final vote to get the charter amendment splitting the council onto the ballot in December.

Blanchard, who organized the Fix the Charter PAC, advocated in a group message with Castille, Conque, Boudreaux and Alm-Labar for a map configuration that would give the new city council two majority-minority districts. On Friday, Blanchard called the release a "pretty poorly-crafted legal memorandum" and questioned the Attorney General's office's motives for releasing it.

"I think it's odd that the memo acknowledges the 60-day time period had long run before they made their request back in May," he said. "I'm not sure exactly what it was they were doing other than fishing for political purposes."

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