Mandeville council seeks state legal opinion on election to ...

The Mandeville City Council will ask the Louisiana attorney general to essentially offer an opinion on the validity of a proposed November referendum to rededicate a 1-cent sales tax dating to 1959.

Money from that sales tax has been improperly used, perhaps for decades, for some Police Department and general fund expenses, city officials recently revealed.

The council earlier this month voted to go to the state Bond Commission for permission to ask voters Nov. 19 to change the language of permitted uses for the tax money to allow it to be used for a wider range of expenses.

As approved in 1959, the tax was to be used to finance playgrounds, roads and bridges, sewerage, garbage disposal, water works, fire protection, seawalls and beach improvements. Police and general fund expenditures are not included in the permitted uses.

The wording city officials are asking voters to approve Nov. 19 would add the phrase: "... any lawful corporate purpose of the City ..."

But while most officials appear confident that the referendum, if approved by voters, will clear up future use of the tax revenue, Councilwoman Trilby Lenfant and some city residents have pressed the city to seek the attorney general's guidance on what, if anything, the city must do to remedy years of improper spending.

Lenfant on Thursday wanted the council to back a resolution asking the attorney general to weigh in on the issue of previous misuse of the tax revenue, specifically what corrective actions the city must take.

But her proposal ran into a buzzsaw of questions during a protracted and sometimes confusing debate. City Attorney Edward Deano pointed to a 2002 opinion the attorney general issued to the village of Loreauville regarding its use of a half-cent sales tax originally dedicated to the village's police department.

Loreauville continued to collect the sales tax after the police department disbanded. When questions arose regarding previous and future spending of the tax money, the attorney general's office issued an opinion advising the village to handle the dilemma by asking voters to rededicate the sales tax for a broader range of use.

"The Loreauville opinion is almost square on point," Deano told the council, adding that he thought asking the attorney general for guidance on how to handle past misspending of Mandeville's sales tax was futile.

"I don't think they want to go there," he said of the attorney general's office.

Deano offered the council a draft request that would have asked the attorney general two questions: whether the actions taken by the council with regard to the sales tax rededication "meet the recommendation of your office contained in the Loreauville Opinion" and whether "adoption of the tax proposal in accordance with the resolution adopted by the City Council would have the effect of ratifying the expenditures made to the Police Department in the past."

Lenfant resisted, pushing for the council to seek a more detailed opinion on how to handle the misspent revenue. "Don't we owe that to the taxpayers of the city?" she asked the council.

At times the debate became heated, with Councilman Jerry Coogan telling Lenfant at one point: "You're not an attorney."

Coogan made a motion to amend Deano's letter to ask only whether the action taken by the council meets the Loreauville recommendation, or, as Deano told reporters afterward, to opine on the legality of the actual election. The amendment passed, 4-1, with Lenfant opposed. The motion to send the amended letter to the attorney general passed unanimously.

Lenfant said she doesn't think the Loreauville opinion fits Mandeville's situation and wondered why other officials are reluctant to probe the ramifications of the city's past spending.

But Coogan said he thinks Lenfant is merely looking to place blame.

"The money wasn't stolen; it was spent on the city of Mandeville," he said.

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Bob Warren can be reached at bwarren@timespicayune.com or 985.898.4832.

Source: http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/09/mandeville_council_seeks_state.html

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