The City of Carencro is hosting a town hall meeting on Monday, February 8th to discuss the possibility of converting the council to districts as opposed to the current at-large system.
Currently, the Council is elected “At-Large” and all 5 seats are chosen in the same election. All candidates run together with the top 5 candidates with the highest votes being elected. Each member is equally responsible for the entire city.
The issue was brought up at the November council meeting by Councilman Jordan Arceneaux, in a Facebook event the City of Carencro stated,
“Scott, The City of Lafayette, Lafayette Parish, and Broussard have their council candidates elected into districts. Youngsville has candidates elected into divisions. This leaves Duson and Carencro as the two municipalities with At-Large elections.”
Some residents have raised concerns in the past that they feel will be ignored by their councilperson and At-Large status has made it possible to have a council member address the concerns. Some council members have stated that handling all the concerns for the whole city is cumbersome.
It was proposed to have the town hall meeting in January or February and it was approved by a 3-2 vote. It was stated that the election would have to happen one year before the next council election.
