St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1916-07-01
THE DEATH OF THE PROPOSED
CHARTER

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taxpayers Of this city have enoea-
yored to secure relief under a new
charter for O~pelousas, but as often
as one charter was proposed there
would be opposition to it SO that no
Roadway was made. This time,
however. a charter, in all ntents
meeting with the general appfoDa-
tion of the citizens of this city, with
few exceptions, was proposed. II
had some disagreeable features II
is said and for those reasons the
whole charter was made to suffer.
Opposition soon cropped up 10
the proposed charter, and In most
cases that opposition can be traced
to supposed municipal politicians.
One side fought hard for the char
ter while the other side fought It,
until both sides got tired OF it M
the charter went by the wayside.
The Clarion advocated certain
changes to the present charter and
we believe yet that the changes are
essential to the city's future welfare.
Not being lawyers, however, we
were not in a position to judge OF
the legality Of the proposed
charter, and we frankly admit that
there might have been several sec
tions of the charter which could
not have brought good to Opelousas.
Nevertheless Opelousas has attain
ed nothing and is just as far from
getting a new charter now as 1t was
ten years ago.
We believe, that if politics would
be left out of the proposed changes
to the present charter and that both
municipal political factions would
come together a charter which
would do credit to Opelousas could
easily be adopted by the legislature
and ratified by the people of this
city.
Probably it could be arranged so
that the voters of Opelousas could
express their wishes as to exactly
what form Of charter they desire;
a suggestion which we believe to be
good is that the voters be allowed
TO express their preference be-
tween two charters diametri-
9fily opposed; that they vote on
each section and those sections re-
ceiying the majority of votes be
summed up into one charter. When
tfis is done and the charter sub
mitted TO the legislature our legis-
lat0rs will be in a position to ac-
complish what is expected of them.
As it is now, however, some be-
aieve that certain sections Of the
charter are good, others object
most yehemently to them, while
the same people believe that other
sections are exactly what is needed.
The only way to have a new
charter in Opelousas under pres
ent conditions is for the people to
pass upon one, two or more differ
ent kinds of charters, then they
will get just what they want, and
if the charter is not practicable the
people themselves will gladly
shoulder the blame.
IT would not do for those who
favor a new charter to give up the
SIGHT at this stage of the game; we
lelieve that practically every voter
in 0pelousas wants the present
charter changed in certain respects,
but still there are a large number
WAC r opposed to vote a new
charter, which had bad features
contained in it.
We cannot criticize nor approve
OF the actions Of our legislators in
opposing the proposed new charter,
because we frankly admit that there
were so many different views on the
subject that it was rather difficult
for them to land terra ffrma safely.
However we believe that the time
is ripe to agitate the changes in the
present charter if anything is to be
accomplished at the next session of
the legislature.
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