Lafayette DA Clears School Board in Comeaux Vote

LAFAYETTE, La. — The Lafayette Parish District Attorney’s Office has determined the Lafayette Parish School Board did not violate Louisiana’s Open Meetings Law when it declined to take public comment on two substitute motions during the June 11 meeting that ended in a vote to close Ovey Comeaux High School, the Acadiana Advocate first reported.

Former School Board member and state legislator Rickey Hardy filed the complaint with the 15th Judicial District Attorney’s Office after that meeting. Board Member Amy Trahan offered two substitute motions during the discussion of Comeaux’s future, and both failed. Board leadership, acting on advice from the board’s attorney, did not open the floor for public comment on either one, even though members had already taken public comment earlier in the meeting on the broader item to close the school.

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What District Attorney Don Landry Found

Landry concluded that Trahan’s substitute motions addressed the same agenda item that had already been publicly noticed and opened for comment earlier in the meeting. Because of that, his office did not treat them as separate agenda items requiring their own public comment period before each vote.

Landry also noted that his office’s authority is limited to enforcing the Open Meetings Law itself. Based on the facts and evidence presented in Hardy’s complaint, he wrote, there wasn’t sufficient legal basis for the District Attorney’s Office to pursue litigation seeking to invalidate the board’s action.

Hardy Maintains the Board Should Have Allowed Comment

Hardy disagreed with both Landry’s opinion and the board’s underlying decision-making. His complaint centered on the argument that the Open Meetings Law required the board to allow public comment on each substitute motion individually, apart from the comment period already held on the original agenda item covering Comeaux’s closure.

Louisiana’s Open Meetings Law generally requires public bodies to provide an opportunity for public comment before voting on an agenda item, with notice requirements for what has to appear on that agenda spelled out under R.S. 42:19. Whether a substitute motion counts as a new agenda item, as opposed to a variation on one already noticed, was the central question in Hardy’s complaint.

A Long-Running Fight Over Comeaux’s Future

The June 11 meeting capped a months-long back-and-forth over Comeaux’s future. Board members voted 5-4 that night to take the campus offline, months after a March vote to close the school was blocked by a district court injunction and later rescinded amid a parent’s lawsuit. The approved plan repurposes the Comeaux campus to house the W.D. and Mary Baker Smith Career Center and the E.J. Sam Accelerated School, with the athletic fields becoming a district-wide sports complex.

Superintendent Francis Touchet Jr. said in a written statement that the School Board works closely with its legal counsel throughout its decision-making to make sure its actions are taken in good faith and in line with the law. He added that the board and system administration trust the legal guidance they’ve received.

Landry’s finding closes the door on this specific complaint, though it does not resolve the broader disputes over the Comeaux closure that have played out in court and before other state offices since March.

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