Council Backs Off Raises for Added Duties

City Council members, responding to growing community criticism, have backed away from a plan to pay themselves $250 every time they meet as the city’s new Gaming Commission.

The stipend will be removed from an ordinance creating the commission, Councilwoman Yvonne Arceneaux said Tuesday. “I was never in favor of giving this pay raise, anyway,” Arceneaux said. “And there are an awful lot of people who are angry about the whole thing.”

The Gaming Commission is being created to oversee the city’s bingo parlor and planned card casino. Council members are expected to cast the final vote next week authorizing the new commission and appointing themselves as commissioners.

The original plan, introduced in September, included a provision to pay the five commissioners $250 per meeting. Since the council meets four times per month, 11 months per year, the stipend would have added $11,000 a year to each council member’s annual salary of $22,000.

At Tuesday’s council meeting, community activist Lorraine Cervantes rebuked council members for giving themselves a pay raise while other city programs remain underfunded. Arceneaux said other residents also have complained about the stipend.

Mayor Omar Bradley has argued that the council deserved the stipend, but said he agreed to remove the stipend “because the community doesn’t understand that whoever labors should be paid.”

“There was a question that we created the commission just to get paid, and I didn’t want those kind of questions hanging around,” Bradley added. A card casino is not scheduled to open until the spring of 1995, but the opening of a bingo parlor in the city’s Ramada Hotel has already created a steady flow of questions and concerns, Bradley said.

The commission will be responsible for reviewing bingo and card club permits on a regular basis and holding public hearings in connection with those reviews. Commissioners will also assess whether license-holders are in compliance with local regulations.