BREAUX BRIDGE, LA — The St. Martin Parish Council on Aging is in jeopardy of losing its ability to serve the elderly in the parish after failing to have enough board members show up at required meetings. With an eleven-member board, the Council must have at least six members present at each meeting to have a quorum. For three meetings straight, they've failed to reach that number.
Executive Director Shanese Lewis tells KATC, "We did attempt on September 18th and that was not successful, and so we rescheduled again for October 2nd and that was not successful." Lewis is referring to the annual meeting that the board is required to hold to discuss what happened the previous year and to lay the groundwork for the year ahead. In addition, the board failed to reach a quorum at their quarterly meeting in June.
"We do have two members in particular who have not made those regular meetings and who were not present at the regularly scheduled annual meeting, however we do have members who fluctuate from time to time. we may have members present at one meeting and members who are not present at another," adds Lewis.
District five member Loretta Mouton has cited an urgent family issue as the reason she could not attend the meetings. But district six member Cassandra Patt has never attended any meetings and the council has been unable to reach her. We did speak to Patt on the phone and she declined to comment.
Lewis is concerning saying, "If it continues it would definitely not be a good thing for the St. Martin Council on Aging. Obviously you need the board members present to move forward on official agency business, anything that may need to be voted on cannot be if there is not a quorum present."
The council has tentatively set November 13th as their third chance to hold this annual meeting, hoping that enough board members show up to vote.
