During Tuesday’s meeting of the Bogalusa City Council, the council repealed actions it took at the Aug. 7 meeting in response to the city’s pension funding crisis, but also announced the council will vote on a new version of the crisis-response resolution in September.

Prior to Tuesday’s meeting, city council president Gloria Kates read a notice of a public meeting to be held on Tuesday, Sept. 18, at 5:30 p.m. at Bogalusa City Hall. At that meeting, the council plans to consider a resolution (or resolutions) that would call for a special election to be held in the city on Saturday, Dec. 8.

In that Sept. 18 resolution, the council will ask for the election ballot to include language seeking the voters’ opinion on the following actions:

• Authorize the levy of a new 3-mill property tax in the city for the purpose of paying retirement and pension benefits to the City of Bogalusa Employees Retirement System (COBERS).
• Rededicate 12.5 percent of the city’s 1-percent sales tax approved at an election held on March 15, 1955, for the purpose of paying retirement and pension benefits to COBERS.
• Rededicate half of the city’s 1/4-percent sales tax approved at an election held on Nov. 17, 2007, for the purpose of paying retirement and pension benefits to COBERS.

During the Aug. 7 meeting, the council passed a similar resolution with slightly different language. On Friday, Aug. 10, Bogalusa Mayor Wendy Perrette told The Daily News that she was concerned the council’s actions were invalid and that the language in the resolution was not accurate. Kates and council member Doug Ritchie responded by saying they were aware the text needed to be updated, which is why the original resolution was repealed Tuesday.

The 3 mills of property tax had been scheduled to end in 2018, and the ballot language would stipulate that it would only be used for COBERS.

The three-point crisis-response plan was developed by members of the council’s finance committee, which is composed of Kates and city council members Sherry Fortenberry and Tamira Smith. Ritchie joined Kates and Smith in a recent visit to the State Legislative Auditor’s Office in Baton Rogue to meet with representatives and discuss the plan.

Fortenberry said Tuesday that she was called the night prior to that meeting in Baton Rouge, and it was the first she had heard of the planned meeting. She was unable to attend on such short notice, and Ritchie took her place.

“The way I see it, the meeting was already set, the time was set, the alternate was picked to go, without me being asked if I wanted to go,” Fortenberry said Tuesday. “I am part of that finance committee; Doug Ritchie is not.”

In other business, the council:

• Passed a resolution of support for the local Museums of Cassidy Park.
• Passed a resolution to support preparation and submittal of an application for funding through the Local Government Assistance Program.
• Passed a resolution to support preparation and submittal of an application for funding through the Division of Administration Community Water Enrichment Fund.
• Passed a resolution of conditional support for removing the Dam on the Pearl River at Poole’s Bluff and the Dam in the Bogue Chitto River south of Lock No 3.
• Adopted an ordinance authorizing the Mayor to enter into a contract by and between the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections and the city of Bogalusa. The ordinance passed by a vote of 5-1. Ritchie, Kates, Smith, Fortenberry and Teddy Drummond voted in favor. Scott Ard voted against the ordinance, saying that he would prefer that the labor be done by city workers to provide more jobs to local citizens. Brian McCree was absent from the meeting.

Tuesday’s meeting was approximately two-and-a-half hours long. The next meeting of the Bogalusa City Council will be held Tuesday, Sept. 4, at 5:30 p.m.