By a slim margin Wednesday night, Iberia Parish Council members voted not to call two public hearings for April 18 and 25 to obtain public comments regarding the possible call of an election for the reinstatement of video-poker gaming.

The vote was 7-6, with Councilman Zeb Simon absent, in favor of the hearings. But according to the Home Rule Charter, at least eight votes — a majority of the full council — were needed for it to pass.

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Jerome Fitch, who offered the proposal, said money derived from video poker would have gone to road repair and maintenance. He said it was “hypocrisy” that Iberia Parish gleans money for employees’ pay from off-track betting parlors, for example, but not video poker, which voters here rejected by a slim 600-vote margin in 1996. Fitch cited St. Martin and St. Mary as two parishes that have the gaming. St. Martin uses anything in excess of $290,000 to pay for road repairs, but St. Martin President Guy Cormier said last week that while the parish gets about $3 million in revenues, the parish government only gets about a third of that.

Cormier said using only video-poker proceeds would not do much for roads.

Councilman Lloyd Brown said that the poker proceeds would not fix everything, but “it’ll help.”

“A piecemeal is better than no meal,” Council Naray Hulin said.

Councilman Curtis “Joe” Boudoin said the video poker approval should have been statewide anyway, not parish by parish.

Councilman Barry Verret said a good idea would be to use the Royalty Fund for roads, as intended.

Voting against the measure were Ray Fremin, Roger Duncan, Bernard Broussard, Larry Richard, Verret and George Gros.

“I’m really disappointed. Why not let residents meet on it?” Fitch said this morning.

“We could have probably gotten ideas from them not just for video poker, but for repairing roads. Nobody’s doing anything (for roads). I’m tired of waiting. They don’t get the phone calls I get concerning roads.”

Source: The Daily Iberian