Yesterday Shreveport mayor Adrian Perkins announced at a 2 p.m. press conference that provisional Shreveport police chief
Ben Raymond was his choice to become permanent chief.
At the city council work session that followed at 3 p.m. Perkins asked the council to confirm Raymond at today’s council meeting.
Council Willie Bradford stated he had questions for Raymond that he wanted to address in private before any votes.
Under council rules, confirmation today requires 2 separate council votes. Both must be unanimous.
The first is to amend the council agenda to allow a confirmation resolution to be added to the agenda.
The second is to suspend the rules to allow for a vote on the resolution at the same meeting.
Council rules require that resolutions must be placed on the agenda by noon on the Friday before the Monday work session, They also require that a nomination resolution must be read at one meeting and not voted upon until the second council meeting.
If both resolutions are not passed today, then the council will have at least one if not two special sessions. The mayor, the council chair , or 4 council members may call such a meeting.
The special session will be to place on the agenda the Raymond nomination. At that meeting, a resolution to suspend the rules can be approved to allow Raymond’s confirmation.
In the alternative a second special meeting will be called for that purpose.
There is NO doubt that Raymond will be approved as the permanent chief. The only question is on what day. By state law this vote must be taken by Monday.
Raymond, Perkins and Bradford are expected to meet today before the 3 pm council meeting. Hopefully, Bradford’s concerns will be resolved and all the needed votes will be done at today’s council meeting.