Bossier Parish Police Jury – Now and Then
In Bossier Parish, the highest local authority is the Bossier Parish Police Jury (BPPJ), administrating the parish from the Parish Courthouse in Benton. For many people, local government has become something abstract and nebulous, lost in the sea of attention paid towards national affairs. However, local governments, like the BPPJ, will affect you more in your day-to-day life than anything on the national scale. In Louisiana, Police Juries hold similar authority to County Commissions in other states. Originally founded via a state legislative act in 1811, the powers of police juries were expanded to function as proper legislative-executive bodies after the granting of statehood to Louisiana. Parishes were divided into wards, with each ward electing a juror to that parish’s police jury as their local representative. Functionally, police juries are granted broad local powers by the Louisiana state constitution. Some of these powers include the levying of taxes and enacting/enforcing local ordinances and regulations. When it comes time to elect police jurors, the elections are held during odd years under an open primary system, ensuring that police jury races are not lost in the excitement surrounding larger national elections. Police juries elect a president and vice-president from amongst themselves, tasked with leading the body.
The current twelve members of the BPPJ are President Glenn Benton, Vice-President Tom Salzer, Lynn Beaty, Phillip Rodgers, John Ed Jordon, Julianna Parks, Chris Marsiglia, Jimmy Cochran, Doug Rimmer, Pam Glorioso, Julian Darby, and Keith Sutton. The BPPJ is also joined by an administrative staff that works with the Police Jury to see to the implementation of the body’s agenda, advising the police jury as needed. The BPPJ administrative division is made up of the Parish Administrator, who is tasked with running the day-to-day organization of the Police Jury, the Parish Secretary, tasked with record keeping for the Police Jury and assisting with the agenda in a variety of ways, and the Parish Treasurer, who is tasked with managing the budget and assets of the BPPJ. There are a further twelve divisions under the BPPJ umbrella, all of which exist to ensure that the Parish government can serve the public. While some parishes, such as Caddo Parish, have moved away from the police jury system, Bossier Parish has maintained the BPPJ as its legislative-executive body.
The Bossier Parish Police Jury began with the parish in 1843. When the jurors first met on June 19, 1843, they did so in a small cabin located at what is today the Bayou Bodcau Reservoir, the Long/Durden house. While there is some confusion as to who was the first BPPJ president, the names of the jurors are known: William Crowley, William Burns, Isaac Lay, B. J. Williams, Joseph Graham, John C. Scott, Andrew J. Lampton, and J. A. W. Lowey. According to Parish Historian Clif Cardin’s 1993 book, “Bossier Parish History The first 150 years, 1843-1993,” William Crowley was the first police jury President. However, according to “History of Shreveport and Shreveport Builders, Volume Two,” which contains a section specifically about Bossier Parish, it was William Burns who first presided over the Jury. The eagle-eyed among you will notice there are only eight jurors, compared to the twelve of today. When the parish was initially founded, the population was obviously much lower than it is today, and as the parish grew, so too did the need for more members. Regardless, it was there at that little cabin that these first jurors would select the new parish seat of ‘Freedonia’, which would later become known as Bellevue. The initial courthouse, not the cabin where the police jury first met, was built sometime before 1845 as a wood structure, before being replaced with a brick courthouse in 1853. The parish would remain there until the late 1880s, when the vote was held to move the parish seat to the current home in Benton.
Today, located on Highway 157 in Bellevue, there is a historical marker commemorating the first Bossier Parish Police Jury meeting and the then town of Freedonia. While the seat and building may have changed, the Bossier Parish Police Jury has led Bossier Parish for over 182 years, here’s to 182 more.
If you have any photos or other information relating to the history of Bossier City or Bossier Parish, the History Center may be interested in adding the materials to its research collection by donation or by scanning them and returning the originals. Call or visit us to learn more. We are open M-Th 9-8, Fri 9-6, and Sat 9-5. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org. We can also be found online at https://www.facebook.com/BPLHistoryCenter/ and http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/
Image: Only known full photo of 2nd Bellevue Courthouse (BPL-HC Record 0000.004.114)
Article by: Jonah Daigle