By Cyndi Sellers

Cameron Parish voters rejected a constitutional amendment that would have allowed the Chenier Plain Coastal Restoration and Protection Authority to levy up five mills of property tax in its three-parish district, consisting of Cameron, Calcasieu, and Vermilion Parishes. Voters in those parishes and statewide also rejected the amendment.

The amendment would have allowed levee districts created after 2006, and therefore barred by a constitutional amendment from levying a tax, to raise up to a 5-mill property tax without voter approval. The amendment would have needed approval by a majority of voters in the district. The five districts without millages that would have been impacted by Amendment 3 are CPCRPA, Iberia Parish Levee Hurricane and Conservation District, Squirrel Run Levee and Drainage District (Iberia Parish), St. Tammany Levee, Drainage and Conservation District, and Tangipahoa Levee District.

Cameron Parish voters rejected the amendment by a vote of 57% against to 43% for. Calcasieu voted 55%-45% against, and Vermilion voted 61%-39% against. Statewide, the amendment was defeated by a margin of 58% to 42%. Levee districts would have been able to use the funds for “constructing and maintaining levees, levee drainage, flood protection and hurricane flood protection.”

Cameron Parish voters also rejected Amendments 1, statewide sales tax collection, and 4, budget changes, by 61% and 77% margins, and approved Amendment 2, the lowering of income tax rates, by a margin of 56% to 44%.

Statewide results were similar, with only Amendment 2 passing. Local voter turnout was 10.4%; statewide turnout was 13.5 %.