VIDALIA — Concordia Parish needs half as many police jurors, the jury’s recently retired secretary-treasurer said.

Kevin Friloux made the suggestion during Monday’s jury meeting, proposing the nine-member jury restructure into a five-member board with one representative for each district, which he claimed would save the parish approximately $100,000 per year.

The current setup of having three districts with multiple representatives and the rest with only one, Friloux said, gives some voters more power than others.

“This simply means the voting strength of a voter in the (districts with only one representative), including me, is diminished by 50 percent,” Friloux said. “This is totally unfair and I believe is a violation of the one man, one vote principle in the constitution.”

Friloux said considering the parish’s estimated population of 20,000, now would be an opportune time to redistrict.

If, Friloux said, the board found the five-member format to be unattainable, he suggested that the jury alternatively seek a seven-member format, again where each district has one representative.

“This would have each juror represent about 2,900 people and save the jury $50,000 per year,” Friloux said.

Bolstering his argument, Friloux, who retired from his secretary-treasurer position a few months ago, said that to his knowledge, Concordia Parish is the only parish in Louisiana that has multiple representatives for certain districts, and he saw “little reason to believe that Concordia Parish needs a greater number than five representatives on its governing body.”

In response, District 1A Juror Carey Cook said the jury should turn the matter over to its consultant, Oliver Schultz, to see if the redistricting would even be feasible.

Cook explained that the parish was last set up to have three minority districts, and he said Schultz would need to determine whether what Friloux suggested would be possible.

Friloux said he hoped the jury would refer the matter to the policy committee or form a special committee to further consider the issue.