The word of cancellation of the 2016 Newcomers Club Parade started about three weeks before the annual parade was supposed to take place. As its police Chief Calder Hebert’s duty to protect the people of St. Martinville, he requested the expert opinion of Director of Public Safety at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Joey Sturm, on how to best protect the people along the parade route.

The Newcomers eventually filed a lawsuit against the city and the sheriff’s office for violating their first amendment right to assemble. District Judge, Rebecca Doherty, ruled that certain ordinances under parade permits were unconstitutional; which led to a bittersweet victory for the Newcomers.

“We won that however, lost the parade in our flight for the parade” said club president, Janise Anthony.

Judge Doherty ordered St. Martinville city officials to amend the current ordinance for parade permits, and Mayor Thomas Nelson assured us that city attorney, Allan Durand would have a revised version this week, which was the purpose of Thursday’s special meeting.

As both attorneys worked tirelessly together over the past couple weeks, they were able to produce a revision ordinance.

Newcomers attorney, Shone Pierre says,

“We did our best effort to come together with a working document for the council to consider and we both encouraged them to them to apply these ordinances fairly.”

An extended amount of time was spent during the special meeting in reference to anyone hosting parade would all be required to meet the same criteria.

“I don’t want to have any situations in the future where anybody has any cause to complain that they were treated differently than another organization was” city attorney, Allan Durand tells KLFY’s Dalfred Jones

Anthony added, “We’re hoping in 2017 Will bring about a bigger, better parade with all parties collaborating to make sure the event goes on.”