BATON ROUGE - Metro Council members held a special meeting Tuesday night to educate voters on two measures that will be on the Nov. 5 ballot. Voters will check yes or no for one item on the ballot, which would change the structure of East Baton Rouge Parish government.

The one ballot item will include councilmembers setting their own salaries and if East Baton Rouge needs a city-parish manager, among others. 

Some attendees were not in favor of the Metro Council voting to set their own pay, which is lumped in with the other items. 

"Basically, you are forcing me to vote no. Because I'm against that one thing," one attendee said.

"All twelve council members put in at least 30 to 50 hours a week. You can go to our parking spaces in the garage and see us there all hours of the night," Dist. 12 Councilwoman Jenn Racca said.

Dist. 4 Councilmember Aaron Moak has been a supporter of creating a position for a city-parish manager, which would work under the mayor-president. 

"We're practically the largest municipality City-Parish right now and we're still operating under an older form of government. One of the big questions that came up was how does the mayor and the council work together? This is one of them that helps the City-Parish move forward," he said. 

"What this is proposing is you get a qualified manager to oversee the departments within the City-Parish," Dist. 3 Councilmember Rowdy Gaudet said.

The Metro-Council has four more meetings planned to discuss amendments on the ballot during October. The next meeting is Oct 15. at the Fairwood Branch Library.

These proposals will be listed as one item number on the Nov 5. ballot.