In the wake of several proposed ordinances that have been met with skepticism from local residents, the New Iberia City Council discussed which ordinances they would be pursuing in the future at Tuesday’s meeting.

Mayor Freddie DeCourt introduced the discussion item after two ordinances from the city’s ordinance committee were brought forward and then stopped due to several council members having problems with the possible effects of each ordinance.

DeCourt said that the discussion was meant to clarify which ordinances the city should be working on, so that any possible problems could be hashed out before they were brought up to vote.

“I don’t want to start cooking until you place your order,” legal counsel Jeff Simon said.

The first ordinance up for discussion was a law that would require storage facilities to have a dumpster on-site. The ordinance had been discussed last month by the council but was stopped following several storage facility owners showing up to a meeting with several complaints about the proposal.

City Councilwoman Brooke Marcotte said she had talked to one of the owners at that meeting, and added that the main problem was one storage facility that had tenants who were using a townhouse dumpster across the street.

“I don’t know if it was only this one particular storage unit, do we punish everyone for this one person or can we find a way to fine them,” Marcotte asked.

Councilwoman Deidre Ledbetter, who is also head of the ordinance committee, said that although many people did show up in opposition to the ordinance there may have still been some legitimacy to the proposal.

“Every other business has to have some kind of dumpster or disposal, but you can have a storage facility with 90 or 100 units with no palace to put excess garbage, what are they doing with it,” Ledbetter asked.

Another ordinance talked about was a yard sale regulation ordinance that had also been discussed.

The ordinance was also previously discussed at another council meeting, with council members also complaining that the proposal would punish local residents for a few people in town that have year-round yard sales.

“This particular case would put a burden on everybody, to me that ordinance was going to put a burden on all citizens and I don’t think we had a big enough problem to affect everyone,” Councilwoman Deedy Johnson-Reid said.

Ledbetter again defended the proposal, saying it was the job of the council to regulate problems when they occur.

“This is part of our jobs, putting rules and regulations in place to help the community,” she said. “If you’re not doing anything wrong it’s not going to affect you.”

A new ordinance proposal discussed was one that would regulate noise in town. DeCourt said he has received several complaints of loud noise in various parts of town and the New Iberia Police Department currently does not have the tools to properly enforce noise complaints.

“We can’t do our job with what we have now,” DeCourt said. “People can’t sleep, we’ve even had a bed and breakfast close over it.”

Unlike the previous two ordinances, the council seemed largely supportive of the proposal, as well as the final proposal of an ordinance that would regulate non-food mobile businesses.

The mayor said he had gotten proposals from non-food businesses for mobile homes, and would start researching if the council gave him the go ahead.

The council largely agreed that the mayor should pursue the ordinance.

“If we regulate food trucks we should regulate all types,” Ledbetter said. “It should be across the board.”