From left, Aldermen Clarence Clark, Charlene Moore and Bourgeois listen during the Jeanerette Board of Aldermen meeting. 

JEANERETTE — The “city of Jeanerette” is now the “town of Jeanerette,” based on census information, Mayor Carol Bourgeois Jr. said at Monday’s meeting of the Board of Aldermen.

Bourgeois said that the 2020 census was only recently received due to a delay in compiling information as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the population statistics fell below the number that would categorize the community as a city.

“A city is determined with the population count of 5,000 people or more,” Bourgeois said. “Anything below that has a designation of a town.”

However, the Jeanerette count just barely missed the needed count. The final tally of the census information showed that Jeanerette had a total of 4,813, less than 200 short of the number needed to maintain its categorization as a city.

After speaking to people in the congressional delegation and others familiar with the process, Bourgeois said there may be an appeals process Jeanerette government can use to change the designation.

The mayor said it could be likely that Jeanerette has more than 5,000 residents, but many did not sign on the census due to COVID-19 or other reasons.

“I don’t want to paint the picture as bad as it may be,” Bourgeois said. “We probably have more than 5,000 and we may be losing population, but we have some people moving in as well.”

The census also revealed information about individual districts in Jeanerette. Municipal districts are required to have equitable population statistics within a 5 percent variance, and Bourgeois said the new census numbers showed that some districts were slightly outside of that variance.

The new population count showed that District 1 had 1,269 people, District 2 had 1,190, District 3 had 1,164 and District 4 had 1,190.

“If there’s a 5 percent variance you might have to look at adjusting some of the lines so that there’s equal distribution of the population count for all four districts,” Bourgeois said. “Each district is equal and should represent approximately the same number of people.”

However, the mayor added that there may be alternatives that keep the district lines the same, according to the demographer.

“We have the option to review the current districts and reevaluate or explore different configurations,” Bourgeois said. “We’ll have to discuss that.”

After Alderman Clarence Clark asked how long it takes before the town designation to set in, Bourgeois said he will be meeting with demographer Mike Hefner later this week.

“I will ask my fellow members of the council for us to discuss this more and look at what we think we may want to do,” he said.