Petition filed calling for school board member to vacate her seat because she doesn’t live in district

CADDO PARISH, La. (KSLA) - The Caddo District Attorney’s Office has issued a petition for Barbara Smith-Iverson to vacate her school board seat. She currently represents District 7.

The filing says a plaintiff submitted information that Smith-Iverson has lived in an apartment off of Old Benton Road in Bossier City since June 8, 2021 under the name of Barbara Burrell. Her ex-husband is Ryan Burrell, who she married in 2001. Ryan Burrell listed 4119 Greenwood Rd. in Shreveport on his marriage license.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiff further contends that no one lives in that home anymore, which is the same home Smith-Iverson listed when she filed with Caddo Parish Clerk of Court to run for office on July 20, 2022.

The plaintiff further shows the property municipally known as 4119 Greenwood Rd. maintains and has maintained an I-1 zoning, which is a light industrial zoning district. I-1 zoning prohibited the use of the property for residential purposes long before the defendant qualified for office. According to the lawsuit, past uses of the office have been for a real estate office and a daycare.

On May 11, 2023, an investigator from the Property Standards Division of the City of Shreveport inspected the property and reported no one was living in the home and further, that the property was in a state of disrepair with a hole in the roof, boarded windows, and rotten wood.

Smith-Iverson was elected to the Caddo Parish School Board District 7 seat on Dec. 10, 2022.

A hearing on the petition to declare vacancy of office will be within 20 days of this petition, which was filed June 6.

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