If there’s anything we understand, it’s the importance of a good deadline — and the importance of meeting it.

Without an entire series of detailed deadlines the newspaper simply wouldn’t show up on your doorstep every morning.

So it’s difficult to understand why police jury candidates won’t be on the November ballot in Concordia Parish.

The jury has known for 10 years that they would have to redistrict this year, following the release of Census numbers.

Jurors said all summer long that a plan needed to be finalized quickly, in order to get U.S. Department of Justice approval by the deadline.

The group met and discussed the plan more than three times, each time leaving without casting a vote.

Yet, they still missed the deadline.

The DOJ has yet to grant approval and the qualification deadline for November elections has passed.

Current jurors will serve longer than four years and a special election will be necessary.

Extra costs to the taxpayers will come with that election.

It’s just plain silly.

In the end, the redistricting plan passed with an 8-1 vote. The one dissenter — Willie Dunbar — had been the chief source of delay all summer. Jurors worked hard to meet his needs, but in the end he still voted against the plan.

But one vote on a board of nine means nothing.

We hope next time the jurors will call for a vote sooner, saving the parish time and money and meeting life’s deadlines.