One month after being shot down by the Lafayette Public Utilities Authority, Lafayette Utilities System is once again going back to the LPUA and city-parish council to ask for permission for a rate increase. Lafayette City-Parish President Joey Durel announced Thursday that the LUS rate ordinance will be resubmitted for formal introduction at upcoming meetings on Jan. 19. The announcement came during a media tour of LUS' facilities.
“The longer we delay on these upgrades, the costlier the upgrades will become,” LUS Director Terry Huval states in a press release. “We have already had to make major cuts in our expenditures due to the failure to get these new revenues authorized last year, so it is critical that we get the necessary funding now before the quality of services begins to suffer.”
As with the previous rate ordinance, which was first introduced in September 2009 and eventually failed before the LPUA in December 2009, LUS is proposing a two-year increase on its electric, water and wastewater systems. LUS says the rate adjustments are needed for critical upgrades and improvements to the utility system and to cover the rising costs to provide electric, water and sewer services. The impact is expected to raise utility bills approximately 7 percent, but LUS says that lower fuel costs expected throughout 2010 mean that customers likely won't see any significant impact to their utility bills until 2011, when the economy is expected to be in better shape.
“The residents and businesses of Lafayette count on reliable LUS services to conduct their businesses and their lives," said Durel. "Without passage of this rate ordinance, utility service interruptions will increase in the future. The time to deal with this issue pro-actively is now."
In rendering his ruling, District Judge John Trahan all but called the real estate developer a liar for inconsistencies in his accounts of what prompted him to punch a school teacher unconscious.
Frank’s Casing Crew, now doing business as Frank’s International, will make its final appearance on ABiz’s list of the Top 50 Privately Held Companies in Acadiana this year, and once again it will likely be at the top with more than $1 billion in annual revenues. The 75-year-old company specializing in tubular fabrication and installation services to the oil and gas industry plans to offer shares of its stock to the public for the first time.
The defeat, or rather highjacking of House Bill 420 in the final days of this year's Legislative Session, say Reps. Vincent Pierre and Terry Landry, is the result of the propaganda spread by one unidentified local media outlet and an unnamed former state Representative, but nothing to do with the original legislation's lack of checks, balances or details.
City-Parish Council Chairman Brandon Shelvin heaped steady doses of condescending ire on a Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Louisiana executive while failing to reveal his financial ties to a BC/BS rival.
Abbeville native David Primeaux was a popular professor until his death late last year, and while he was successful at camouflaging a dark past, he couldn’t outlive it.
Tehmi Chassion’s failure to recuse himself in the school board’s selection of a group health benefits provider raises ‘serious questions’ on whether he violated state ethics law.
He’s a singer. A songwriter. A piano man. A family man. He’s even got his own Wikipedia entry. He’s David Egan. And he knows ancient secrets about the monolithic stones of Stonehenge that he’s not willing to share.
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