It's that time of year. You know it's Mardi Gras in Lafayette when the roads are lined with portable steel bridge foot barricades — 5,500 of them to be exact. Today, Lafayette Consolidated Government's public works department begins barricading the downtown parade route in advance of Saturday night's Krewe of Rio parade. Tomorrow the barricades go up along Johnston Street and North College and will remain along the shoulder of the roads for two weeks until pick up begins Thursday, Feb. 18. In addition, the department places 129 portable toilets along the 3.9 mile route.
"We recognize that business and property owners along the parade route are put at an inconvenience during the Mardi Gras Festivities," City-Parish President Joey Durel states in a press release. "We appreciate their patience and understanding as well as the patience and understanding of those traveling along the parade route during set-up and pick-up of the barricades. The result is a wonderful family-friendly Mardi Gras for the people of Lafayette Parish that adds to the quality of life for our residents to enjoy and brings in tourists from all around the world who want to experience the safe Mardi Gras experience that we offer."
David Calhoun and Elizabeth “EB” Brooks are the first two employees of Lafayette Central Park Inc., the nonprofit charged with turning Lafayette Consolidated Government’s 100-acre Johnston Street Horse Farm property into a passive public park. Calhoun was named executive director, and Brooks is director of planning and design.
At Thursday's State of the Economy luncheon, LEDA President and CEO Gregg Gothreaux said PXP has already quietly hired 180 people for its Broussard expansion.
There will soon be a whole lot of shakin’ going on at Benny’s Sportshack Supplement Depot, a new concept by Opelousas native Benny Nele. Located at 2002 Johnston St., the supplement shop, smoothie bar and café, featuring hot off the press paninis and wraps, plans to open in late May.
This year’s Cool Town issue is all about people who are not native to South Louisiana but made a conscious decision to be here, to be among us, to participate in our culture and contribute to it.
A shelved ordinance transferring $200,000 from a northside drainage project to a south Lafayette development may not break any laws, but it stinks to high heaven.
An effort to restore a shuttered dancehall and document other vacant or razed honky-tonks could serve as a model for saving an endangered species of entertainment.
Lafayette’s gene pool has been host to a long line of eccentric characters who have blurred the lines between crazy, genius, disturbed and curiously entertaining.
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