Word has been spreading rapidly through the state arts community: Gov. Bobby Jindal plans to veto the financial sources for Decentralized Arts Funding, tourism promotion and other cultural endeavors. That's according to a dire letter mailed this week to arts councils, arts presenters and others by the office of Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu. If Jindal does veto the funding sources, it would amount to an 85 percent cut to DAF, which brings it in line with the executive budget he submitted at the start of the session.
But the arts community statewide isn’t taking the veto threat lying down. Within hours of the letter from the lieutenant governor’s office, two Facebook pages — Louisiana for Arts Funding and Save Louisiana Arts — were set up to encourage residents who support the arts to make their voices heard. The former site also links to a download for a Louisiana Partnership for the Arts brochure detailing the contribution — $10 billion and 144,000 jobs — Louisiana’s cultural economy contributes to the state annually.
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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