The recently appointed charter commission will consider an amendment to the Lafayette City-Parish Charter today that would give the council, working in concert with the Lafayette Parish School Board, more time to reapportion council/board districts following the receipt of U.S. Census figures for Lafayette Parish.
Currently, the charter instructs the elected bodies to reapportion districts six months before an election. However, charter chairman Jay Castille says he doesn’t expect to receive the census figures until March of 2011 — since months before the City-Parish Council election in October — which would leave little or no time to redraw the districts. (The school board will not be affected; their election is this fall.)
Any redistricting plan must be approved by the U.S. Department of Justice and any changes to the City-Parish Charter must be approved by parish voters; Castille hopes to have any charter amendments on a ballot this November. Based on the six-month requirement for reapportionment, the only other option would be to seek a postponement in the election. “I don’t want the Department of Justice to be looking at us asking for an extension in the election ...” Castile says. “When you do things like that they’re kind of funny about it, so that’s one thing I don’t want to happen.”
Castille says he expects the reapportionment process to take a couple of months, in which case the redrawing of the districts would be complete by late spring/early summer.
The charter commission meets at 2 p.m. in the City-Parish Council auditorium. The meeting is open to the public.
... written by NORTHSIDIAN SHOTGUN , February 02, 2010 - 06:49 pm
JAY CASTILLE AND THE GANG ARE SCURRYING AROUND LIKE LIL, GIRARD PARK SQUIRRELS, FILLING THE COFFERS PRE-DECONSOLIDATION, YA CAN RUN, BUT YA CAN'T HIDE !
You must be logged in to post a comment. Log in using your Facebook account or register if you do not have an account yet.
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.
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.
Subscribe to this comment's feed