During my leadership class, we looked at cities thought of as well managed, like Portland, Ore., Austin, Texas, and others that have used smart growth or some variation of strategic planning to improve their residents' quality of life. Despite all of the positive aspects of the developments in those cities, at the end of the day, the means of achieving those conditions (like Lincoln's aggressive zoning and development laws) were dismissed as liberal ideas and therefore "not gonna happen" in Lafayette. In City-Parish President Joey Durel's words, parish-wide zoning is "â?¦ probably not even worth talking about." Therein lays the problem.
Dr. Kam Movassaghi said, "It takes leadership," and I agree with that, but not in the form of deciding to pay more taxes to improve our roads. I think it takes leadership to open your mind and use proven methods to solve public problems. If a private entity is denied a permit for a development because it would create additional demand where the infrastructure is already insufficient, wouldn't that be in the public's best interest? I realize private demand is often ahead of public investment in infrastructure. In such cases, there should be conditional approval to allow new developments but require private funding of infrastructure improvements as part of the new developments. Otherwise, it takes the political will to insist that new developments are made where the infrastructure exists to support it.
We have a consolidated government, with departments of traffic and transportation, public works, planning, zoning and codes, and they are all vital functions of government. Parish-wide zoning, a comprehensive land use plan or some type of master plan for "smart growth" is definitely worth talking about if infrastructure is considered a factor in our quality of life in Lafayette. We need to employ our public resources in ways that serve the public's best interest. Sometimes that may mean you have to say no to somebody's big money deal, or we can just learn to live with growing pains.
JUNE 19 Former Saint Steve Gleason, who is paralyzed by ALS, released a statement Tuesday in response to the Atlanta radio station's skit making fun of him and the disease, this Picayune post reports. What did he say? He said he'd accepted the apology of the DJs who did it, notes that at least the incident has got people talking about ALS, and asks anyone who is burning to take action about it to do so -- by helping him fight ALS.
JUNE 19 Blogger Ian McGibboney takes a look at the Gleason incident in this post. He makes a good argument about the difference between having free speech and being free from consequences for your speech (which none of us is). He also admits that many of us got upset before we listened to the skit -- but lets us know that the reality is far worse than we can imagine. It was the incredibly bad judgment, even more than the actual speech, that probably got those DJs fired, he opines.
JUNE 19 Washington Post blogger Aaron Blake writes about Sen. Guillory's switch to the GOP in this post. He writes what most political watchers in Louisiana know: Guillory was a Republican before he decided to run for the senate seat in a mostly-D St. Landry district, and has switched back now that he plans to run for Lt. Gov. in a mostly-R state. But how come Blake missed Guillory's appearance on a TLC pageant show? Now that is a video we'd like to see. (Again).
JUNE 19 Here's another Washington Post blog post about a Louisiana politician, and it's just plain scathing. Ezra Klein says Jindal's Politico post was "insulting" to the intelligence of voters, and adds that Jindal is personifying the "stupid" he's railed against, by being an "elite" who convinces GOP activists of "things that aren't true." Me-ow.
JUNE 19 Here's Gov. Jindal's post in Politico, in which he asks the GOP to get over losing to Obama (again) and stop "the bedwetting." (Uh, what?) He gives his Republican buddies what is probably a nerd's idea of a coach's motivational talk, which starts with a list of accomplishments that they can't seem to exploit and ending with an absurd description of liberals that sounds like a character treatment for a Fox "News" movie scripted by Gordon Liddy. Sure, he's preaching to the choir, but even the choir's not this gullible.
JUNE 19 Lamar Parmentel read Gov. Jindal's post on Politico, but thinks it was so dumb it probably was published in the wrong paper. This post by Lamar on the Daily Kingfish opines that possibly Jindal's post was destined for the Onion -- because the governor couldn't possibly be serious here. If you listen closely, you can hear the staff of the Kingfish giggling.
JUNE 19 Blogger Robert Mann posts from Turkey, a country he has visited several times in the past few years. Mann gives an interesting overview of the current political and societal climate of the country, which -- if you're living under a rock and don't know -- is experiencing protests and turmoil these days. Mann promises to post as much as he can during his trip, which should be fascinating reading.
JUNE 19 Blogger CB Forgotston says the legislature is keeping the vicious cycle going with its funding of new buildings for the community college/technical college system. Universities across the state need maintenance and improvement on existing buildings, and the solution is to build new buildings at other schools? By the time the bonds are paid off, those buildings will be falling down, too, CB says.
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