The one big question that Jordan forgot to ask and answer is, "Do the property owners that live on the street that is now named Martin Luther King Street want the name of their street changed to another name?" You can not have two MLK streets in Lafayette. It would be a nightmare for mail service, 911 calls, etc. If 51 percent of these property owners on the current MLK Street do not want to change the name of their street, the issue of changing the name from Willow Street to MLK is done with, over with, end of story.
I don't think Williams would have agreed to any compromise Durel would have come up with because Williams is like Burger King; he wants it "his way," and the word compromise is not in William's dictionary. Williams should quit wasting his time and energy writing on desks and making inflammatory statements. He should get a group of volunteers together to contact the property owners on MLK and see if 51 percent agree to change the name of their street. If they don't, then Williams needs to move on and do something good, useful and productive for Lafayette, instead of acting like a big bully and cry baby.
Williams has a doctorate; he should be able to do the math and see that his district got more money for roads than any other district. The facts don't lie. His actions are an embarrassment to Lafayette and the work of so many who are trying to improve the city to attract industry for new jobs that will benefit all of Lafayette's citizens. If you were an out-of-state businessman who came to Lafayette looking to expand your business, then you read the local papers and saw William's childish behavior and his name-calling when he doesn't get his way, what would you do? You would pack up your bags and get on the first flight out of Lafayette forever.
Chris Williams's attitude is a liability for Lafayette, not an asset.
MAY 21 Gambit columnist Clancy DuBos writes about the Mother's Day shooting, and how the stages of shock and blame and healing mirror those traveled by the same city following Hurricane Katrina. The city will recover, just as it did following the storm, by reaching out to help the people injured most seriously by the event, DuBos writes. It's how we heal, he says.
MAY 21 Here's a post on the Advocate (but buried on a subpage, not on the front) that reports something Louisiana Voice reported some time ago: a top DOE official lives in Los Angeles and "commutes" to Baton Rouge. The positioning of the story caused a stir on Facebook Monday, with several posters asking if the Advocate was covering someone's hiney. Sentell's stories on DOE are notoriously soft, and this one is no different: don't expect any hard questions in here.
MAY 21 Here's another post from blogger Tom Aswell about the "course choice" program. He's already reported on kids being signed up without their consent or knowledge, and has more here: For example, he tells of a six-year-old who was signed up for high school Latin. He also digs a little deeper into the sister companies of the main one operating in Louisiana; all of them seem to have complaints against them. Stinky.
MAY 21 Given the 80 percent cut in higher ed funding since he's been in office, it's clear Gov. Jindal would rather give tax cuts to out of state companies than have a functioning system, blogger Dayne Sherman argues in this post. The cuts have been such a disaster, Sherman says, that it will take 30 years to fix what's been broken. He says he believes the aim is to shut down most of the schools before Jindal leaves in 2016.
MAY 21 Blogger CB Forgotston says there are too many elections in Louisiana, and they're costing us too much money. The proof is in the pudding: turnout for most of these nonsensical pollings gets worse and worse, CB opines, even as millions of dollars that could be spent on health care or higher ed go down the tubes. The legislature must take action to stem the tide of pointless elections, he says.
MAY 21 Here's an interesting investigative piece by WVUE on the retirement benefits of some Jefferson Parish public employees. According to the story, the taxpayers are paying 100 percent of the retirement contributions of employees who started work prior to a certain date in April 1986 -- and have done for more than 30 years. It costs the parish millions annually, and might not be legal, the story reports.
MAY 21 This post on Bayou Buzz provides insight from Louisiana's intrepid pollster, Bernie Pinsonat, on the winners and losers from this year's legislative session. But to hear Bernie tell it, there's almost nuttin but losers: Jindal, the Republican party, the Fiscal Hawks all get big goose eggs in his win column.
MAY 20 This post on The Lens takes a look at a huge (either $500K or $250K) bill that one NOLA charter now has for school lunches. The RSD says the charter group didn't fill out the proper paperwork for federal reimbursement, but the story details how the RSD didn't ensure the people running the charter had the proper training, despite requests from hapless charter employees trying to fill out forms. Either way, somebody's asleep at the wheel.
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