Durel believes that factor may have permanently expanded the retail base, which should pay dividends for years to come, but he predicts smaller increases and a possible leveling off over the next few years as rebuilding abates. Expectations for sustaining this level of growth are unrealistic.
Even before the storms, however, sales in the parish had been climbing steadily ' albeit by much smaller margins ' since 2002. "The five-year trend has been entirely positive, with retail sales increasing from $3.6 billion in 2002 to $5.0 billion last year," says the Lafayette Economic Development Authority's Gregg Gothreaux. "Looking back even farther, in the last decade sales have steadily grown since totals reached $2.8 billion in 1996, with only two years seeing a decrease," he notes.
According to The Louisiana Economic Outlook: 2007 and 2008, the Lafayette area took in about 34,336 evacuees after the 2005 storms, and about 4 percent, or 8,960, have remained in the community. The publication's co-authors, economists Loren Scott and James Richardson, derived those figures from postal records.
Sales at mid-year 2006 were actually outpacing 2005 by 25 percent but began to taper off in the last few months ' the possible result of displaced people returning home or relocating elsewhere. December's sales, in fact, were down slightly, falling from $499 million in 2005 to $492 million last year.
Durel says retail sales increases since 2002 indicate Lafayette's economy was expanding before the hurricanes accelerated the pace. "People were moving into Lafayette before the storms, and the storms just exposed what Lafayette had to offer to a lot of people and brought a lot of positive attention to our area."
MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
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